U.S. to Speed Disposal of Russian Arms

The Bush administration will speed up its work helping Russia dispose of chemical weapons, one of the top recommendations of a nearly yearlong review of U.S.-Russian weapons destruction programs, the White House said Thursday.

The decision reflects an initiative that President Bush outlined two weeks ago in a speech at the Citadel military college in South Carolina, in which he called for modernizing the U.S. military and giving Russia a central role in keeping weapons of mass destruction out of terrorists’ hands.

The increase in cooperation stems from an examination of the effectiveness of U.S.-Russian nonproliferation projects at a time of increased fears that nuclear material and chemical weapons can be smuggled across borders. The study, launched by the Pentagon, State Department and Energy Department shortly after Bush took office, was designed to examine the cost of joint efforts and to determine whether they are working.

In a statement, the White House said that most of the programs are well-managed. Bush, who is on vacation at his ranch here in central Texas, had no comment on the report.

In addition to the chemical weapons initiative, the report recommended expanding an Energy Department project to help Russia secure its weapons-grade nuclear material, as well as a program to make the details of Russia’s warhead stockpile more visible and one to provide peaceful scientific opportunities for scientists who have worked on biological weapons.

The chemical weapons destruction program is based in the Russian city of Shchuchye, the White House said.

Bush said at the Citadel that he would seek increased spending for the programs in his next budget. White House officials were unable to say how much more will be sought when Bush presents his budget for fiscal year 2003 in February. The programs operated with a budget of $750 million in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

Within the administration, the new efforts are seen as important steps toward increasing cooperation between the United States and Russia, which recognize the need to maintain strict control of chemical and nuclear weapons during a period of heightened awareness of the risk posed by terrorism.

“We must keep the world’s most dangerous technologies out of the hands of the world’s most dangerous people,” Bush said at the Citadel.

He also noted then that the two countries will try to create jobs for scientists who had worked on weapons projects in the former Soviet Union and will work on building a facility to destroy tons of chemical weapons--an effort he called a “vital mission.”

The review looked at more than 30 programs, with the goal of making sure that the joint nonproliferation projects focus on reducing threats and weapons and of determining whether new initiatives are needed.

Suggesting a vote of confidence that wasn’t as clear a year ago, the White House said in a statement that the examination “found that most U.S. programs to assist Russia in threat reduction and nonproliferation work well, are focused on priority tasks and are well-managed.”

Among the shifts under consideration as a result of the study is whether the program helping Russia dispose of plutonium can be run at less cost while adhering to the administration’s commitment to helping Russia get rid of excess amounts of the radioactive substance.

The Bush administration is the third U.S. administration faced with the nuclear weapons legacy of the Soviet Union, which had 30,000 nuclear warheads when it dissolved a decade ago.

Hundreds of warhead delivery systems--land-based missiles, missile launchers and bombers, and submarine-launched missiles--have been destroyed, and the United States and Russia are now talking about reducing their warhead stockpile to no more than 2,200 from the current arsenal of about 6,000 each.

In other White House action announced Thursday, Deputy Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Bush had signed a proclamation giving China permanent status as a normal trading partner of the United States.

The proclamation will take effect Jan. 1. It is the final step in normalizing the United States’ trade relations with China, making formal a course already established by Bush. It was authorized by Congress, at Bush’s urging, and was part of the package of measures that paved the way for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

“It marks the completion of more than a decade of bilateral and multilateral negotiations, and the beginning of a process of working constructively with China to help it fully implement its commitments on trade liberalization,” McClellan said.