January 19, 2005
The very first question Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar asked Secretary of State-nominee Condoleezza Rice was on his efforts to streamline and improve the Nunn-Lugar nonproliferation and disarmament programs: "Does the administration support this legislation?" Rice responded enthusiastically, "I really can think of nothing more important than being able to proceed with the safe dismantlement of the Soviet arsenal, with nuclear safeguards to make certain that nuclear weapons facilities and the like are well secured."
Rice also agreed to put accelerating the program on the agenda of the next Bush-Putin meeting, and endorsed the early passage of the Law of the Sea Treaty. We provide, below, a full excerpt of the Lugar-Rice exchange at this hearing, held January 18, 2005, and links to the full hearing transcript.
Excerpt from the Confirmation Hearing of Condoleeza Rice:
LUGAR: Last year, I introduced legislation intended to relieve the burdens placed on the Nunn-Lugar program by the Congress in the form of conditions, certifications, reporting requirements. These have occurred over many years and many were points well taken at the time as there was gross distrust of the Russians and, likewise, reason for progress sought through these restrictions. Nevertheless, they have inhibited substantially in some years the amount of work that could be done to actually work with the Russians in cooperative threat reduction, to take warheads off of missiles, to destroy the missiles, destroy the aircraft that might fly over our country, even on the Shchuchye project, to move toward a neutralization of the chemical weapons. So I simply ask -- the goal of my legislation is to provide President Bush with more flexibility and utilization of this program in achieving nonproliferation and dismantlement goals. Does the administration support this legislation?
RICE: Thank you, Senator Lugar. Yes, we do. And I want to start by saying thank you very much for the tremendous leadership that you have given and that earlier Senator Nunn gave to this. And I know that a number of senators on this committee and other committees have been stalwarts in this extremely important initiative.
I'm an old student of the Soviet Union and of the Soviet military, and I really can think of nothing more important than being able to proceed with the safe dismantlement of the Soviet arsenal, with nuclear safeguards to make certain that nuclear weapons facilities and the like are well secured, and then the blending down -- as we are doing -- of a number of hazardous, potentially lethal materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons as well as, of course, you mentioned Shchuchye and the chemical weapons. So this is an extremely important program. I want to be clear that we do pay attention, in our relationship, to the progress or lack thereof of democracy. We pay attention and push the Russians on questions of accounting fully for their chemical weapons stockpiles, for permitting an understanding of their biological weapons programs. But flexibility in being able to administer the program would be most welcome. And it is just an extremely important program that I think you know that we continue to push.
LUGAR: I appreciate that statement very much. And we will be working with you and the department, likewise continuing with the Department of Defense, and DITRA and the cooperative threat reduction groups who have been so helpful. The future of U.S.-Russian cooperation on nonproliferation and dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction as contingent also upon the continuation of the Nunn-Lugar umbrella agreement that undergirds all of our efforts in this area. To date, the Kremlin has not submitted the agreement reached in 1999 to the Duma for approval. What are your views on the prospects for the United States and Russia reaching agreement on such things as liability, tax-free status and the other issues that are covered by the umbrella agreement?
Rice Vows to Break Logjam
RICE: Senator Lugar, the president has raised with President Putin the issue of ratification in the Duma of the umbrella on a number of occasions, including most recently when they were at Sea Island. I'm sure that he will raise it when he sees President Putin in the next several weeks. And we are ourselves reviewing what we may want to do about the liability procedures here. It is extremely important that this work go forward. And to the degree that there are bureaucratic logjams that need to be broken, we've simply got to break them. The other possibility, which is that you leave materials unsecured and you don't take as full initiative as you can under these very important programs, is simply not acceptable. And so we are working to see how we can move this forward with the Russians. We had discussions just recently with the Russian defense minister when he was here about moving forward. So you can be assured that we're looking to break whatever bureaucratic logjams have emerged over this period of time.
LUGAR: I appreciate that response. And I'm hopeful that you will work with the president so that will be on the agenda of his meeting with President Putin. Because, clearly, President Putin is cognizant of all of these programs, but bureaucracy in Russia sometimes moves slowly, as it does in our country. To the extent that we can expedite this, this will be helpful. Because, as the president has pointed out, weapons of mass destruction or materials of mass destruction, improperly secured, are the basis for many of the terrorist threats, whether it be Al Qaida or the Russians' fear of the Chechens or whoever. It is there to be picked up and to be utilized without research and difficulty. So these are critical items that I see and I know that you see. Let me also mention that the G-8 meeting, the so-called 10-plus- 10-over-10 program, attempted to enlist our allies in matching the effort of about $1 billion a year that we are putting into these programs: Defense, State and Energy Departments. It's been difficult for them to do that because they do not have satisfactory umbrella agreements in most cases either. So while the president is visiting with President Putin in behalf of the bilateral, perhaps likewise he could mention our seven allies with the G-8 that we really badly need to enlist in this type of work.
RICE: I agree completely, Senator. In fact, the president has talked to President Putin about the difficulties that others are having extending money. I think one of the really great breakthroughs was when we came up with this Global Partnership Initiative, because it permitted to us multiply the resources that the United States was putting in by resources from Japan and Italy and Great Britain and other places. And it's important that those resources get spent. This is one part, an extremely important part, of a broad nuclear nonproliferation initiatives agenda that we are pursuing with our allies to try and deal with this very nettlesome, difficult problem.
LUGAR: And, of course, also, as the president visits with the German leadership and perhaps the French leadership and what have you, they are parties to this.
RICE: They are.
LUGAR: And are hopefully eager to be a part of it.
Support for Law of the Sea Treaty
RICE: In fact, I think the nonproliferation story is a quite remarkable story of cooperation among the major allies. We have outstanding cooperation with France and Germany and our other allies.
We have been working, for instance, in something called the Proliferation Security Initiative, which 60 countries are now party to and a number of others have expressed interest, to try to interdict -- consistent with international law to try and interdict suspicious shipments.
This has given us new means of intelligence cooperation, law enforcement cooperation, naval cooperation. And these are very important. We work best when we're putting the alliance to use and to work on difficult problems together.
LUGAR: And this is a great way to do so.
I would add in agreement, this is also important, the AMEC agreement. We have enlisted the support of Norway and friends who want to work in that area, particularly on the submarine issues and the pollution of nuclear material that may have been dumped or could be dumped without activity on our part. Let me turn to another issue. In your answers to questions for the record -- and I cite that because I've asked this question for the record and you have responded -- I particularly appreciate your response on the Law of the Sea Convention.
You urged the committee to favorably report it out and said that you will work with the Senate leadership to bring the convention and implementing agreement to the floor vote in the 109th Congress.
And you also said the following: "Joining the convention will advance the interests of the United States military. The United States, as the country with the largest coastline and the largest exclusive economic zone, will gain economic and resource benefits from the convention. The convention will not inhibit the United States nor its partners from successfully pursuing the Proliferation Security Initiative. And the United Nations has no decision-making role under the convention in regulating uses of the oceans by any state party to the convention."
LUGAR: That's clearing up an issue sometimes raised by opponents of the convention. Finally, you said, "The convention does not provide for or authorize taxation of individuals or corporations." I cannot think of a stronger administration statement in support of the Law of the Sea Convention. Should I assume that the president would like to see this convention passed as soon as possible?
RICE: Would certainly like to see it pass as soon as possible. And, Senator, I think you know the history of this better than I, as well as senators like Senator Warner and others who worked very hard to make sure that some of the early concerns about the convention were addressed and that the convention as it now stands serves our national security interests, serves our economic interests. And we very much want to see it go into force.
LUGAR: I thank you for that response.
Related Links:
Confirmation Hearing of Condoleezza Rice, 18 January 2005
