A Small Step in the Right Direction

 
Last month's removal of weapons-grade uranium from a decrepit nuclear reactor near Belgrade had all the makings of a shadowy military operation - 1,200 heavily armed troops in gas masks, black military helicopters and decoy trucks to ward off potential interlopers. But the spirit underlying the mission was anything but clandestine - the extraction was a culmination of a year-long process of multilateral cooperation among Serbian, Russian and American officials.

Members of the Bush administration hailed the removal as a new step toward closer cooperation between Russia and America, and one of the most important steps in recent times to prevent nuclear proliferation. Calling it "unprecedented" and "ground-breaking," government officials expressed hope that this was the first in a series of future cooperative operations to remove vulnerable stockpiles. A U.S. State Department press release said the extraction "demonstrates the kind of work that could be done under an international partnership to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction." State Department officials revealed that there are up to two dozen research reactors in 16 countries that are currently being considered for similar operations in the future.

Yet despite the flurry of praises, several legislators also expressed concern at the number of bureaucratic obstacles that stood in the way of the operation. State Department officials were forced to seek outside funding (from the non-profit Nuclear Threat Initiative) because of a congressional directive that strictly limits how nonproliferation money can be used. Last year, the Bush administration proposed a $100 million cut in the nuclear nonproliferation budget, but Congress rejected the proposal and added an additional $226 million to the budget after Sept. 11. The United States plans to spend nearly $1.2 billion dollars on nuclear nonproliferation; of those, only $3.1 million is available for safeguarding research reactors and other civilian nuclear sites.

"Project Vinca," according to official estimates, will cost the U.S. government between $2 million and $3 million. The State Department's Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund contributed about $2 million, while the Department of Energy provided technical expertise and costs associated with "blending down" the materials. The deal could not have proceeded, however, without funds to address the radioactive hazards at Vinca Nuclear Institute. The U.S. government currently lacks the authority to fund this crucial element of the project, whose costs amounted to $5 million and were supplied by the Nuclear Threat Initiative foundation. This money will go toward restoring the environment on the institute's grounds and providing jobs for its nuclear scientists.

Sam Nunn, the former Georgia senator who helped secure Yugoslavia's approval of the project, called the restrictions "totally unproductive." But money shortage is not the only obstacle standing in the way of streamlining these operations - intra-agency negotiations and a lack of clear procedures also delayed the mission. As Andrew Fisher, spokesman for Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., pointed out, "Next time you may not have a year."

Harvard's School of Government's Matthew Bunn suggests creating a centralized office devoted to coordinating such missions in the future. Such an office would improve efficiency by eliminating duplication and overlap among the many programs currently at work on securing nuclear materials, intercepting nuclear smugglers and removing vulnerable stockpiles. The office could be put in charge of a "global cleanout" program that will either extract or safeguard nuclear materials from reactors around the world. Bunn regards such an effort as both feasible and cost-effective: "A program funded at perhaps $50 million per year would have the potential to eliminate essentially all of the most serious threats," he wrote.

Operation Vinca is a step in the right direction, but it is only a beginning. Governments around the world have been recording attempts by terrorist groups and rogue regimes to illegally acquire nuclear materials, specifically enriched uranium and plutonium. Nuclear research centers contain precisely the sort of supplies needed to create a dirty bomb, while some offer little in the way of protecting these supplies. A May 2001 report by Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom stated that some of these reactors are guarded by "a single sleepy watchman and a chain link fence."

Under these conditions, civilian nuclear reactors are ideal targets for terrorists. The U.S. government has shown willingness to work with other governments to prevent potential catastrophe, but the kinks in its procedures must be ironed out to help this process along.

"The [Vinca] mission further underscores the need for a plan to secure the materials that could fall into the wrong hands," said Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., a co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate this year to expand U.S. nonproliferation programs abroad. "We know Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein have both attempted to get their hands on nuclear material. We must do everything possible to see that does not happen."

Plans are already underway to remove nuclear materials from reactors around Eastern Europe. The Harvard report named research reactors in Belarus and Ukraine as potential concerns, while the Energy Department has told Congress it hopes to extract weapons-grade uranium from a reactor in Romania. The United States is also collaborating with Uzbekistani officials to extract a highly enriched uranium stockpile from a research reactor there. The latter is considered especially at risk because Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, has been the site of several terrorist attacks linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Operation Vinca

Eight hundred and seventeen kilograms of uranium - enough to produce two nuclear weapons - were removed from Belgrade's Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences on Aug. 22 under the cover of night and escorted by Yugoslavian troops and helicopters to an international airport. It was then loaded onto a Russian plane and flown to the city of Dimitrovgrad for re-processing into commercial-grade uranium. The U.S. departments of State and Energy, Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom), and the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency supervised the extraction and provided technical expertise. The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private U.S. group financially backed by Ted Turner, took on most of the project's costs.

Even without any concrete threats, the "Project Vinca" planners took many precautions to prevent their nuclear cargo from being hijacked in transit. Three trucks, two of which were decoys, headed for Belgrade's international airport with armed convoys. Police sealed off nearly half the city for six hours and positioned snipers on rooftops along the road.

"We were vigilant and ready to cope with any potential assailant, including bin Laden himself," said one of the police officers guarding the 22-mile stretch to the airport.

Sources

"Safeguarding Nuclear Materials," The Japan Times, Sept. 4, 2002.

Joby Warrick, "Risky Stash of Uranium Secured; U.S., Russia Remove Weapons-Grade Nuclear Material From Yugoslavia." The Washington Post, Aug. 23, 2002, p. A1.

Moni Basu, "Nunn praises nuclear raid; U.S., Russia snatch uranium from old plant," The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Aug. 24, 2002, p. 3A.

"Project Vinca fact sheet," U.S. Department of State, M2 Presswire, Aug. 26, 2002.

Joby Warrick,"Legislators Want Action on Nukes; After Yugoslav Success, Control of Other Stockpiles Sought," The Washington Post, Aug. 24, 2002, p. A17.

Dusan Stojanovic, "Official Notes Serbian Nuke Hazard," The Associated Press Online, Aug. 23, 2002.

Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier, "Keeping Nukes Out of Terrorist Hands," The Boston Globe, Sept. 3, 2002, p. A15.

 

By Seva Gunitskiy CDI Research Assistant seva@cdi.org

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