Congressional Record: March 31, 2004 (Senate)
Page S3511-S3515
PROTOCOL TO THE AGREEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY
REGARDING SAFEGUARDS IN THE UNITED STATES--TREATY DOCUMENT 107-7
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 16, Treaty Document No.
107-70, on today's Executive Calendar.
I further ask that the treaty be considered as having passed through
its various parliamentary stages up to and including the presentation
of the resolution of ratification; further, that the committee
conditions and understandings be agreed to, that any statements be
printed in the Congressional Record as if read, and that the Senate
immediately proceed to a vote on the resolution of ratification;
further, that when the resolution of ratification is voted upon, the
motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be notified
of the Senate's action, and that following the disposition of the
treaty, the Senate return to legislative session.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Without objection, it is so ordered. The treaty will be considered to
have passed through the various parliamentary stages up to and
including the presentation of the resolution of ratification.
The resolution of ratification reads as follows:
[(Treaty Doc. 107-7) The Protocol to the Agreement of the
International Atomic Energy Agency Regarding Safeguards in the United
States, with 2 conditions and 8 understandings;]
Resolved (two-thirds of the Senators present concurring
therein),
SECTION 1. SENATE ADVICE AND CONSENT SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS
AND UNDERSTANDINGS.
The Senate advises and consents to the ratification of the
Protocol Additional to the Agreement between the United
States of America and the International Atomic Energy Agency
for the Application of Safeguards in the United States of
America, with Annexes, signed at Vienna June 12, 1998 (T.
Doc. 107-7) subject to the conditions in section 2 and the
understandings in section 3.
SEC. 2. CONDITIONS
The advice and consent of the Senate under section 1 is
subject to the following conditions, which shall be binding
upon the President:
(1) Certifications regarding the national security
exclusion, managed access, and declared locations.--Prior to
the deposit of the United States instrument of ratification,
the President shall certify to the appropriate congressional
Committees that, not later than 180 days after the deposit of
the United States instrument of ratification--
(A) all necessary regulations will be promulgated and will
be in force regarding the use of the National Security
Exclusion under Article 1.b of the Additional Protocol, and
that such regulations shall be made in accordance with the
principles developed for the application of the National
Security Exclusion;
(B) the managed access provisions of Articles 7 and 1.c of
the Additional Protocol shall be implemented in accordance
with the appropriate and necessary inter-agency guidance and
regulation regarding such access; and
(C) the necessary security and counter-intelligence
training and preparation will have been completed for any
declared locations of direct national security significance.
(2) Certification regarding site vulnerability
assessments.--Prior to the deposit of the United States
instrument of ratification, the President shall certify to
the appropriate congressional Committees that the necessary
site vulnerability assessments regarding activities,
locations, and information of direct national security
significance to the United States will be completed not later
than 180 days after the deposit of the United States
instrument of ratification for the initial United States
declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency (in
this resolution referred to as the ``Agency'') under the
Additional Protocol.
SEC. 3. UNDERSTANDINGS.
The advice and consent of the Senate under section 1 is
subject to the following understandings:
(1) Implementation of additional protocol.--Implemenation
of the Additional Protocol will conform to the principles set
forth in the letter of April 30, 2002, from the United States
Permanent Representatives to the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the Vienna Office of the United Nations to the
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
(2) Notification to congress of added and deleted
locations.--
(A) Added locations.--The President shall notify the
appropriate congressional Committees in advance of declaring
to the Agency any addition to the lists of locations within
the United States pursuant to Article 2.a(i), Article
2.a.(iv), Article 2.a.(v), Article 2.a.(vi)(a), Article
2.a.(vii), Article 2.a.(viii), and Article 2.b.(i) of the
Additional Protocol, together with a certification that such
addition will not adversely affect the national security of
the United States. During the ensuing 60 days, Congress may
disapprove an addition to the lists by joint resolution for
reasons of direct national security significance, under
procedures identical to those provided for the consideration
of resolutions under section 130 of the Atomic Energy Act of
1954 (42 U.S.C. 2159).
[[Page S3512]]
(B) Deleted locations.--The President shall notify the
appropriate congressional Committees of any deletion from the
lists of locations within the United States previously
declared to the Agency pursuant to Article 2.a.(i), Article
2.a.(iv), Article 2.a.(v), Article 2.a.(vi)(a), Article
2.a.(vii), Article 2.a.(viii), and Article 2.b.(i) of the
Additional Protocol that is due to such location having a
direct national security significance, together with an
explanation of such deletion, as soon as possible prior to
providing the Agency information regarding such deletion.
(3) Protection of classified information.--The Additional
Protocol will not be construed to require the provision, in
any manner, to the Agency of ``Restricted Data'' controlled
by the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
(4) Protection of confidential information.--Should the
President make a determination that persuasive information is
available indicating that--
(A) an officer or employee of the Agency has willfully
published, divulged, disclosed, or made known in any manner
or to any extent contrary to the Agreement between the United
States of America and the International Atomic Energy Agency
for the Application of Safeguards in the United States of
America and the Additional Protocol, any United States
confidential business information coming to him or her in the
course of his or her official duties relating to the
implementation of the Additional Protocol, or by reason of
any examination or investigation of any return, report, or
record made to or filed with the Agency, or any officer or
employee thereof, in relation to the Additional Protocol; and
(B) such practice or disclosure has resulted in financial
losses or damages to a United States person;
the President shall, not later than 30 days after the receipt
of such information by the executive branch of the United
States Government, notify the appropriate congressional
Committees in writing of such determination.
(5) Report on consultations on adoption of additional
protocols in non-nuclear weapon states.--Not later than 180
days after entry into force of the Additional Protocol, and
annually thereafter, the President shall submit to the
appropriate congressional Committees a report on measures
that have been taken or ought to be taken to achieve the
adoption of additional protocols to existing safeguards
agreements signed by non-nuclear weapon states party to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
(6) Report on united states assistance to the agency for
the purpose of additional protocol implementation and
verification of the obligations of non-nuclear weapon
states.--Not later than 180 days after the entry into force
of the Additional Protocol, and annually thereafter, the
President shall submit to the appropriate congressional
Committees a report detailing the assistance provided by the
United States to the Agency in order to promote the effective
implementation of additional protocols to safeguards
agreements signed by non-nuclear weapon states party to the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the verification of the
compliance of such parties with Agency obligations.
(7) Subsidiary arrangements and amendments.--
(A) The subsidiary arrangement.--The Subsidiary Arrangement
to the Additional Protocol between the United States and the
Agency, signed at Vienna on June 12, 1998 contains an
illustrative, rather than exhaustive, list of accepted United
States managed access measures.
(B) Notification of additional subsidiary arrangements and
amendments.--The President shall notify the appropriate
congressional Committees not later than 30 days after--
(i) agreeing to any subsidiary arrangement with the Agency
under Article 13 of the Additional Protocol; and
(ii) the adoption by the Agency Board of Governors of any
amendment to its Annexes under Article 16.b.
(8) Amendments.--Amendments to the Additional Protocol will
take effect for the United States in accordance with the
requirements of the United States Constitution as the United
States determines them.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
In this resolution:
(1) Additional protocol.--The term ``Additional Protocol''
means the Protocol Additional to the Agreement between the
United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency for
the Application of Safeguards in the United States of
America, with Annexes and a Subsidiary Agreement, signed at
Vienna June 12, 1998 (T. Doc. 107-7).
(2) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term
``appropriate congressional committees'' means the Committee
on Foreign Relations and the Committee on Armed Services of
the Senate and the Committee on International Relations and
the Committee on Armed Services of the House of
Representatives.
(3) Nuclear non-proliferation treaty.--The term ``Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty'' means the Treaty on the Non-
Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, done at Washington, London,
and Moscow July 1, 1968, and entered into force March 5,
1970.
Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, today the Senate considers the Additional
Protocol to the Agreement between the United States and the
International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, Regarding Safeguards in the
United States.
Last February, at the National Defense University, President Bush
called on the Senate to ratify the U.S. Additional Protocol, and today,
I am pleased to bring this resolution of ratification to the floor on
behalf of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
The United States signed the Additional Protocol in Vienna on June
12, 1998, and President Bush submitted it to the Senate on May 9, 2002.
The State Department submitted the implementing legislation to Congress
on November 19, 2003. At the administration's request, I introduced the
implementing legislation in the Senate last December.
Since Senate ratification of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty,
the NPT, in 1969, and our Voluntary Offer to accept IAEA safeguards in
1980, 188 states have now approved the NPT. The NPT and the IAEA's
existing safeguards agreements sufficed to forestall nuclear weapons
programs in the world's advanced industrial states, several of which
were weighing the nuclear option 40 years ago. Unfortunately, the NPT
and the IAEA's existing safeguards agreements have been insufficient to
prevent the diversion of resources in Non-Nuclear Weapon States
determined to cheat. At the same time, we have witnessed an increase in
the global availability of nuclear weapons materials, reprocessing and
enrichment technologies. To ensure that materials and technologies are
devoted only to peaceful uses, it is in the interest of the United
States that the IAEA have the power to conduct intrusive inspections
and verify imports and exports of sensitive materials and equipment in
states suspected of diverting resources to a weapons program. The
Additional Protocol, when universally ratified and implemented by all
member states of the IAEA, will not solve all of our proliferation
problems, but Senate ratification will further ensure that U.S. efforts
to persuade all member states to adopt the Additional Protocol will be
supported by concrete U.S. action.
When the NPT was constructed, in order to gain its acceptance by
states without weapons or complete fuel cycles, the world allowed for
peaceful uses of the atom by states who forswore weapons. This was an
outgrowth of the U.S. ``Atoms for Peace Program.'' Thus, Article IV of
the NPT states:
Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting
the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to
develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity
with Articles I and II of this Treaty.
Those last words, ``in conformity with Article I and II of this
Treaty,'' are key in our consideration of the Additional Protocol. Non-
Nuclear Weapon States under Article II of the NPT are obliged not to
undertake any steps toward development of a weapon, and in so doing,
secure their right to peaceful uses of the atom; peaceful uses verified
by the IAEA under safeguards. When the Committee on Foreign Relations
reported the NPT to the Senate in 1968, it did so with some
reservations concerning this safeguards system. As the committee report
noted:
[T]he implementation of the treaty raises uncertainties.
The reliability and thereby the credibility of international
safeguards systems is still to be determined. No completely
satisfactory answer was given to the Committee on the
effectiveness of the safeguards systems envisioned under the
treaty. But [the Committee] is equally convinced that when
the possible problems in reaching satisfactory safeguards
agreements are carefully weighed against the potential for a
worldwide mandatory safeguards system, the comparison argues
strongly for the present language of the treaty.
Today, many have come to the realization that the existing framework
of the NPT, as verified by status quo safeguards, is unable to provide
adequate verification of Non-Nuclear Weapon States' obligations and
alert the world community to broken commitments to the IAEA and under
the NPT.
I believe that acting today to ratify the Additional Protocol will
put us back on the right track, a track toward complete verification
and effective enforcement of Article II.
In 2003, the international community was confronted with two cases
involving declared Non-Nuclear Weapon
[[Page S3513]]
States violating their commitments under the NPT by pursuing
nuclear weapon programs.
Iran's clandestine drive toward a nuclear weapons capability was
partly exposed by an Iranian resistance group and confirmed by the
IAEA. Then, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom concluded separate
negotiations with Tehran in which the regime agreed to abandon its
uranium enrichment program and to cease all efforts to pursue nuclear
weapons. Iran signed an Additional Protocol with the IAEA last
December. In January, Iranian Foreign Minister Kharrazi appeared to
hedge on Iran's commitment by suggesting that Tehran had agreed ``to
the suspension, not stopping, of the uranium enrichment process.''
Then, last February, in his latest report on Iran, IAEA Director
General ElBaradei noted that inspectors had found in Iran technical
designs for so-called ``P-2'' centrifuges similar to those the Agency
discovered in Libya, designs not declared to the IAEA. Iran has also
failed to declare a pilot uranium enrichment facility, importation of
many nuclear fuel cycle components, and experiments with plutonium
separation.
Lastly, with regard to Iran, there are extremely disturbing press
accounts of inspectors finding traces of highly enriched Uranium-235,
which could have but one use, in a nuclear weapon. The United States
has made no secret of our view that Iran is developing nuclear weapons.
In Libya, we witnessed an important nonproliferation success.
Following intense negotiations with the Bush administration and the
United Kingdom, Libya admitted that it had WMD programs and agreed to
abandon these efforts and work with international treaty regimes to
verify Libya's commitment. I applaud President Bush and his team for a
victory in the war against the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. Through our experience in Libya, we have learned of the
extent of the nuclear proliferation network run by Pakistan's ``father
of the bomb,'' A.Q. Khan. Similarly, we have also seen the dangers
posed by exports of sensitive technologies by many European and Asian
countries that contributed to Libya's nuclear weapons program. It is
important to note in this regard how the Additional Protocol
incorporates and provides for reporting on the Nuclear Suppliers'
Group, NSG, Trigger List items in Annex II as well as uranium mining,
enrichment and reactor activities in Annex I.
Events in Iran and Libya are important to our consideration of the
Additional Protocol. In 1980, the Senate ratified the U.S. commitment
to voluntarily accept safeguards to demonstrate a firm commitment to
the IAEA and to the NPT. As a Nuclear Weapon State party to the NPT,
the United States is not required to accept any safeguards. Our
decision sent an important message to the world: the preeminent
superpower, with a large civilian nuclear power industry, could accept
IAEA safeguards.
The Additional Protocol seeks to fill holes in the existing patchwork
of declarations and inspections. It will require the declaration of
many locations and activities to the IAEA not previously required, and
allow, with less than 24 hours' notice, inspections of such locations.
The United States, as a declared Nuclear Weapon State party to the
NPT, may exclude the application of IAEA safeguards on its activities.
Under the Additional Protocol, the United States also has the right to
exclude activities and sites of direct national security significance
in accordance with its National Security Exclusion contained in Article
1.b. This provision is crucial to U.S. acceptance of the Additional
Protocol and provides the basis for the protection of U.S. nuclear
weapons-related activities, sites, and materials as a declared nuclear
power.
The Additional Protocol does not contain any new arms control or
disarmament obligations for the United States. Although there are
increased rights granted to the IAEA for the conduct of inspections in
the United States, the administration has assured the Committee on
Foreign Relations that the likelihood of an inspection occurring in the
United States is very low. Nevertheless, should an inspection under the
Additional Protocol be determined to be potentially harmful to U.S.
national security, the United States has the right, through the
National Security Exclusion, to prevent the inspection.
For the past 9 months, the majority and minority staffs of the
committee have been working closely with the administration to craft a
resolution of ratification that will gain broad support in the Senate.
On January 29, the committee held a hearing with administration
witnesses. On March 4, the resolution of ratification before the Senate
today was approved at a committee business meeting by a vote of 19 to
0. I thank Senator Biden and his staff for their cooperation in this
effort. I am pleased to inform all Members that the administration
fully supports the committee's recommended resolution of ratification,
without changes.
In sum, I believe the Additional Protocol is necessary to further
ensure effective verification and enforcement of the Article II
obligations of Non-Nuclear Weapon States. Continued enjoyment of
Article IV rights should come only with an increase in our ability to
verify compliance with obligations to the IAEA and under the NPT. I do
not believe that the Additional Protocol will be a burden for the
United States, given that our ratification and implementation of the
Protocol does not constitute a statement about U.S. adherence to
nonproliferation commitments, but rather as a demonstration of our
continued leadership in furtherance of the nonproliferation objectives
contained in it. It is a first step toward realization of the
objectives set forth by President Bush last February.
I urge my colleagues to support the committee's resolution of
ratification and to ratify the Additional Protocol.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am very pleased to recommend that the
United States Senate give its advice and consent to ratification of the
Additional Safeguards Protocol between the United States and the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA. Ratification of the
Additional Protocol will make a real contribution to U.S. nuclear non-
proliferation efforts, and it will do so without putting at risk any
sensitive national security information.
As my colleagues surely know, the Additional Protocol is an outgrowth
of the world's discovery in 1991 that Iraq had come perilously close to
developing a nuclear weapon, without the IAEA realizing it. One reason
for Iraq's near-success was that the IAEA was allowed to inspect only
those facilities that Iraq declared to it. If a uranium enrichment
facility was across the hall from a declared facility--and in some
cases it was about that bad--the IAEA had no mandate to inspect it. We,
the world, and the IAEA itself realized that a revised safeguards
regime was needed.
The Additional Protocol that was developed to address this concern
requires a signatory to provide yearly reports covering more nuclear
facilities than those included in the declarations required by the so-
called ``comprehensive'' safeguards agreements that have defined the
IAEA's role in recent decades. It also allows the IAEA to inspect non-
declared facilities, if the organization believes that illegal nuclear
activities may be taking place there. This is a significant expansion
of IAEA inspection rights, and it's something that the United States
rightly wants to be adopted by all the non-nuclear weapons states under
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (the NPT).
The United States, as a recognized nuclear weapons state under the
NPT, is not required to provide information to the IAEA or to accept
IAEA inspections. In 1967, however, when the NPT was being negotiated,
President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced that the United States would
voluntarily submit to safeguards on nuclear materials. He did this to
assuage the concerns of non-nuclear weapons states that feared that the
five nuclear weapons states would otherwise enjoy an unfair commercial
advantage regarding their nuclear power industries. Accordingly, a
U.S.-IAEA safeguards agreement, also known as the ``Voluntary Offer,''
has been in place since 1980. Truth be told, this Voluntary Offer is
more symbolic than real; until 1994, the IAEA only applied safeguards
to two commercial power reactors and two fuel fabrication facilities in
the United States, from a list of 250 eligible facilities. In recent
years, it has inspected
[[Page S3514]]
only sites for which the United States requested inspections, like the
site where we store the highly enriched uranium we removed from
Kazakhstan.
Our willingness to accept IAEA safeguards helped to secure the
world's agreement to the NPT. Similarly, our stated willingness to
accept the Additional Protocol was crucial to gaining the world's
agreement, in 1995, to the indefinite extension of the NPT. And our
ratification of the Additional Protocol will strengthen our ability to
convince more non-nuclear weapons states to sign their own additional
protocols.
When the Additional Protocol enters into force, the United States
will submit additional information on civil nuclear facilities on an
annual basis and identify additional civilian facilities, a small
number of which might someday be inspected. All implementation
activities under the Additional Protocol will be subject to a
``National Security Exclusion,'' however, that will allow our
Government to exclude the application of the Additional Protocol
wherever it would result in ``access by the Agency to activities with
direct national security significance to the United States or to
locations or information associated with such activities.'' Just as
under the Voluntary Offer, the United States will retain the trump card
of not declaring a facility, not submitting certain information, or
denying or halting an inspection if our national security interests
come into play. If we decide to permit an IAEA inspection, we will also
have the right to employ ``managed access'' to protect national
security information. (All countries will have the right to use managed
access to protect confidential business information; because the United
States is a recognized nuclear weapons state, we will have the right to
use managed access more broadly.)
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has looked carefully at how
our special rights would be invoked and whether sensitive facilities
will be prepared to accept an IAEA inspection if the President or the
interagency process decides to permit that inspection. We are satisfied
that a Federal agency with a legitimate national security concern will
have no difficulty ensuring that sensitive information is protected.
The resolution of ratification that the Committee recommends will
ensure that the U.S.-IAEA Additional Protocol does not enter into force
until the President certifies that all the necessary regulations will
be in place and all the necessary site vulnerability assessments will
have been completed within 180 days of entry into force. (No reporting
to the IAEA is required until 180 days after entry into force, so no
inspections of newly-declared facilities would occur before then.) The
resolution of ratification also addresses the protection of classified
and proprietary information, the addition or deletion of locations from
U.S. reports to the IAEA, U.S. intent to use its special rights as a
nuclear weapons state under the NPT, and the adoption of subsidiary
arrangements or amendments under the Additional Protocol. In short, the
Committee has covered all the bases to ensure that adoption of the
Additional Protocol will support our nuclear non-proliferation policy
without endangering sensitive national security information.
The resolution of ratification also calls for annual reports on U.S.
efforts to get all the non-nuclear weapon states to adopt additional
protocols and on U.S. help to the IAEA to conduct effective
inspections. Those are important efforts that every member of this body
should support. For all the difficulties it faces in gaining access to
sites of concern, the IAEA has shown a real determination to get into
those sites. Getting more states to sign and implement additional
protocols will help the IAEA to gain that access. And once they get in,
IAEA inspectors have shown a real ability to uncover information that
rogue states thought they had concealed. But they are vitally dependent
upon member states--and especially the United States--for the equipment
and training that enable them to know what to look for and how to
detect it in a manner that is scientifically valid, maximizes detection
capabilities, and preserves a chain of custody so as to leave no doubt
about the validity of their analysis.
U.S. ratification of our Additional Protocol is only one step among
many that are needed to make nuclear non-proliferation work. Even to
bring the Additional Protocol into force, we will then need to enact
implementing legislation; the Executive branch will then have to
promulgate appropriate regulations; and preparations for possible IAEA
inspections will have to be completed.
In addition, the United States must marshal all its foreign policy
tools to move states of concern away from nuclear weapons and to foster
further international cooperation on non-proliferation. Some good work
has been done in recent months. Libya signed an agreement with the
United States and the United Kingdom to give up its weapons of mass
destruction and long-range ballistic missile programs. The
Proliferation Security Initiative was created and cooperating states
agreed to coordinate their interdiction efforts while adhering to
international law. The permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council agreed on a draft resolution to bar proliferation to non-state
entities.
At the same time, however, much remains to be done. For example,
North Korea continues to move toward having a large enough nuclear
arsenal that it might contemplate using it, or even selling or giving
away some of its nuclear weapons or fissile material. Meanwhile,
although we have engaged in six-party talks that included North Korea,
both we and the North Koreans have yet to give our negotiators the
authority to get down to business and discuss a phased agreement under
which North Korea would gradually dismantle all its nuclear weapons and
long-range ballistic missile programs, in return for various security
assurances and diplomatic or economic benefits. So nothing significant
has yet been achieved on the diplomatic front, while the clock keeps
ticking on the nuclear weapons front. And we face the risk that South
Korea, a crucial player on this issue, will develop a policy that is at
odds with ours.
The situation regarding Iran is also difficult, although much has
been achieved in the last year. Exposure of Iran's two decades of lying
and deception regarding its nuclear activities has led Iran to sign the
Additional Protocol and to permit IAEA inspections that have proven
quite embarrassing to Iran. Pursuant to an agreement with the foreign
ministers of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, Iran has also
agreed to suspend all its uranium enrichment and reprocessing
activities. Iran has tried to backtrack on its commitments, and I
personally have no confidence that Iran has come clean on its nuclear
weapons efforts. So we must continue to press Iran to realize that its
national interest will best be served by rejecting nuclear weapons. We
must work to maintain solidarity with our European allies, with the
Russian Federation, with Japan, and with the IAEA to send the message
that Iran's real choice is between international acceptance and world
rejection. I don't think that Iran wants to become another North Korea.
We must make clear that the path of nuclear weapons can lead only to
such a fate, and also that the path of non-proliferation will lead to a
better future for Iran and all of its people.
We must also work to make the international nuclear non-proliferation
regime still more effective. One element of the NPT is a promise to
non-nuclear weapons states that, in return for forswearing nuclear
weapons, they will enjoy the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology.
That bargain has become frayed. Iran, Iraq and North Korea have all
used their ostensibly civilian facilities to mask covert weapons
programs.
In Iran and North Korea, we were at least able to sound the alarm.
Both states had secret efforts to produce weapons-grade plutonium and
highly enriched uranium and were caught. In Iraq, however, absent the
Gulf War of 1991, Saddam Hussein might have obtained highly enriched
uranium without anybody realizing it.
A smarter state, using a civilian program as the rationale, could
build uranium enrichment facilities, spent fuel reprocessing cells, and
the like--and properly report these efforts to the IAEA. It could
acquire weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and place
the material under IAEA safeguards. In other words, it could become a
potential nuclear weapons
[[Page S3515]]
power without violating safeguards. Then it could withdraw from the
NPT, and develop and assemble nuclear weapons in a short time.
That's the challenge we need to address. How do we counter not just
states that do things in a ham-handed manner, but states that
skillfully exploit the loopholes of the NPT? The Additional Protocol
can help make it much harder to hide a covert nuclear program, if we
persuade the rest of the world to sign such protocols as well. But how
can we combat the ``breakout'' scenario?
One idea gaining currency is to allow non-nuclear weapons states to
continue to possess civilian nuclear programs, but not a closed nuclear
fuel cycle. A state could have civilian nuclear reactors to produce
electrical power, but must import the nuclear reactor fuel and return
any spent fuel. This would ensure that a state did not obtain fissile
material needed for a nuclear weapon.
IAEA Director General Mohammed El-Baradei would allow only
multinational facilities to produce and process nuclear fuels, and give
legitimate end-users assured access to these fuels at reasonable rates.
Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Dr. William Perry recently endorsed this
proposal, adding that states that refuse this bargain should be subject
to sanctions. President Bush has not endorsed multinational facilities,
but called upon members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to refuse to
export enrichment and reprocessing equipment to any state that does not
already possess full scale enrichment and reprocessing plants.
Any agreement on revising the nuclear non-proliferation regime will
be difficult to achieve. Non-nuclear weapons states will ask what they
will get for surrendering a well established right. States with nuclear
fuel industries may worry that they will go out of business if only a
few multinational facilities are allowed to operate enrichment and
reprocessing activities. But the United States and other concerned
states should set a goal of reaching a consensus in time for next
year's NPT Review Conference. We have a window of opportunity, and we
should use it.
There is another bargain central to the NPT, one that this
administration largely prefers to ignore. In return for forswearing
nuclear weapons, non-nuclear weapons states received a commitment from
the five permanent nuclear powers, reaffirmed as recently as 2000, to
seek eventual nuclear disarmament.
Nobody, including me, expects the United States to give up its
nuclear deterrent any time in the foreseeable future. But the
administration's drive to research and possibly produce new nuclear
weapons--including low-yield nukes--is a step in the wrong direction.
It signals to the rest of the world that even the preeminent global
power needs new nuclear weapons to assure its own security.
The administration threatens to take another backward step on a
Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty. An FMCT has been a U.S. objective for
eight years, and this administration castigated other countries for
preventing negotiations from starting. Now that there is a chance of
success, however, the administration says that we may refuse to
negotiate. This only undermines solidarity with our allies, which have
worked for years to help us convince other countries to negotiate.
For all the flaws of the NPT, it is an essential treaty. It has been
vital to encouraging states like Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South
Africa, Brazil and Argentina to end their nuclear weapons programs. The
United States must work to improve the nuclear non-proliferation
regime, and it must also do all that it can to abide by the bargains
between the nuclear ``haves'' and the nuclear ``have nots'' that
underlie world willingness to eschew the most awesome and awful weapons
mankind has ever invented.
In conclusion, I want to congratulate and thank my chairman, Senator
Dick Lugar, for his fine leadership in bringing this resolution of
ratification to fruition. It was not an easy task, and he demonstrated
exceptional leadership. I am grateful also to our staffs, especially
Ken Myers, III and Thomas Moore on the majority side, and Edward Levine
and Jofi Joseph on the Democratic side. Finally, I want to commend the
interagency committee that worked with us, and especially Ms. Susan
Koch of the National Security Council staff. She is a real
professional, and we would not have gotten to this day without her.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask for a division vote on the resolution
of ratification.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. A division vote is requested.
Senators in favor of the resolution of ratification will rise and stand
until counted.
Those opposed will rise and stand until counted.
On a division vote, two-thirds of the Senators present having voted
in the affirmative, the resolution of ratification is agreed to.
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