Cut in funds for securing nuclear materials rejected
WASHINGTON -- In a rare disagreement over Pentagon spending priorities, the White House has overruled a proposal that would cut funding to secure the former Soviet Union's nuclear materials, according to budget documents and government officials.
To free up money for the Iraq war, the Pentagon recommended late last month that funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or CTR, be cut by $46 million next year, about a 10 percent reduction in the military's post-Cold War efforts to destroy excess Soviet weapons of mass destruction, lock up other deadly materials, and help find civilian work for weapons scientists.
But President Bush campaigned for reelection on a pledge to make the safeguarding vulnerable stockpiles around the world his highest national security priority. And officials said yesterday that the White House Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, has assured backers of the program that it will maintain the Pentagon's annual level of spending at about $400 million.
The proposed cut, approved by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz in a Dec. 23 memorandum, demonstrates the squeeze that the Iraq war has placed on Pentagon coffers.
It also points to a continuing lack of support inside the bureaucracy for projects designed to help the Russians and other former Soviet republics reduce their stocks of weapons sought by terrorist groups.
"It makes you wonder whether the Pentagon was watching the presidential debates," said William E. Hoehn III, Washington director of the Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, a nonprofit organization. "President Bush said nuclear terrorism is the number-one national security threat."
White House officials declined to comment on the proposed cuts yesterday, saying they do not publicly discuss internal budget deliberations until the full federal budget request is completed. But other officials said OMB already has told the Pentagon that the cut would not be tolerated.
"It has been rejected by the White House," said a senior government official who asked not to be named. "We have been assured by a number of people that it is not going to happen."
Still, Hoehn and others said the squabble between the White House and Defense Department underscores how the CTR program, which receives about $1 billion a year across the Defense, State, Energy, and other departments, remains a black sheep at the Pentagon, where some leaders have long been critical of international arms-control programs.
"There is a general skepticism among the neo-conservatives of the value of these programs," Hoehn said. "Their emphasis is much more on killing terrorists than keeping weapons from the hands of terrorists." Additionally, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz think Russia should take more responsibility for the problem.
The White House's rejection of the Pentagon cut "is a hopeful sign that the White House is taking charge and responsibility to ensure that nuclear weapons and materials do not get into the hands of terrorists," said Charles Curtis, president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit organization.
Bush was criticized by Democratic challenger Senator John F. Kerry last year for shortchanging programs to secure Russia's hundreds of tons of nuclear material, biological weapons, and chemical weapons stocks -- much of it stored in facilities that lack sufficient security safeguards.
Only 6 percent of Russia's estimated 600 tons of potentially vulnerable nuclear materials has been secured, leaving enough to make thousands of nuclear bombs. And Russian officials have reported that some facilities have been cased by suspected terrorist groups. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has said he received approval from a Saudi cleric to use nuclear weapons against the United States, and intelligence reports indicate that he has long sought to gain access to weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
According to the current schedule, the former Soviet Union's excess materials will not be secured or destroyed for 13 more years.
John Wolfsthal, deputy director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said Pentagon skepticism of the program is growing stronger amid ominous signs that President Vladimir Putin of Russia is tightening his grip on government institutions and undercutting democratic progress in the country. Wolfsthal noted that top policy makers at the Pentagon worry that the program may be helping "a potential enemy."
Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.
