Text of the Report - p. 4

[johnkarls]

Findings and Recommendations

Today’s international surveillance networks are not comprehensive
in their coverage, and belated detection of an outbreak hinders a swift
response. Reporting delays may result from political or bureaucratic
hurdles as well as the lengthy laboratory analyses needed to confirm a
disease diagnosis. Another problem is that many infectious diseases are
zoonotic—that is, they infect both animals and people. In such natural
infections as West Nile virus and avian influenza, wild birds are sentinel
species: they typically become infected before humans and provide
early warning of an impending epidemic. Similar sentinels may exist for
zoonotic diseases that pose bioterrorism concerns, including anthrax,
tularemia, plague, Q fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, rabies, and
viral hemorrhagic fevers. Yet surveillance systems for animal diseases
are significantly less developed than those for human diseases, and
WHO and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) have not
fully integrated their respective disease surveillance networks.

RECOMMENDATION 2: The United States should
undertake a series of mutually reinforcing measures at the
international level to prevent biological weapons proliferation
and terrorism: (1) press for an international conference of
countries with major biotechnology industries to promote
biosecurity, (2) conduct a global assessment of biosecurity
risks, (3) strengthen global disease surveillance networks, and

(4) propose a new action plan for achieving universal adherence to and effective national implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention, for adoption at the next review
conference in 2011.
Ensuring that the life sciences evolve safely and securely will
require both top-down oversight by national governments and bottom-
up leadership from all the life sciences communities—professional,
academic, and industry. National regulation and international cooperation are necessary elements of a global biosecurity framework, and can
help countries meet their obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1540 to prevent terrorist groups from acquiring access to biological weapons and the materials and equipment needed to produce
them. Ultimately, however, governments can only point the way—
those working in the life sciences must commit to the journey.

38




Biological Proliferation and Terrorism

ACTION: The Department of State and Department of
Health and Human Services should press for an international
conference of countries with major biotechnology industries to
discuss the norms and safeguards necessary to keep dangerous
pathogens out of the hands of terrorists and to ensure that the
global revolution in the life sciences unfolds safely and securely.

With a view to achieving broad international involvement in and
support for biosecurity, the Commission believes that the United States
should press for the establishment of an international conference of
countries, bringing together Western industrialized states that possess
advanced capabilities in the life sciences (e.g., Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States)
and emerging biotech powers (e.g., Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and Russia) to develop a road map
for ensuring that the revolution in biology unfolds safely and securely.

The purpose of such a biotech powers conference should be to
identify key principles of biosecurity, to harmonize national regulatory
frameworks for dangerous pathogens and dual-use research of concern,
and to promote international biosecurity cooperation. Furthermore,
the conference would consider bottom-up approaches for raising the
awareness of life scientists in academic institutions and commercial
enterprises about the security dimensions of their work, with a view to
creating a transnational “culture of security awareness.” Once consensus on a biosecurity road map has been reached, it could serve as the
basis for broader regional and international engagement and consensus
building of the kind required to devise an effective global framework.

ACTION: The Department of State should lead a global

assessment of biological threats and engage in targeted biolog

ical threat prevention programs in additional countries.

The Commission recommends that the Department of State lead a
comprehensive effort to prevent the emergence of new biological
threats, as well as reduce existing threats. This initiative, which might
be termed the Cooperative Bio-Threat Prevention Program, would
involve the following steps: (1) conduct a global assessment of pathogen

39




Findings and Recommendations

security, (2) develop a prioritized list of countries where poorly secured
collections of dangerous pathogens are at risk of theft or diversion, and

(3) devise a comprehensive strategy for assisting these countries to
upgrade the security of their laboratories and their culture collections.
Supporting this type of global approach to biological threat prevention,
which should be integrated with efforts to improve the public health
infrastructure in the affected countries, will require increased funding.
ACTION: The Department of Health and Human Services
(primarily through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) should work to strengthen global disease surveillance
networks.

Global networks for infectious disease surveillance can provide an
“extended defense perimeter” for the United States by making it possible to detect and contain outbreaks of contagious diseases, whether
natural or human-caused, before they reach U.S. shores. Such networks can also help defend U.S. military bases, embassies, and other
American interests abroad against such outbreaks.

The Commission believes that more can and should be done, both
domestically and internationally, to enhance the health security of the

U.S. population by improving infectious disease surveillance and reporting capabilities. The gaps between the medical, public health, veterinary,
and wildlife health communities must be closed to create integrated
reporting systems for disease outbreaks in humans and animals, as well
as effective response capabilities. Internationally, the United States
should assist the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) to
improve its capabilities for monitoring outbreaks of zoonotic diseases,
and should facilitate the integration of data and analyses between the
WHO and the OIE.
Complementing the efforts of international organizations, the
United States should continue to foster the development of other
global surveillance networks. The Global Disease Surveillance System,
sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has significant promise and should be further developed and expanded to
ensure worldwide coverage. In addition, the United States should offer
bilateral assistance to those developing countries at greatest risk of epidemics, helping them to establish surveillance networks for detecting

40




Biological Proliferation and Terrorism

and reporting both human and animal disease outbreaks prior to a confirmed laboratory diagnosis. In order to promote these and other
biosecurity efforts, the Department of Health and Human Services
should strengthen the capabilities of its Office of the Secretary, better
positioning it to lead international engagement programs. Finally, the
department should encourage disease surveillance programs undertaken by nongovernmental organizations.

ACTION: The United States should reaffirm the critical importance of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention to international peace and security by proposing a new action plan for
achieving universal adherence and effective national implementation, to be adopted at the next review conference in 2011.

The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention constitutes a standard
of international conduct that should be universally supported. It outlaws biological weapons, bars parties to it from providing assistance to
anyone seeking such weapons, and obligates them to take “any necessary measures to prohibit and prevent” anyone on their territory from
acquiring biological weapons. The collapse of the BWC Protocol negotiations in 2001 left the Convention without a clear direction for future
efforts, a political vacuum that has been only partially filled by annual
intersessional meetings.

Some countries have continued to press for a resumption of the
protocol negotiations. As recently as late 2007, Iran, Pakistan, India,
and Russia advocated resuming the talks, and the new U.S. administration may come under renewed international pressure in early 2009 to
return to the negotiating table.

The Commission believes that the U.S. decision in 2001 to withdraw from the BWC Protocol negotiations was fundamentally sound
and that the next administration should reject any efforts to restart
them. History has shown that it is extraordinarily difficult to verify
compliance with the BWC because virtually all biological materials,
equipment, and facilities are dual-use. This verification problem has
been compounded by the spread of advanced biotechnology around
the world. The well-intentioned effort by the United States during the
1995–2001 protocol negotiations to promote confidence-building
“transparency” was undone both by the unrealistic view of European

41



Findings and Recommendations

and other allies that compliance with the BWC could be verified by an
international organization and by the determination of Iran, Russia,
and others to exploit the protocol to undermine international nonproliferation efforts and the convention itself.

But U.S. policy on biological weapons cannot rest solely on opposition to the BWC Protocol. It is essential that the United States lead the
international community and promote a new approach for strengthening national implementation of the BWC. To signal the political importance that the United States attaches to preventing biological weapons
proliferation and terrorism, the new administration should consider
sending a senior-level official to address the Seventh BWC Review
Conference in 2011.

During the two years leading up to the Seventh Review Conference, the United States should work with its allies and other parties to
develop new initiatives aimed at achieving universal adherence to the
BWC and promoting effective national implementation, especially
with respect to the prevention of bioterrorism. The United States
should also seek broad political support for an expanded intersessional
work program that focuses on (1) building the capacities of BWC
member states in key areas of bioterrorism prevention such as laboratory security, disease surveillance (including new diagnostic laboratories), and the oversight of research in the life sciences with a high
potential for misuse for hostile purposes and (2) improving the practical training of experts from BWC member states in technical aspects of
biosafety, biosecurity, and disease surveillance.

Finally, the United States should support an appropriate increase
in the size and stature of the BWC Implementation Support Unit, currently a small staff based at the United Nations Office in Geneva, so
that it can function as an effective facilitator and coordinator for an
expanded set of BWC activities and initiatives.

42




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

Every senior leader, when you’re asked what keeps you awake at

night, it’s the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass

destruction, especially nuclear.

—Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

On October 28, 2008, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stood at the rostrum
of the United Nations General Assembly and warned the world about
nuclear terror.

“The possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear or other radioactive
material remains a grave threat,” said Dr. ElBaradei. A soft-spoken man,
he let the power of his message make his case loudly and unmistakably—
and it produced major news stories around the world. “The number of
incidents reported to the Agency involving the theft or loss of nuclear or
radioactive material is disturbingly high . . . ,” he said. “Equally troubling
is the fact that much of this material is not subsequently recovered.
Sometimes material is found which had not been reported missing.”

We live in a time of increasing nuclear peril. The number of states
armed with nuclear weapons or seeking to acquire them is increasing.
Terrorist organizations are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons or the
material, technology, and expertise needed to build them. Trafficking
in nuclear technology is a serious, persistent, and multidimensional
problem. The worldwide expansion of nuclear power increases the
danger of proliferation.

The challenges for the United States and the world remain clear.
Today, anyone with access to the Internet can easily obtain designs
for building a nuclear bomb, but the hardest part for those bent on
nuclear terror has always been acquiring the weapons-grade uranium or

43



Findings and Recommendations

plutonium required to make the bomb. Our crucial task is to secure that
material before the terrorists can steal it or buy it on the black market.
And we must stop and reverse the proliferation of nuclear weapons while
we can.

Since the beginning of the nuclear age, the United States has made
halting but steady progress toward establishing universal norms for the
possession and use of nuclear weapons and toward securing nuclear
materials and technology. U.S. strategies include building international
regimes based on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that came
into force in 1970 and on the system of international safeguards that support its implementation. Those include counterproliferation initiatives
undertaken to strengthen the nuclear security regime and cooperative
programs between the United States and partner countries intended to
strengthen the international response to nuclear security threats.

The United States, as a preeminent nuclear power, has an obligation to lead the world in advancing these efforts. Few other nations
have the ability to exemplify best practices for the rest of the world.
Few other nations can marshal the resources, expertise, and talent necessary to extend long-term bilateral and multilateral help on nuclear
security issues. Our efforts must adapt to meet the rapidly evolving
nuclear security challenges we confront today. After examining several
tiers of U.S. efforts, the Commission offers the following findings and
recommendations.

The Nonproliferation Regime

The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) has been ratified by 188
nations. It established an international norm against the proliferation of
nuclear weapons and an elaborate system of nuclear safeguards to monitor compliance. The NPT defines a nuclear-weapon state as any country that manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon prior to January
1, 1967. This definition limits the number of “official” nuclear-weapon
states to five: the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United
Kingdom. At the heart of the NPT is a bargain: in return for a pledge by
the non-nuclear-weapon states to forswear nuclear weapons in perpetuity, the five declared nuclear-weapon states agree to provide assistance
for peaceful uses of nuclear technology and negotiate in good faith on
effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament.

44




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

To demonstrate compliance with their NPT obligations, the nonnuclear-weapon states must negotiate a safeguards agreement with the
International Atomic Energy Agency that permits inspections of civilian nuclear plants in order to detect the diversion of nuclear material
from those plants to make nuclear bombs.

The revelation during the 1990s that Iraq and North Korea were
violating their NPT obligations led the IAEA to adopt a system of
strengthened safeguards in 1997. States were urged to conclude an
Additional Protocol with the IAEA that greatly expanded and strengthened its monitoring rights. As of October 2008, 118 states have signed
the Additional Protocol and 88 have ratified it.

Today, however, the nonproliferation regime faces major challenges. The nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea pose the most
urgent and immediate threat. But the growing nuclear arsenals of
India, Pakistan, and China raise serious concerns that the international
community must address. The recently concluded U.S.–India Civil
Nuclear Cooperation Agreement may significantly affect Asian security, and the next President will have to manage the actions that states
may take in response to the agreement. The President should begin by
conducting a comprehensive, all-source assessment of the agreement’s
impact on nuclear weapons programs in the region.

The IAEA is constrained in serving as the world’s nuclear watchdog because its staff is aging and its budget has increased little over the
past decade. The IAEA has been forced to rely on extrabudgetary contributions from member countries, including the United States.
Because of this, the IAEA now faces uncertainties about its long-term
ability to perform its fundamental mission—detecting the illicit diversion of nuclear materials and discovering clandestine activities associated with weapons programs.

Perhaps the most important challenge facing the IAEA is the
expected expansion of civil nuclear programs throughout the world.
New nuclear facilities will have to be carefully monitored to ensure
that no nation uses peaceful activities as a cover for a secret nuclear
weapons program or for diverting weapons-usable material to a
weapons program. Such monitoring will increase the strain on the
IAEA’s already limited resources. As a first step, the United States and
the IAEA should ensure that civilian nuclear facilities are designed and
built with safeguards in mind.

45



Findings and Recommendations

Among the other tests facing the IAEA is the inherent difficulty of
reliably detecting dangerous illicit nuclear activities in a timely fashion.
Some of these difficulties—such as detecting military diversions from
nuclear fuel cycle activities—are not likely to be remedied no matter
how much the IAEA’s resources are increased. In the past 20 years,
while the amount of safeguarded nuclear material usable for weapons
(highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium) has increased by a
factor of 6 to 10, the budget for safeguards has not kept pace and there
are actually fewer inspections per safeguarded facility than before.

In addition to limited resources, the IAEA lacks clear authority to
secure nuclear material and install near-real-time surveillance at the
sites it inspects, or to conduct the “wide-area surveillance” needed to
monitor activities under the Additional Protocol. Dysfunctional and
nontransparent national accounting practices and national procedures
for inventorying nuclear materials further limit the IAEA’s effectiveness, especially when coupled with the agency’s increasing inability to
meet its “timely detection” goals.

More fundamentally, no review has been conducted recently to
determine whether the IAEA needs to update definitions—such as
how much material is needed to make a bomb and how much time is
required to divert this material and to convert it into bombs—that are
critical to the IAEA’s fulfilling its mission. Finally, two structural factors
have significantly undermined the IAEA’s ability to act credibly against
noncompliant states. First, consensus is typically sought within the
IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council prior to any
compliance-related actions. Second, there are no automatic, default
penalties for states that cannot be found to be in full compliance with
their safeguards or other NPT obligations.

While the NPT and the IAEA are at the heart of the nonproliferation regime, it is important to note that they are bolstered by national
export controls that help states impede the transit of technologies that
could contribute to nuclear weapons programs across their borders, and
groups of countries such as the Zangger Committee and the Nuclear
Suppliers Group that set international export control standards.

RECOMMENDATION 3: The United States should work

internationally toward strengthening the nonproliferation

regime, reaffirming the vision of a world free of nuclear

46




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

weapons by (1) imposing a range of penalties for NPT violations
and withdrawal from the NPT that shift the burden of proof to
the state under review for noncompliance; (2) ensuring access
to nuclear fuel, at market prices to the extent possible, for nonnuclear states that agree not to develop sensitive fuel cycle
capabilities and are in full compliance with international obligations; (3) strengthening the International Atomic Energy
Agency, to include identifying the limitations to its safeguarding
capabilities, and providing the agency with the resources and
authorities needed to meet its current and expanding mandate;

(4) promoting the further development and effective implementation of counterproliferation initiatives such as the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Global Initiative to Combat
Nuclear Terrorism; (5) orchestrating consensus that there will
be no new states, including Iran and North Korea, possessing
uranium enrichment or plutonium-reprocessing capability; (6)
working in concert with others to do everything possible to promote and maintain a moratorium on nuclear testing; (7) working
toward a global agreement on the definition of “appropriate”
and “effective” nuclear security and accounting systems as
legally obligated under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540; and (8) discouraging, to the extent possible, the use
of financial incentives in the promotion of civil nuclear power.
The Commission believes there are a number of specific actions that
the United States should undertake to implement this recommendation.

ACTION: The United States should lead efforts to establish,
as a principle of international law, penalties for states that
commit serious, sustained violations of the NPT or withdraw
from the treaty.

Any state that commits serious and sustained violations of its IAEA
safeguards commitments or withdraws from the NPT should be
required to forfeit all benefits gained from membership in the regime.
The burden of proof should be on that state to prove that it is in compliance with its treaty obligations. This principle could be established
either by agreement among the NPT’s member states or, if that is not

47




Findings and Recommendations

achievable, by a UN Security Council resolution adopted under Article
VII of the UN Charter.

Such a resolution should require any state declaring its intention to
withdraw from the NPT to be automatically subject to intrusive measures. These should include inspections to determine whether the state is
in violation of its safeguards commitments. During this process, the state
would be obligated to demonstrate its compliance with its obligations.

A country discovered—either through the intrusive measures following its declaration that it intends to withdraw from the treaty or
through other means—to be in noncompliance with its safeguards obligations would be subject to stringent additional monitoring measures to
determine the extent of the noncompliance. These additional measures
would include (1) broad mandatory inspections; (2) access without
delay to persons and original documents, with the right to record interviews and copy documents; and (3) expanded access to information. A
noncompliant state would forfeit the right to further nuclear assistance.
Finally, all nuclear materials, technology, and equipment a state
received while a party to the NPT would be removed from that country
as a condition of withdrawal from the treaty.

ACTION: The United States should lead an international

effort to establish a nuclear fuel bank.

An international fuel bank would guarantee countries a supply of
nuclear reactor fuel. It would also provide complying countries with
storage for spent fuel; these countries, in turn, would commit not to
exercise any right to establish enrichment and reprocessing facilities.
Progress has been made in creating a fuel bank through the IAEA, but
the IAEA Board of Governors has taken no action to address the difficult questions of how the fuel bank will be administered and the conditions for its use. Meanwhile, Russia has taken initial steps to establish
itself as a regional supplier of nuclear fuel.

The idea of a nuclear fuel bank has found widespread support—its
backers include President George W. Bush and IAEA Director General ElBaradei, who endorsed the idea in his October 2008 UN
address: “The ideal scenario, in my opinion, would be to start with a
nuclear fuel bank under IAEA auspices.” By then, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman had already transferred $50 million to the

48




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

IAEA for this purpose, saying, “The United States fully endorses the
establishment of an IAEA fuel bank ...”

The United States should also work to build international support
for the negotiation of a treaty halting the production of fissile materials
for military purposes. This would be part of an overall effort to show
that Washington is moving on all fronts to strengthen the nonproliferation regime. Since, for more than a decade, the international community has been unable to conclude a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty,
alternative approaches should be explored. A possible start could be a
joint declaration by the five NPT-designated nuclear-weapon states to
halt their production of fissile material for weapons.

ACTION: The United States should lead an international

effort to update and improve IAEA capabilities.

The most urgent element of such an effort should be to make sure the
International Atomic Energy Agency has the resources and authorities
needed to meet its current and expanding mandate. The UN High-Level
Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change described the IAEA aptly: “As
an institutionalized embodiment of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of
Nuclear Weapons and of considerable long-term success in preventing
widespread proliferation of nuclear weapons, the International Atomic
Energy Agency... stands out as an extraordinary bargain.”

The United States should work with the IAEA Director General to
secure the resources (funding, personnel, safeguard technologies, etc.)
needed to meet an increasing IAEA safeguards workload. This could
include establishing a safeguards “user fee,” whereby countries with
inspected facilities would be assessed a fee to help defer the costs.

The United States and other interested parties should take additional actions to strengthen the IAEA and improve its management.
They should routinely (at least every two years) assess whether the IAEA
can meet its own inspection goals; whether those goals afford “timely
warning” of an ability to account for a bomb’s worth of nuclear material,
as required by U.S. law; and what corrective actions, if any, might help
the IAEA to achieve its inspection goals. This assessment should also
clarify those instances in which achieving the goals is not possible.

The United States must continue to push for universal adherence to the IAEA Additional Protocol, which provides the IAEA with

49




Findings and Recommendations

additional rights to monitor civilian nuclear programs. According to
the IAEA, there are now 439 nuclear power reactors in 30 countries—
and 36 more plants are under construction. The U.S. government
should also work to make adherence to the Additional Protocol a precondition of civil nuclear assistance under the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540, the rules of the Nuclear
Supplier Group, and the laws of the United States.

The IAEA currently is hampered by the lack of near-real-time surveillance equipment at a number of sites where nuclear fuel rods are
located and where such equipment must be installed so that the agency
can establish the inspection continuity of the fresh and spent fuel rods.
In addition, to promote much-needed transparency at suspect sites—
and to help deter transfers of nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons technology—the IAEA member states should consider maintaining a
registry of all foreign visitors at safeguarded sites. This registry should
be made available to other IAEA members upon request.

To enhance the effectiveness of its safeguards program, the agency
should establish a complete country-by-country inventory of nuclear
materials that could be used to make nuclear bombs. The information
should be shared, as appropriate, with individual IAEA member states
and the public to ensure that it can be used effectively in developing
the plan for IAEA safeguards. The IAEA should update the database
regularly. Current IAEA databases are incomplete, and the agency’s
confidentiality rules make it difficult to construct a comprehensive
country-by-country inventory.

The United States should accelerate the Department of Energy–led
efforts to build a global database of nuclear material. To the extent possible, the United States should give the IAEA access to this data, thereby
enhancing the agency’s ability to carry out its mission.

The United States should also work with other IAEA members to
agree that only IAEA inspectors from nuclear-weapon states (who
already have access to sensitive weapons-related knowledge) should be
authorized to look for indicators that weapons work is taking place at
an inspected nuclear facility. Such a requirement would enhance the
ability of inspectors to detect possible illegal activity at inspection sites,
while minimizing the risk of spreading sensitive information.

In addition to the international efforts discussed above, the United
States should improve its domestic nonproliferation efforts and set a

50




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

positive example for other nations to follow. The U.S. government
should (1) declare a date certain for ending the civilian use and export
of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and declare a moratorium on commercial reprocessing; (2) implement Title V of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978, which requires energy assessments for developing
states; (3) secure civilian nuclear facilities in the United States that
store or handle nuclear weapons–usable materials to the same standards used for securing military facilities; and (4) accelerate efforts,
such as the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative of the Department
of Energy (DOE), to develop advanced safeguards techniques and
capabilities that will improve the global application of safeguards.

ACTION: The United States should expand counterprolifer

ation initiatives and improve their implementation.

The counterproliferation initiatives developed by the United
States and other like-minded nations complement the NPT in combating the spread of nuclear weapons. Through diplomacy, the United
States must reinforce the conviction that nuclear proliferation and terrorism are concerns not of a few states but of all members of the international community.

The Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) is a
multilateral initiative that was announced by the United States and Russia in 2006 and now includes 75 members. Under the initiative, the
United States works with Russia and other nations to promote a global
sense of urgency and commitment to securing nuclear materials, developing a security culture in states where nuclear materials are stored,
and preventing nuclear materials and technology from falling into terrorists’ hands. These goals are to be pursued through regular joint threat
briefings, nuclear terrorism exercises, and nuclear security reviews. The

U.S. government should also work to enhance GICNT in key areas,
such as (1) eliminating the civilian storage and use of HEU, (2) securing
the weapons-usable material of participating states in the shortest possible time frame, (3) aiding participating nations in carrying out the
obligations contained in UNSCR 1540, and (4) building international
capacity in critical areas, such as nuclear forensics.
The United States should intensify its use of UNSCR 1540, a 2004
resolution that established binding obligations on all UN member

51




Findings and Recommendations

states to take and enforce measures against WMD proliferation, to
help countries develop the laws and regulations they need to criminalize proliferation, to improve physical protection and safeguards at
nuclear facilities, to strengthen export controls, to improve cooperation on interdiction, and to tighten border security. The United States
should also use UNSCR 1540 to work with states to develop a robust
security culture focused on reducing the risk of theft or diversion of
nuclear materials or technology. In particular, it should urge the adoption of “best practices” and national legislation.

The United States should also seek to strengthen the Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI), a global effort aimed at stopping the trafficking of WMD, their delivery systems, and related material. The initiative can be further improved by increasing the number of participants,
enhancing efforts to interdict shipments of WMD (as well as their
delivery systems and related materials), and heightening efforts to disrupt black market networks and the financing of proliferation. More
importantly, the United States should also work with other states to
extend the international laws that prohibit piracy, hijacking, and slavery
to cover all transfers of WMD, delivery systems, and related materials
in international waters and airspace.

Moreover, the United States should seek to establish as a binding
requirement of international law the provision that all transfers of
items on the Nuclear Suppliers Group dual-use and trigger lists must
be reported in advance to the IAEA or to another international authority. Washington should assist in developing a system to process and
analyze the information gathered. Any item transferred in violation of
this requirement would be considered an illegal shipment—subject to
seizure while in transit and to dismantlement, destruction, or return
should it reach its destination. Such a requirement could be established pursuant to a UN Security Council resolution adopted under
Article VII of the UN Charter.

Finally, the United States should strengthen and broaden efforts
to detect and disrupt proliferation financing. Improved cooperation
between the International Financial Action Task Force and countries
participating in the PSI is a step in the right direction. The United
States should continue to encourage other states to adopt legislation
that strengthens national and international measures to combat the
financing of proliferation and terrorist networks.

52




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

ACTION: The United States should orchestrate an inter

national consensus to block additional countries from obtain

ing enrichment and reprocessing capabilities.

The Commission believes that one of the principal means of halting nuclear proliferation is to prevent the spread of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technologies and facilities to
additional countries. It is important that the United States work to
orchestrate an international consensus to block additional countries
from obtaining these capabilities. The international nuclear fuel bank
discussed above would be a significant step toward gaining this consensus, because it would ensure that nations without these capabilities
have a reliable supply of nuclear fuel at market prices.

Many variations on the idea that no new nations should acquire
enrichment and reprocessing capabilities have already been put forward. The Bush administration, for example, has proposed that the 45
members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group—the nations of the world
with the most advanced nuclear technologies—refuse to sell them to
any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning reprocessing and enrichment capabilities. This proposal would effectively cap the
number of states with such capabilities at current levels. Although some
states have regarded this proposal as discriminatory, others, such as the
United Arab Emirates, have agreed to forgo fuel cycle activities in
exchange for assistance in developing civil nuclear power. Dr. ElBaradei
has also weighed in, proposing that any new production-scale enrichment or reprocessing facility be under multinational control.

Both of these proposals have merit, but neither has been fully
embraced by NPT non-nuclear-weapon states. Additional efforts are
needed to find the right set of incentives and disincentives to gain
widespread adherence.

ACTION: The United States should work with others to pro

mote and maintain a moratorium on nuclear testing.

It is essential that current moratoria on nuclear testing, observed
independently by each of the five nuclear-weapon states under the NPT,
be maintained. The next President may wish to undertake diplomatic

53



Findings and Recommendations

efforts to formalize such a commitment among the NPT nuclear-weapon
states and should encourage non-NPT nuclear-weapon states to adopt
moratoria of their own.

The Commission recognizes that the issue of a Comprehensive
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) is likely to be reconsidered by the next
administration. In 1999, the Senate decided not to provide its consent
to ratification of the CTBT. The 51 senators who opposed the treaty had
a variety of concerns, including (1) the potential need for the United
States to resume nuclear testing under certain circumstances in order
to maintain the safety or reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, (2) the
fact that the treaty’s zero nuclear yield threshold cannot be verified, and

(3) whether other parties to the treaty were in compliance with its provisions. The 48 senators who supported it argued that it would make an
important contribution to strengthening the international norm against
proliferation and could impede states that are considering the modernization or procurement of nuclear arsenals. They also argued that the
Department of Energy’s “stockpile stewardship” program would help to
ensure the long-term viability of the nuclear stockpile. And they maintained that an assurance of 100 percent verifiability of the provision on
zero nuclear yield was not a realistic objective.
The Commission supports the review currently being conducted
by the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture
of the United States. That review includes consideration of the long-
term reliability, safety, and effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
The review also covers the effectiveness of the international monitoring system that is designed to identify and locate underground nuclear
tests in order to evaluate the potential reconsideration of the CTBT.
Out of deference to the Commission on the Strategic Posture, we have
not taken a position on the CTBT in this report.

ACTION: The United States should work to gain international

agreement on specific, stringent standards for securing nuclear

materials.

States have a principal obligation under UNSCR 1540 to adopt and
enforce “effective” measures to establish domestic control of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons and their means of delivery. States
also must establish “appropriate” controls over the related materials.

54




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

Because the resolution does not define “effective” or “appropriate”
measures for nuclear security and accounting systems, there is a need to
establish standards for precisely what UNSCR 1540 requires states to
do. These definitions must be formulated at the highest levels to ensure
that internationally agreed-on standards will be implemented by all
nations. Undersecured nuclear material and facilities pose a threat not
just to the host nations but to all nations. A baseline approach to establishing what measures are effective and appropriate for nuclear security
and accounting standards is the best way to safeguard the world from
nuclear tragedy.

The Commission recognizes the urgent need to establish global
nuclear security standards to which all states can adhere. We believe that
the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and the
IAEA’s Information Circular (INFCIRC) 225, The Physical Protection of
Nuclear Material, are the building blocks for obtaining an international
consensus on measures that are needed to ensure adequate nuclear
security and protection. But tighter standards need to be defined. The
goal of the United States should be to ensure that international standards for securing nuclear materials are as stringent as those currently
defined for U.S. military facilities. It is important that ongoing negotiations to amend INFCIRC 225 seek the highest standards possible.

The Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material
establishes measures on the prevention, detection, and punishment of
offenses relating to nuclear material. The Commission recognizes the
positive steps taken in July 2005 when the convention was amended to
bind parties to protect nuclear facilities and material in peaceful domestic use, storage, and transport. Nevertheless, the amended convention
does not define specific standards for a physical protection “regime.” It
will not enter into force until two-thirds of state parties have ratified it,
an event that is unlikely to occur until well into the future.

ACTION: The United States should discourage, to the extent

possible, the use of financial incentives in the promotion of

civil nuclear power.

The spread of nuclear technology and nuclear material heightens
concern that non-nuclear-weapon states might decide to develop nuclear
weapons, building on their civilian nuclear industry. It also increases the

55



Findings and Recommendations

possibility that terrorists might be able to steal—or buy from an insider—
the materials or technical knowledge needed to construct a nuclear
weapon. We should discourage, to the extent possible, the subsidizing of
nuclear energy in ways that would cause states to choose it over other
energy sources, without fully accounting for this risk.

Cooperative Nuclear Security Programs

The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to international concerns
that Soviet nuclear weapons and nuclear material deployed in Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Russia would no longer be under the control
of a strong central government. In response, the United States led a
coalition of nations to persuade Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to
become parties to the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states.

Around the same time, Congress passed the Nunn-Lugar Amendment, which established assistance programs in the former Soviet Union
(FSU) to ensure the safe and secure dismantlement and transportation
of nuclear weapons and the secure storage and consolidation of dangerous nuclear materials. The amendment authorized $400 million for
cooperative threat reduction (CTR) programs, and appropriations have
remained relatively stable over the past 17 years. These programs helped
return Soviet nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus
to Russia for dismantlement; led to the dismantlement and disposal of
strategic missiles in Russia and other former Soviet states; and greatly
improved security at Russian warhead storage facilities. Other CTR
accomplishments included securing nuclear weapons and materials at
vulnerable sites and enhancing the security of nuclear weapons and
materials in transit.

The United States has also worked with Russia on a number of
efforts to secure, reduce, and eliminate nuclear materials in Russia and
to stem the illicit flow of technologies and expertise from Russia (and
other FSU states) to terrorists and covert weapons programs. The
Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program,
implemented by the Department of Energy in 1997, provides security
upgrades for nuclear materials at hundreds of facilities in the FSU,
including improved security systems, strict control and accounting systems for materials, and security training for Russian nuclear specialists.
In 2003, Congress passed legislation requiring the Department of

56




Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism

Energy to complete its work by 2013, so that Russia would assume sole
responsibility for sustaining security upgrades after that time. Secretary Bodman told the Commission in September 2008 that the United
States and Russia are on track to meet the deadline.

The two countries have also worked to reduce the amount of material—highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium—that
might be stolen and used as fuel in illicit nuclear weapons. The Department of Energy is working with its Russian counterpart to “blend down,”
or process into a less-enriched form, 500 metric tons of Russia’s HEU,
which is then shipped to the United States for use as reactor fuel. So far,
this partnership has blended down almost 350 metric tons of HEU.

At the same time, Washington and Moscow have also taken steps to

(1) dispose of at least 68 metric tons of U.S. and Russian weapons-grade
plutonium by converting it into fuel for commercial reactors; (2) shut
down Russia’s three remaining plutonium-producing reactors, two of
which have now been closed; (3) secure Russia’s borders to prevent the
illicit trafficking of nuclear materials; and (4) ensure that thousands of
former weapons scientists, technicians, and engineers throughout the
former Soviet Union are engaged in civilian pursuits, to prevent the flow
of this expertise to countries of proliferation concern and to terrorist
organizations. (The pace and scope of the DOE programs were the subject of a 2001 report titled A Report Card on the Department of Energy’s
Nonproliferation Programs with Russia, which laid out specific criteria
and objectives for the programs. That study, widely known as the “Baker-
Cutler Report,” is discussed in detail in an appendix below.)
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, growing concerns about nuclear and radiological terrorism spurred increased cooperative efforts to secure fissile materials and combat nuclear smuggling
worldwide. One outcome was the Bratislava Nuclear Security Initiative, signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in 2005,
which expanded and accelerated security upgrades at nuclear sites in
Russia and led to a plan for Moscow to take charge of security at its
own nuclear facilities. A senior U.S.-Russia group, co-chaired by the

U.S. Secretary of Energy and the Director of the Russian Ministry of
Atomic Energy, oversees this work and provides progress reports every
six months to the U.S. and Russian Presidents.
Increasingly, threat reduction programs are being pursued internationally, not only bilaterally with Russia. The DOE’s Second Line of

57