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NUCLEAR TERRORISM AND COUNTERMEASURES
House of Representatives,
Committee on National Security,
Military Research and Development Subcommittee,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, October 1, 1997.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:35 p.m. in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Curt Weldon (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
Mr. WELDON. The Research and Development Subcommittee will come to order.
Let me start by apologizing to our witnesses as well as to the general public for the delay in the start of this hearing. Unfortunately, the House is tied up in procedural votes, and so Members are tied up on the House floor. If I have to, I will miss some votes to get the hearing started.
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My colleague, Owen Pickett, who is the ranking member, was here, and went back over to vote. I would normally not start this hearing until he arrived, but I think he will understand.
In deference to our witnesses, who have very busy schedules also, we are going to begin the hearing and attempt to keep it going, hopefully as continuously as possible, and hopefully this parliamentary process will die down and we will be able to have an informed hearing.
This afternoon, the subcommittee meets in open session to receive testimony on nuclear terrorism and steps that the United States Government has taken to guard against this threat. We have a very distinguished group of witnesses. This will be the first in a series of hearings that will continue tomorrow morning with an individual flying over at this very hour from Russia who will testify to the statements made by General Lebed and by his own statements in the Russian media, Alexei Yablokov, who is one of the most respected environmental leaders in the former Soviet Union.
Following that, in late October, we will have another hearing where General Lebed, who accepted my invitation, will appear before this committee, and he himself will testify to hearings he made to me in May in Moscow.
As we all know, the motion picture ''Peacemaker'' just opened in hundreds of movie theaters across the country this past week. This ''Peacemaker'' film was the first film from Dreamworks, the joint effort of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg. It is somewhat ironic to me that Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg may have done more this past weekend to alert Americans of the real dangers of nuclear terrorism than our President, Vice President, and the entire administration has done in the past 4 1/2 years.
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It is also interesting that as we move through the process of today's hearing, we will hear, I think, some very startling information about the need for this administration and this Congress, which is also not without fault in the past, to get together in a bipartisan way to work on the issue of helping to stabilize Russia, stabilize their control of nuclear material, and to work together to provide additional funds for programs like the Nunn-Lugar program as well as other joint efforts with Russia to control and guarantee the stability of their nuclear stockpile and their tactical and strategic weapons.
Now, ''Peacemaker'' is entertaining fiction, but it is also a disturbing case of art imitating life. Many of the premises of the motion picture are based on grim realities. Corruption and organized crime in the Russian military is a growing problem, and we will hear about that today. It is reaching such proportions that the security of Russian nuclear weapons and materials could well be threatened.
Just yesterday, the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a substantial report concluding that the spread of organized crime in the military raises ''the prospect of strategic nuclear armed missile systems in the hands of a disintegrating military subject to criminal control.''
Indeed, Aleksandr Lebed, the former Presidential candidate and Secretary of the Soviet Security Council, recently alleged that terrorists may already be in possession of Russian nuclear weapons. The first time we learned about these stray devices was on May 30, when Lebed made these comments to me and a congressional delegation I led to Moscow, not for the purpose, by the way, of meeting with him, but to continue our new institutional exchange program with members of the Russian Duma.
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Lebed told us while still operating in his capacity as Secretary of the Russian Security Council, he had conducted a study of the Russian military accounting for its nuclear weapons, specifically suitcase-sized nuclear devices, and had found that the military had lost track of approximately 84 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, any one of which could kill up to 100,000 people with a capacity of 1 kiloton.
In the U.S. television interview subsequent to that meeting, aired on September 7, General Lebed said he now believes the number of missing nuclear weapons to be more than 100. He said the devices were the perfect terrorist weapon, as the small nuclear bombs were made to look like suitcases and could be detonated by one person with less than 30 minutes preparation.
Now, Lebed's allegations have been vehemently denied by the Russian Government. In fact, I met with Kokoshin, the Deputy Defense Minister the day after our meeting with General Lebed, and he denied emphatically that General Lebed knew of what he was talking about. I also met that same day with General Manilov, who is No. 2 in the command staff.
Moscow has even asserted in more recent days, and I have copies of these articles that I will enter into the record, that nuclear weapons of this type described by Lebed never existed, an erroneous claim that does not help the credibility of Moscow's denials.
Mr. WELDON. I will also enter into the record today articles from Russian periodicals, 1993 and 1995, where specific details describing these devices were placed on the record in the Russian media, and I will place those articles in the record.
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[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 71.]
Mr. WELDON. And we will also talk about some incidents that we know of where the Russians were as fearful of the potential of one of these devices being in the hands of dissidents in Chechnya as were we, and in fact took actions with our security communities to see whether or not the allegations by the Chechnyian leaders were in fact true.
It does no one any good for Russia to deny reality and the existence of these devices. Russian special forces are known to possess atomic demolition munitions, ADM's, small man-portable nuclear weapons that could be concealed in a backpack or a suitcase.
Nor is Moscow's credibility helped by its poor record of veracity and transparency on other issues, such as the purpose of the vast underground complex currently being constructed under Yamantau Mountain, which I have raised repeatedly with the highest levels of the Moscow leadership, including President Yeltsin himself, and in a three page letter I sent to him in July in Russian, which I received no response to, as well as Moscow's dissembling on its assistance to Iran and Iraq's ballistic missile programs.
More credible Lebed critics are former Russian Defense Minister Igor Rodionov and Duma defense committee chairman, Lev Rohklin, who are no fans of the Yeltsin government and who have been as vocal as Lebed about the nuclear security risks that attended the disintegration of the Russian military.
Igor Rodionov and Lev Rohklin deny that any Russian nuclear weapons are missing. On the other hand, they are Lebed's political rivals, and they may hope by undermining Lebed's credibility, they will injure the popular ex-general's chances to win the next Presidential election.
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Make no mistake about it, I am not about interfering in Russia's elections, but I am about getting the facts and the information that is important to the security of the Russian people, our people, our troops, and our allies around the world.
Lebed's former deputy on the Russian Security Council, Vladimir Denisov, affirms Lebed's claim about missing Russian nuclear weapons.
The leakage of nuclear materials and nuclear ammunition components is not a new theme, but it became especially topical during hostilities in Chechnya. There was no certainty that no low yield nuclear ammunition remained on the territory of Ukraine, Georgia or the Baltic countries, or that such weapons had not appeared in Chechnya.
Dr. Alexei Yablokov, former environmental advisor on the Security Council to President Yeltsin, and who will be here tomorrow morning for our hearing, and a respected member of the Russian Federation Academy of Scientists, said he personally knew people who manufactured the suitcase nuclear bombs that Moscow now claims have never existed, and in fact I entered those articles into the record as recently as 2 days ago.
Yablokov was interviewed in Russian media and on Russian TV, and he said, ''I knew the people who manufactured these devices and they told me they were being manufactured for the KGB.'' Dr. Yablokov will be here tomorrow.
So the bottom line is that no one in the West and few in Russia know whether Lebed is telling the truth or even if he would be able to tell the truth and would know the whereabouts of these devices.
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Dozens of small nuclear weapons, ideal for terrorist use, may have fallen into the wrong hands, or perhaps not. The important point is that crime, corruption, incompetence, and institutional disintegration are so advanced in Russia that the theft of nuclear weapons, unthinkable in the Soviet era of the cold war, seems entirely plausible in the Russia of today. The mere possibility that terrorists or rogue states may have acquired some Russian nuclear weapons should be a matter of the gravest concern to the governments and the people of the West.
Another reality captured in the movie ''Peacemaker'' is we are not helpless in the face of nuclear terrorism. The movie portrays nuclear emergency search teams springing into action to save New York from a terrorist nuclear weapon. NEST teams prepared to combat nuclear terrorism actually exist, and we shall hear more about them today.
Whether the happy ending portrayed in ''Peacemaker'' would, in fact, be the likely outcome of an actual nuclear terrorist event is highly problematical. We can and should and will do more to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism, and we should do it in a bipartisan way, working with the Congress and the administration to deal with this very serious problem.
I pledge as the chairman of this subcommittee to make sure that in fact happens. Hopefully the suggestions that come out of today's hearings and tomorrow's hearings and the hearings in late October will give us some solutions that we can pursue with Russia, not to antagonize Russia, but to work with them to solve this very difficult problem.
Let me say before I introduce our witnesses who are here today, as many in this room know, I am not one who takes pleasure or satisfaction in trying to back the Russian people into a corner. I spent as much time working in a positive way on Russian cooperative programs as any member of this institution.
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Six years ago the Energy Caucus was formed with Russia, and I chaired it and formed it and chair it today. Three years ago the environmental initiative with their Duma and our Congress to work on problems of nuclear waste in the Arctic, the dumping of nuclear waste and the solutions we can provide through our Navy to assist the Russians.
Twice this year I have been in Moscow proposing a new multibillion dollar housing mortgage program to allow the Russian middle class to be able to buy homes and to be able to afford those homes at interest rates below 10 percent for up to 30-year time periods.
I chair the Russian Duma-American Congress study group that works to develop solid relations between our countries. I work every day to improve our relations. In fact, in this year's defense bill, I fought hard to include money for joint Russian-American missile defense cooperation, such as the Ramos project, which now has formally been approved.
But ignoring reality, which is my contention of what this administration has done continuously for the past 5 years, in arms control violations, in denying that there is in fact a threat from a disintegrated Soviet Union, and in some cases deliberately distorting and sanitizing intelligence information, has absolutely caused us to be where we are today, and that is outrageous. That is just as outrageous as a conservative on my side who wants to be paint Russia into a corner as the ''evil empire,'' because that also is totally untrue.
Joining us today to provide their insights are three panels of expert witnesses. On our first panel are Jessica Stern, former Director of Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs on the National Security Council; and Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, Director of the Office of Emergency Response Defense Programs at the Department of Energy.
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Ms. Stern, who dealt with issues of Russian nuclear security and proliferation while serving on the NSC, is the inspiration for the character played by Nicole Kidman in ''Peacemaker.'' Today, if a terrorist event such as portrayed in ''Peacemaker'' were to actually occur, Ms. Gordon-Hagerty would be doing Nicole Kidman's job, coordinating our response to the terrorist threat.
I am going to leave it to the rest of our panelists to decide who is, in fact, the person being played by our star male witness in the film, so each of you who are going to appear can discuss who wants to play that role.
Our second group of panelists will discuss the effect of organized crime on Russian nuclear security and the problem of nuclear proliferation. The panelists are Judge William Webster, former Director of the CIA and FBI; and Arnaud de Borchgrave and Frank Cilluffo of the Center for Strategic and International Security, who have just completed a major study on organized crime in Russia.
Our third and final panelist will be Arnold Warshawsky of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who briefed Members in a closed session last week, who will discuss a promising new technology for detecting and thwarting a terrorist attempt to smuggle a nuclear weapon into a U.S. city.
Ms. Stern and Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, we welcome you and thank you and your colleagues for being here. I will recognize Mr. Pickett when he arrives. I want to tell you, Ms. Stern, I read the book, and the first day, actually before it was released, and I especially enjoyed the chapter entitled ''Jessica Stern.'' But I want to applaud you for your leadership, oftentimes not being given the visibility in this Congress and on this end of the Hill that it should have been given. I want to tell you we are here today to listen and respond to the concerns you raised.
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To Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, as you said so eloquently last week, you are doing the job. We want to support you, we want to identify the areas where more resources are needed, and then pledge to give you the financial support from this institution to make things happen, so we can deal with these threats as they emerge around the world and as they affect the American people.
With that, I would basically advise both of you that your statements will be entered into the record, and you are free to make whatever personal comments you would like for whatever amount of time you would like to make them. Ms. Stern.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weldon can be found in the appendix on page 46.]
STATEMENT OF JESSICA EVE STERN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL STAFF DIRECTOR, RUSSIAN, UKRAINIAN, AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS
Ms. STERN. Thank you very much. It is an honor to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
I have three points today. First, constraints are eroding against terrorism involving nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Second, we are not doing enough about the threat. Third, Americans are increasingly afraid of nuclear terrorism. According to a recent poll, some 76 percent of those polled said that they were afraid of nuclear terrorism.
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It is worth considering our particular vulnerabilities right now. First of all, our population is highly concentrated, making us quite vulnerable to nuclear, chemical, and biological agents. Second is the approach of the millennium and the possibility that heretofore peace-loving millenarian groups might become violent. The millenarian idea is that present age is corrupt and there will be a cleansing apocalypse, and then the lucky few will survive that apocalypse.
Terrorists who believe in this millenarian idea might be attracted to these kind of weapons. For example, the fifth plague, murrain, was actually anthrax, so there is a kind of mystical aura to, in my view, chemical and biological weapons.
There are three constraints that I believe are eroding. The first is loose nukes, and I know that you, Congressman Weldon, know more than almost anyone about this issue, but I will just very briefly point out that there are vulnerable sites in Russia.
Of particular concern is a site in Kazakhstan, Aktau, and also a couple sites in Georgia. As a friend of mine described what he saw when he got to Russia, he saw a nuclear site that was guarded by Aunt Masha with a cucumber.
The second constraint that is eroding is a proliferation of know-how. As you know, weapons scientists who were formerly treated as the elite are now poverty stricken. But I would like to alert you to another area where know-how is proliferating, and that is in books and on the Internet.
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There are many, many books that provide instructions about how to use weapons of mass destruction. When I was a graduate student, I learned about some of these books, and I called one of the publishers, and I did a little experiment. I said, I understand you have books that tell you how to poison people, and I would like to poison someone. I wrote down very carefully what the operator said. She asked me a few questions, and then she basically just wanted to know my credit card number.
These books are, in fact, used in acts of murder and terrorism. In one case that comes to mind—someone whose neighbors were playing very loud rock music. He got very fed up with them and followed the instructions in a poisoning manual to poison their Coca-Cola. What I fear is that these kind of instructions could be used to commit more serious acts of terrorism.
The third constraint that is eroding is that a new breed of terrorist seems to be emerging. We know that terrorists have always been capable of significantly more lethal acts than they have actually carried out. That is because many terrorists up until now have had very clear political constraints. They have had real constituencies.
For example, I grew up in Boston. The IRA was out there on the Boston Common fundraising. I think the IRA is going to be much less successful if they decide to use bubonic plague as a mass destruction weapon. But there are new terrorists with apocalyptic ideas, religious and right wing extremists. They don't have clear constituencies. For some of them their main constituent is God, and usually the ones who have direct phone lines with God, the God that they talk to is a very violent one, unfortunately.
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I had the opportunity to interview William Pierce, who wrote ''The Turner Diaries,'' the book that inspired the Oklahoma bombing. I would like to tell you one of the things he said to me. I am quoting. ''This society is in the process of self-destruction. Society will descend into chaos or civil war, and speeding up that process is in the interest of the country.''
Clearly someone who believes that chaos is beneficial will not face the kind of political and moral constraints that some terrorists have faced in the past.
I have also been spending quite a bit of time lately searching the web, and some of the things you find on the web are quite horrifying. One of the most prolific writers in the ultra right wing, Louie Beam, is exhorting extremists to form ''leaderless cells'' precisely to avoid government detection.
It is a new doctrine. He calls it a doctrine of leaderless resistance. He encourages followers to form cells numbering between 1 and 12 men to circumvent the FBI's intelligence gathering capabilities.
The bottom line is that we need to do much more than we are doing.
The Nunn-Lugar-Domenici acts have made very significant strides in combating this threat, but I think the funding level is not appropriate to the level of the threat.
In my statement for the record, I spell out some concrete proposals, and I would actually propose that you sponsor legislation, and I would be thrilled and honored to work with you and your staff, to work out more ideas. I will just give you a couple of examples.
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One is to create a nuclear emergency fund. General Lebed, as you pointed out, we do not know whether he was telling the truth, but one interesting thing he said is that he would like an international commission to come in and help locate those allegedly missing suitcase bombs. I think it is imperative when a person like General Lebed makes a statement like that that we follow up immediately. We should be in there. He wants help, let's give him help.
Similarly, during Project Sapphire, when the Government of Kazakhstan asked the United States Government for assistance in securing vulnerable materials, we were delayed by difficulties with funding. So this nuclear emergency fund could be used to carry out operations of this kind, that are clear emergencies and essential to all Americans' security.
I guess I will just leave the rest in the statement for the record, but I would also like, with your permission, to submit for the record another statement written by John Deutch former DCI; Ashton Carter, former Assistant Secretary of Defense; Graham Allison; Joe Nye; and a few others. They have requested I submit this statement for the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 141.]
Mr. WELDON. Without objection. Thank you, Ms. Stern. I will look forward to those suggestions. I will commit to you we will work with you on legislation in a bipartisan way.
There are a number of Members on the minority side that are very interested in this issue who have been out front, and we will work together, and we will also work with the administration and hopefully come up with something that we can agree on as the right solution to provide a higher level of security. So we thank you for your statement.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. Stern can be found in the appendix on page 54.]
Mr. WELDON. Ms. Gordon-Hagerty.
STATEMENT OF LISA E. GORDON-HAGERTY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE DEFENSE PROGRAMS, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to have this opportunity to appear before you today. My remarks today will focus on the Department of Energy's operational emergency response assets and capabilities to counter acts of nuclear terrorism, both at home and abroad.
DOE possesses a unique and substantial capability to respond to acts of nuclear terrorism. The ability of the U.S. Government to maintain security within its borders as well as protect our interests throughout the world would be placed in serious jeopardy by a nuclear-capable terrorist or rogue nation. When the destructive potential of a nuclear device is taken into account, successful intervention and neutralization of this threat is critically important.
Over the past 50 years, the nuclear weapon research and development activities have provided the foundation for today's emergency response program. The weapon designers, physicists, engineers, and equipment of Los Alamos, Sandia, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories form the core of the emergency nuclear response program. An effective response to a nuclear terrorist incident cannot be undertaken without these stewards of the nuclear weapons stockpile.
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The Department of Energy is responsible for providing the national technical expertise to resolve any major radiological or nuclear emergency within the United States and abroad. My office oversees a fully integrated program comprised of seven national assets providing a full range of specialized capabilities tailored to respond to either a nuclear accident or incident. Further, we also provide the preponderance of the technical response to the consequence management phase of an emergency.
Each asset possesses individual technical capabilities and equipment that contribute to a mutually supportive emergency response capability dealing specifically with accidents involving nuclear materials and nuclear weapons or terrorist incidents involving improvised nuclear devices or radiological disbursal devices. These seven include the accident response group, which provides the technical expertise in the resolution of a U.S. nuclear weapon accident, the aerial measuring system, state of the art remote sensing equipment and specially equipped aircraft, used to perform aerial surveys of a wide variety of nuclear emergencies, the atmospheric release advisory capability, a computer-based emergency preparedness and response predictive capability, which provides rapid prediction of transport, diffusion and deposition of radionuclides released into the atmosphere, the Federal radiological monitoring and assessment center, which coordinates the Federal response efforts when there is an actual or potential accident or incident that may involve a major release of radioactive materials within the United States or its territories, the radiological assistance program, or RAP, which is strategically located in eight regions throughout the United States.
RAP teams provide the initial first responder capability in response to requests for radiological assistance from State and local authorities. The radiation assistance center training site, a capability to respond to medical or health physics problems associated with radiological accidents on a local, national or global scale, and, finally, the nuclear emergency search team, or NEST, which is capable of locating and rendering safe a nuclear device.
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I would like now to offer a few detailed remarks about our NEST Program. Made up of several components, NEST capabilities include search and identification of nuclear materials, diagnostics and assessment of suspected nuclear devices, and disablement and containment programs.
NEST personnel are on call 24 hours a day and can be quickly transported by military or commercial aircraft to any location worldwide. NEST was established in the 1970's to respond to nuclear extortion incidents in support of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Because it was believed that the extortionists would allow time for negotiations, the extortion scenario allowed for planning and operations to be conducted over a period of several days, and NEST developed procedures that were slow and very thorough.
The idea that a terrorist would gain possession of a nuclear device and detonate it without warning was not deemed creditable at that time.
Mr. Chairman, times have changed. We recognize that in 1992, that changes were needed in the NEST Program to counter the emerging threat of nuclear terrorism, and we began working with our partners in the Department of Defense to develop a capability to seize, recover, render safe or render useless a terrorist nuclear device. While I cannot discuss this capability in an unclassified forum, I can tell you that we have exercised this capability extensively with the Departments of Defense and State over the past 5 years and more recently we have begun exercising as well with the FBI.
We conduct realistic exercises with an eye toward uncovering deficiencies and limitations. The results of these exercises point the way toward capability improvements through changes in operational procedures or through the development of new technologies.
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Unfortunately, due to funding shortfalls, we have shortchanged our fast track technology development programs in order to maintain peak operational readiness.
It is my intention, however, to continue along this path of a more rigorous training and readiness program in the future to ensure that this one-of-a-kind asset truly is ready when the national security of the United States is at risk.
Again, I thank the subcommittee for the opportunity to testify before you today, and speaking on behalf of the combating terrorism community, we all appreciate the interest that you have taken in this very important national security matter. I would be pleased to answer any questions you have today.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you very much for your statement. It was excellent.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gordon-Hagerty can be found in the appendix on page 61.]
Mr. WELDON. My distinguished ranking member has arrived and as soon as he is off the phone, I will give him the opportunity to make some opening statements.
Mr. Pickett, I explained you were here early, very early on, and went back over to vote, so you were very much on time, and I explained the situation on the House floor. I would like, if you would like to make a statement, you are welcome.
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Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have been delayed so much and in deference to our witnesses here today, who I want to hear from, I would simply request I be permitted to insert a written statement in the record of this meeting.
Mr. WELDON. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pickett can be found in the appendix on page 51.]
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Pickett, Ms. Stern has offered to work with us on some bipartisan legislation. I know that with the relationship you and I have, we can find common ground to deal with this issue in this committee, and hopefully in the Congress, to move forward both policy-wise and dollar-wise to help deal with this terrible challenge in front of us.
Let me start with the questioning. Ms. Stern, first of all, let me ask you a question about the comments by GAO investigators and Russian Duma and civilian officials, not just General Lebed, who have told us the Russian military and the Ministry of Atomic Energy, are forbidding American inspectors access to nuclear dismantle element and storage sites and detailed records.
Is that true and do we need more access? Do we need to impress upon the Russians that we need more access to sites where nuclear materials and records are in fact kept?
Ms. STERN. I no longer work with the administration.
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Mr. WELDON. When you did work, then, let me ask you that question.
Ms. STERN. I am quite certain we need more access. I don't know about the details that you are referring to. We certainly need more access. On the other hand, as you know, we are working together, our national laboratories are working together with the Russians at some 40 sites throughout the former Soviet Union. So apparently we are getting access at least in some places. I am just not familiar with the issue you are raising.
Mr. WELDON. There were many provocative segments of the book ''One Point Safe'' that I read. I couldn't put the book down, so I read it all in one sitting, because a lot of these issues I have been focused in the past 5 or 6 years, and they are all right there, the potential of a SS–25 getting out, the accelerometers and the gyroscopes that went from Russia to Iraq, the leakage of technology associated with the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran and the possibility of helping the Iranians build nuclear weapons. All of these issues are right there and the documentation is very real.
But one of the items that struck me the most has to do with my concerns about our current relationship with Russia. The administration has expressed shock and outrage that the Russian space agency may have, in fact, been involved or may be involved now with the transfer of technology to Iran for medium-range missiles, the variant of the SS–4, and the Israelis, as you know, are very concerned about this latest revelation, and Mr. Netanyahu has been raising this repeatedly publicly. I, quite frankly, wasn't surprised.
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To be honest with you, I really wasn't surprised with what General Lebed told us in May, and Mr. Pickett was in the meetings, I might add. He made some very provocative statements, only one of which was detailed by the media, and that was the nuclear suitcase devices.
The reason why I wasn't really surprised is over the past 5 years, perhaps even the last decade, our policy with Russia has been based on bilateral arms control agreements and multilateral arms control agreements like the MTCR, the Missile Technology Control Regime.
It is my reading of the MTCR that on at least seven consecutive occasions since 1993, where we have knowledge of violations of the MTCR by Russia, we have not imposed any sanctions. In fact, I was in Moscow a month after the Washington Post reported the story on the accelerometers and the gyroscopes, and I asked Ambassador Pickering what the response of the Russians was. He said, ''Congressman, we haven't asked them yet.'' I said, ''Why haven't you asked them?'' He said, ''That has to come from Washington.''
I came home and wrote to President Clinton the last week of January. He wrote back to me the first week of April and said, ''We still don't have enough information.''
Now, at that time we had the acceleromoters and the gyroscopes in our hands. The Jordanian and Israeli intelligence community, as you know, intercepted these devices, and in fact I showed two of them at the Science Committee hearing last week, and I will show them here in our committee during the course of this year.
But, again, we did not take aggressive action, even though we had the evidence of a violation of the MTCR. So I think our lack of requiring adherence to the MTCR is one problem, and I think it sends the wrong signal.
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I don't want to embarrass Boris Yeltsin any more than Bill Clinton or Strobe Talbot want to embarrass him, but sometimes you have to stand up and say this is violation and you either amend the way we impose sanctions, which I am willing to do, and Henry Sikolski has come up with some novel ideas of making changes to the use of sanctions, or you basically don't have an arms control process. It is just not valid.
The second problem I have is that my own concern is the bully pulpit has been used to convey the message and the signal to the American people that Russia is no longer a threat. Let me tell you why, and then I will give you one example.
On 140 occasions on college campuses and 3 State of the Union speeches, the President has made that speech where he said America no longer has to worry about the threat of long-range Russian ICBM's. We know he cannot verify that, and we know if he could, you can retarget an offensive missile in 30 seconds.
But when the Commander in Chief says that 140 times, and, by the way, I have put them all in the Congressional Record, the location and date of each, when you say it 140 times, you drive home the impression among my colleagues, our colleagues, and in this country, that we no longer have to worry, everything is OK.
My third concern is perhaps my more serious concern, and that is whether or not there has been a deliberate attempt to sanitize intelligence information pertaining to the threat, not just from Russia, but from other nations. And to that I want to refer to the book and the chapter on you, Ms. Stern, and one particular quote where you are talking about Jay Stewart, who I know very well, who came to me 2 years ago in a very private way as a 19-year career employee of the intelligence service, who received the highest award from the intelligence service, who was responsible for the Russian fission program, and who told me that after he briefed Manfred Warner, who at that time was in charge of NATO, about what he saw as an emerging threat from Russian nuclear materials, and after Manfred Warner sent a cable back to the State Department in Washington expressing his concern and expressing the sense that Jay should brief all the NATO countries, and after Hazel O'Leary initially expressed her concern, then something happened, and all of a sudden Jay's shop was no longer needed and the entire Russian fission program, in Jay's mind and opinion, was disintegrated.
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In fact, in the book, and I am going to ask you to comment on any knowledge you have of this, because your quote in here is, ''There is politically correct intelligence and politically incorrect intelligence. This was politically incorrect intelligence.''
Now, I don't want to characterize what you were saying, but it comes right after your discussion of conversations with Notra Trulock, and Jay Stewart and the Russian fission program, and whether or not there had been a deliberate attempt to perhaps not have the information being prepared and being worked through the process by Jay Stewart and that whole operation, that it was basically, in effect, I will use the word ''dumbed down'' or ''compromised.''
In fact, in the book it mentions, and I would also ask you if you have any knowledge of this, that the authors interviewed an individual who actually shredded all of the documentation associated with the 2-day conference on Russian fission, as well as all the video material, including speeches by senior administration, former administration officials, on the emerging threat from the lack of adequate control on Russian nuclear material.
Now, this was 2 years ago. Would you comment on that, please?
Ms. STERN. My first comment is that I agree with you, that Russia remains very much a threat. I think the irony is that, right now we are more threatened by Russia's weakness than its strength. And that applies in the area of nuclear materials security, but also Russia's inability to control parts of its government, as well as individual companies. And of course degradation in command and control, launch on warning. These are very, very serious problems.
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Now on to the more difficult question. At the time that those conversations took place that you are referring to, I was a graduate student. I was the lowest possible, imaginable man on the totem pole. I was so low on the totem pole that no one would have noticed me. I, in fact, was not aware of this broader—the broader problem on the Russian fission project. I actually learned about this from the book.
As for the videotapes, I have no firsthand knowledge. But I have been told that most of those videotapes are in fact in someone's basement, and I have also been told that a few of them were burned. And I just don't feel it would be appropriate for me to reveal the names of those parties.
Mr. WELDON. Let me ask you about the specific quote here. ''There is politically correct intelligence and politically incorrect intelligence.'' I don't want to put you on the spot, but this is at the very heart of really what our—what I see as the third problem, that, you know, when we have—and I have all the confidence in our analysts, but what I see is when information rises to a certain level, all of a sudden that is not consistent with what the end policy is, that somehow we don't want to acknowledge that information. That bothers me, because I think both the administration and the Congress need to have unsanitized information that is not already predetermined by someone's policy objective at the end.
I will say it again, I have the exact, identical policy objective as Bill Clinton and Strobe Talbott. I want Boris Yeltsin to succeed, I want democracy to succeed, and I work at it every day. But I don't want to ignore situations that are occurring where our intelligence agencies are telling us things, and that information is then not allowed to reach the appropriate levels of policymakers to understand and then make decisions. That is why I asked the question as to what you mean by politically correct intelligence and politically incorrect intelligence.
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Ms. STERN. Well, I think in this particular case, I think that there was a concern that it would be detrimental to our policy for us to be looking into centrifugal forces in Russia. And I would have to agree with you. I think that perhaps, perhaps we would have been better prepared for Chechnya had this kind of analysis been taken more seriously. Luckily, there appears to have been no nuclear—significant nuclear assets in the region, but nonetheless, I think it would have been better had we been better prepared for that event.
Mr. WELDON. Let me ask either of you the question about, you know, the existence of these devices. Do either of you doubt that Russia, in fact, or the former Soviet Union, ever had these devices that I understand we even had in our country at one point in time? Do either of you doubt that? Do you doubt that, Ms. Gordon-Hagerty?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. It is difficult for me to say what the Russian nuclear——
Mr. WELDON. Do you train to deal with these devices? Do you train to respond to these kinds of devices?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. The answer to that question is yes, sir. We have a wide spectrum of scenarios in which we train in the inner agencies and this happens to be one of the scenarios against which we have trained extensively, for a full atomic demolition of a munitions-size nuclear device.
Mr. WELDON. Ms. Stern, do you doubt that Russia produced or had these devices, or has them now?
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Ms. STERN. I don't really have any information about it. If you ask what is my gut feeling, my gut feeling is that it is likely that they probably tried to develop them. I have heard contradictory reports. I have actually asked a number of senior Russian officials about these devices. Some have denied their existence, others claim they do exist, but I am not capable of judging who is telling the truth here.
Mr. WELDON. This is a very important point, because the official line coming out of Russia and out of the Ministry of Defense and the highest levels of the Kremlin are that Russia never had, never produced, and never possessed these kinds of devices. I would submit for the record two articles, one from Zavtra and the other from Rossiya in 1997 discussing Dudayev and the situation in Chechnya, and going into very specific detail—no mention of Lebed, obviously, at that time—about the existence of these devices in Russia. In fact, the one article goes into extensive detail in describing the operation, the size—there were two, actually two sizes—the size, the scope, the dimensions, the weight, every possible characteristic of these devices. These are Russian writings that were done, so I would enter these both into the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 71.]
Mr. WELDON. I think this is something that we are going to have to continue to face the Russians with. That is, we first of all have to acknowledge the existence of something before we can work together to resolve whether or not it is a problem. I plan to continue to do that with Russia in a positive way, because I want to work with them. I am not trying to back the country into a corner, but if these devices have existed or do exist, one, we have to know if they can be accounted for, and if they can be accounted for, we have to put our dollars up to help assist them in accounting for them and to protect from these devices being perhaps sold in the black market.
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Let me ask you a couple of questions, Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, and I will return to you, Ms. Stern. You talked about your interagency exercises. We appreciate the leadership role that you play in that. You briefed Members last Thursday, I guess it was, in a closed session on all the work that you do, and we appreciate that briefing.
How often do you have these exercises?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Mr. Chairman, we exercise on a routine basis with our interagency colleagues. In fact, to just to kind of give you an idea of how many exercises internally the Department of Energy is involved in in terms of combating nuclear terrorism, we have 79 exercises on the books for fiscal year 1998. Those exercises range from a table top, where internally our staffs get together and go over command and control procedures, to command post exercises, where the interagency gets together and resolves command and control and communications issues all the way through full field or FTX field training exercises, which could, in fact, have hundreds of people involved in those exercises. We do that on a routine basis.
Mr. WELDON. These are critically important, I would assume.
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Absolutely. In order for us to be at our top state of readiness, we need to train like we would fight, and so therefore we have to train on a regular basis. In fact, this is one of the areas where we probably could use your support in funding, since we have been underfunded significantly in the past.
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely.
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Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. These are not significant resources, either, sir.
Mr. WELDON. Let me ask you a question, Has the President of the United States ever participated in an exercise?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. To the best of my knowledge, sir, in the counterterrorism community, no, the President has not.
Mr. WELDON. Has the Vice President ever participated in an exercise?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. In a policy forum, sir, to the best of my knowledge he has not.
Mr. WELDON. How about the Secretary of Defense?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Sir, I can't speak for the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. WELDON. To your knowledge.
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. To the best of my knowledge, I have not witnessed the Secretary of Defense participating in a policy level interagency exercise, but I would strongly recommend that you ask the——
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Mr. WELDON. How about the Secretary of State?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Well——
Mr. WELDON. To your knowledge.
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. To my knowledge, I am unaware that the Secretary of State has ever participated in an interagency combating terrorism exercise.
Mr. WELDON. How about the Secretary of Energy?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. We have recently had a new Secretary of Energy, and he has not participated in a current terrorism exercise, terrorism exercise. However, he has participated recently in a nuclear weapon accident exercise, and participated personally.
Mr. WELDON. I have a high regard for him. He came in and before I went to Moscow on the trip I met with him for an hour. We had a good, frank discussion. I am not criticizing, I am just asking the questions for the record. How about the national security adviser? Has he ever participated in these exercises?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. I have not witnessed the participation of the——
Mr. WELDON. How about the deputy national security adviser? Has the deputy national security adviser ever participated in these exercises?
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Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Not to my knowledge has he participated in our interagency counterterrorism exercises.
Mr. WELDON. We all understand how busy our administration is and the President is, but I think we are talking about a very critical capability for this country.
How much time would it take to be involved in an exercise of the type that you conduct?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Depending on how much background information a principal would like from his staff, that would encompass a couple of hours of information. I would say we have participated in many interagency policy level exercises, and those exercises can be executed maybe in a couple of hours.
Mr. WELDON. Would it be productive, say, for the President to get involved, or would that be nonproductive?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. My opinion is that it would be extremely productive.
Mr. WELDON. So hopefully you would hope that Congress would encourage the President, then, to probably get involved in one of these, would you say 78 exercises? Is that the number you used?
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Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. That is the Department of Energy's. That is what we have on our mission training schedule for this year.
Mr. WELDON. The administration speaks in glowing terms about the commitment to combating terrorism and preparing to respond, but we have seen this issue before. We talk about an issue, but whether we put the money on the table, and I include the Congress in this, because this committee was not totally support of cooperative threat reduction, and I have to disagree with that, and I spoke repeatedly of it on the floor, and supported in Congress the full funding of the Senate position, because I think we need to continue to fully fund that initiative.
You have mentioned that we have not had any senior administration people involved in theses key exercises. Let us talk about budget requests, and whether or not we have backed up the requests that you have all given. We have said that terrorism is a major priority for us. We have heard that repeatedly. Let us ask about budget requests. What was the fate of that funding authorization, Ms. Gordon-Hagerty?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. My office requested an increase of $28 million in new resources, and we were provided with no new funding in the fiscal year 1997.
Mr. WELDON. OMB then cut that funding out?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. To the best of my knowledge, yes.
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Mr. WELDON. So the request was made based on the fact that your organization is responsible to respond to nuclear terrorist incidents in this country, and you requested $28 million, and that request never got beyond OMB? So obviously you have not been able to implement the plans that you had hoped to implement for this next fiscal year in terms of training and preparation; would that be correct?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes, sir.
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Pickett, I will let you ask some questions, and I will come back following your round.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, your agency comes within the Department of Energy.
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes.
Mr. PICKETT. What about the Department of Defense? Do they maintain any capability to deal with this kind of a threat, and do they have any organizations or units that are trained specifically and particularly to deal with these kinds of threats?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes, Congressman Pickett. The Department of Defense is probably our closest colleagues in terms of participating in exercises and planning. Special organizations within the U.S. Special Operations Command units participate regularly and interact with us regularly on combating weapons of mass destruction. There are other elements also within the Department of Defense that also provide support to these major initiatives.
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Mr. PICKETT. Can you give us any idea of the magnitude of this effort in the Department of Defense, from the number of personnel involved compared to how many in the Department of Energy are involved?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes. First of all, from the Department of Energy, the personnel that support the counterterrorism programs, nuclear counterterrorism programs, number in the hundreds. However, it should be realized that the people that participate and are actually the people that would go out to disable a nuclear device are part and parcel of the nuclear weapon program or the nuclear weapon complex. These are physicists, engineers, weapon designers that actually on a day-to-day basis are supporting the maintenance of our nuclear weapon stockpile. They provide us with a very small portion of their time to combat terrorism, so their salaries are paid for out of the AEDA account, the atomic energy defense activities account. I rarely get their time on a voluntary basis. I pay for their exercises and their operational training and so on and so forth. So really, the budget that we provide is for operations and training, research and development. That budget is about $38 million a year, all told, for that program. Again, those numbers are in the hundreds, but again, I get a very small portion of their time.
In the Department of Defense the numbers also total in the hundreds. I can't discuss with you in this unclassified forum exactly which organizations in the Department of Defense we work with, but we would be pleased to provide that to you in a closed session.
Mr. PICKETT. All right.
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Have you had an opportunity to review the GAO report that was prepared recently about the ability to respond to nuclear disasters of various kinds?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Actually, we had a significant role in supporting the GAO study on that. I did see the final draft version. However, I believe it was just released today. I have not seen the final copy out, but if it is similar to the final draft, yes, I have seen that.
Mr. PICKETT. And based on what is disclosed in that report, what is your assessment of the capability of our Nation to deal with the terrorist threat insofar as nuclear or other kinds of weapons of mass destruction are concerned?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Congressman Pickett, given the limited resources under which we are all operating, I would say we have a very formidable combating terrorism capability in this U.S. Government to deal with acts of nuclear terrorism or chemical and biological terrorism. I witness the plans and procedures and exercises and training and the interagency congeniality on a daily basis. It is my impression that the interagency itself is a very finely honed and well-tuned organization. In fact, this is probably one of the few interagency working groups in the executive branch that works well. There are no parochial interests, everything is dropped at the door, baggage is dropped at the door, and we work towards one end, which is to combat weapons of mass destruction, terrorism. We have a very good, good and responsive capability. I think it continues to be enhanced. And those resources are not in the billions, they are actually probably, and I can speak for my colleagues sufficiently to say that it is in the tens of millions of dollars to increase substantially the capabilities of the U.S. Government to combat all forms of terrorism.
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Mr. PICKETT. The enhancement is an issue I wanted to get at just a little bit. How long have you been working in this kind of program, the terrorist defense kind of program, in the Department of Energy?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. I originally started out in 1986 in plutonium operations at Livermore, so I can safely say that I have been in the nuclear weapon complex since at least June 1986. I spent a couple of years here on the Hill, I will leave that for your decision, but with the Department of Energy I have been in defense programs working on combatting terrorism since December 1991.
Mr. PICKETT. During this period of time, have you seen the programs in our Nation expand, become more capable, more proficient, more able to deal with the threat that has been defined?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes, sir, absolutely.
Mr. PICKETT. Can you quantify that in any way for this committee as to whether it is a marginal improvement, a significant improvement? Does it measure up to the kind of capability that someone from the outside assessing this could say that the identified threat is adequately dealt with by the available resources?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. In relative terms, sir, I would say since 1991, I would say we have overcome odds of magnitude increasing our capabilities to respond to weapons of mass destruction. However, I think we have a ways to go, but we are working on a daily basis to ensure that we are constantly increasing and enhancing our capabilities across the board in the U.S. Government to combat terrorism.
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Mr. PICKETT. My final question has to do with these I think they call them the suitcase nuclear devices, whatever that conjures up, that has been referred to. I was present in the meeting when General Lebed did make reference to these devices. Somewhere I have read material, and I don't recall at the moment where, that any nuclear device of this type requires constant and careful maintenance in order for it to retain its lethality. I don't know, I am not enough of a physicist to tell you why that is necessary or what happens if this maintenance is not performed, but can you tell us if that is true, and what may be the consequences if these devices go unattended to?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Certainly, sir. If these devices in fact do exist, the maintenance and upkeep are critical for any nuclear weapons system.
In my dual role capacity, at the present time, I am the Acting Director of Nuclear Surety for the U.S. Government's nuclear weapons stockpile, so I can tell you from a firsthand standpoint that it is important to maintain safety and security of nuclear weapons stockpiles, whether they are from the United States Government stockpile or Russian stockpile.
From a lethality standpoint, and again, from a health and safety standpoint, we certainly adhere to the strictest health and safety requirements for our own personnel that are around nuclear weapons.
Mr. PICKETT. Let's suppose for a moment that there are some existing that have been built elsewhere, and there are only so many ways you can go about constructing these devices. If they are out there and they are not being serviced and properly taken care of, what are the consequences? Do they simply lose their effectiveness? They cannot be detonated, or they become more volatile? There is a larger danger? What are the consequences of not taking the appropriate maintenance care of these devices, assuming they exist?
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Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Assuming they exist, there are a wide variety of different scenarios that you have posed that I could address.
They may or may not—should they be used for their intended use, or deployed for their intended use, they may or may not detonate, and to the design basis yield to which they were designed. You may have spread of plutonium contamination in the immediate area which could conceivably, long term, lead to health effects of the people that are in the local area of the devices. But again, that is if they are not properly maintained and cared for.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Pickett.
Mr. Spratt.
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
One of the witnesses from Lawrence Livermore says that the method of control begins at the source, and I agree. But there is a fundamental beginning point, and that is the establishment of a database: nuclear materials, nuclear weapons components, a huge inventory of what has actually been amassed over the last 40 to 50 years.
About 6 or 7 years ago, we passed legislation, which I sponsored, which would have allowed the Secretary of Energy the authority to exchange information about nuclear materials in this country with Russia and the other nuclear powers; primarily Russia, however. We made a tender offer. The Secretary actually unilaterally lifted the veil on quite a bit of data about the United States.
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To what extent have we been able to extract from the Russians a comparable database of all the nuclear materials, nuclear components that they have amassed, and one that would also identify their current location?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. That is outside the scope of my direct responsibilities, but I would be happy to provide that to you for the record.
Mr. SPRATT. Don't you think it ought to be in the scope of your responsibilities? Shouldn't you be factored into that somewhere, if you are in charge of nuclear surety?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes, sir. I agree with that comment. I am not, though, on the nonproliferation side of the house or the transparency side of the house that deals with the materials protection control and accountability side. However, I am directly involved in hearing the results of the information provided by the Russians.
Mr. SPRATT. Now, you have not addressed this in your testimony, but some years ago we had a commission called the Drell Commission which was composed of Sid Drell and Johnny Foster and Dr. Towns. They made two comprehensive reports about the security of our own nuclear weapons that went to their design, that location, the amounts in which they were handled, transportation. Was that within the purview of your responsibility?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Yes, sir.
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Mr. SPRATT. To what extent are you tracking, following, and carrying out the Drell Commission recommendations?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. We are tracking very closely the Drell Commission recommendations in upgrades to our safety and security and use control of our nuclear weapons, and many of the recommendations that the Drell panel put in or recommended are currently in place.
Mr. SPRATT. Let me give you just one particular example. Down at Kings' Bay, when they replace a warhead on a D–5, there is a bullnose in the tip of the warhead, the tip of the cone. We simply pick it up by the bull head. The Brits move the missile into the silo and then move the nuclear devices separately. It was recommended that we seriously consider using the British method of putting D–5's in Trident silos, as opposed to the method we had used for some time, because of the inherent dangers of possibly dropping a D–5 missile, which does not have IHE, it has HE.
Has anything been done along those lines?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. We have performed significant upgrades to the D–5, and what I can do for you, sir, is provide specifically what the Navy has proposed on how to institute that Drell panel recommendation.
Mr. SPRATT. I would like a general review, because we are focused on the Russians, but we have a lot of nuclear materials loose in this country, too; not loose, but nevertheless, they are scattered across the continent. They are moved, they are transported, they are handled, and there are ways that we could have enemies which penetrate our own system and cause havoc.
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Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. I would be pleased to provide for the committee, for the subcommittee, an update on where the Drell panel recommendations sit.
Mr. SPRATT. Thank you very much, indeed.
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. You are welcome.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Spratt.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 131.]
Mr. WELDON. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Turner.
Mr. TURNER. I just had one inquiry that I wanted to make of Director Gordon-Hagerty. It always seems to impress me as to how many agencies of Government we always have dealing with any given problem. Here, in the area that you are delegated, you also have responsibilities within the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and I am sure I have missed a few.
What kind of effort is made on a continuing basis to coordinate and to meet with people in these other agencies who have an overlapping responsibility with your agency for nuclear terrorism?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Congressman Turner, we have a very strong and efficient and very tight-knit interagency coordination mechanism that we use in the interagency on a regular basis, almost daily. I speak with my colleagues in the interagency mostly from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense.
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Certainly the intelligence community plays a vital role in supporting operations, in combating terrorism operations. Again, we have a very strong and tight-knit interagency community. We focus on the objective, which is to accomplish the mission. We have interagency working groups on combating terrorism for exercises for intelligence and for other areas, training and exercises, training and readiness. So we do interact on a very routine basis.
Mr. TURNER. List for me the agencies that you are talking about that would be part of those working groups.
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. The Department of State has a responsibility overseas, so they would be the lead Federal agency in interacting with the host nation should a nation request assistance. The FBI has lead Federal agency responsibilities within the United States for their law enforcement activities, as well as for coordination of other Federal agencies. The Department of Energy would provide the technical response to nuclear terrorism acts. The Department of Defense would provide formidable capabilities in using their special mission units out of the U.S. Special Operations Command and other entities. The FBI, intelligence. I am sorry, I forgot to mention the FBI's responsibilities for domestic intelligence. The EPA, Environmental Protection Agency. Public Health Service provides medical assistance. FEMA provides consequence management direction. Those are some of the major agencies that participate and play a vital role in the interagency responsibilities.
Mr. TURNER. Did you mention the CIA?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. The CIA oversees for intelligence matters, yes, sir.
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Mr. TURNER. So you have regular meetings with all of these agencies on a regular, ongoing basis?
Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. We don't have regularly scheduled meetings. However, we do have meetings routinely to discuss matters, whether they are training and readiness or whether they are real world matters, yes.
Mr. TURNER. Thank you. That is all the questions I have.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, sir.
Just a couple of followup questions.
Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, you discussed the shortfalls in the program where you perhaps could use some additional resources. For the record, if you could give us a list of what those shortfalls are, and in particular I am extremely concerned about the involvement of the local emergency response community. I work with this group nationwide, and too often they are overlooked, and we fail to realize, if there is an incident in America the first responder is not going to be the Department of Defense, it is not going to be the National Guard, it is not going to be FEMA, it is going to be the 1.2 million men and women who serve in 32,000 organizations across the Nation, 85 percent of them volunteers, who are going to be called to an incident.
We worked hard to get some initial funding support for the chemical-bio response teams with those groups. Are we doing anything in the nuclear area with them?
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Ms. GORDON-HAGERTY. Mr. Chairman, I can appreciate your comments because we agree with you wholeheartedly. It is going to be the first responder on the site when something is either detonated or there is a terrorist or an adversary out there with a nuclear, chemical, or biological device. We think it is imperative that the first responder be adequately trained and prepared to respond to such an incident.
Unfortunately, in the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici domestic preparedness legislation of last year, the Department of Energy received no resources to provide nuclear emergency response training and preparedness for the first responders. However, in my program I do have a $2.1 million radiological assistance program. Those are eight regional coordinating centers located around the United States, and for the past 30 years we have been providing first responder training to State and local authorities. So we do have a very good relationship established throughout the United States. That being said, I had to basically use the money currently directed for other priorities or other programs to commit to supporting the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici domestic preparedness program. We are, without fail, training the first responders in responding to a nuclear emergency. Again, any types of resources, new resources, that you would be able to assist us with, we are looking on the order of $4 million total. That would be the tried and true training package that we have developed over many, many years, and that would only enhance the already existing capabilities and the training programs that we have with first responders.
Mr. WELDON. I appreciate that. I would ask you for the record to identify other shortfall areas where additional funding is needed, especially that $28 million you did not get that OMB cut out, as a priority. But I commit to you that we will work to assist you getting the funds for the local emergency response training.
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[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 136.]
Mr. WELDON. In the chem-bio training that is taking place, and I went to two of their exercises, one was in Philadelphia with the medical community, the FEMA-Army effort is aimed at the largest cities. I think it is 25 the first year and then 127 the second year.
I happen to think that is important, but the cities are not the only area where this kind of disaster will occur. We need to make sure that we are not just focusing on the cities, but every—and I have had some disagreements with the administration over this, but the natural training process for emergency responders in this country is not through our big cities, because in all of our big cities they are paid firefighters. No volunteer fire department goes to a center city training program. They are not invited.
The way we train emergency responders in this country is through the State fire marshal, and each of the States have a training center. So as you look at ways to train emergency responders, I would ask that you not just look at the FBI program, which is aimed at the big cities, because that is where they have the stats and that is where they think the incident will occur. That is important, but it is not important to the extent that we overlook the other 1 million people. Because there are only 200,000 paid fire and EMS people in the country. Another 1 million are all volunteers. You don't reach them through the cities.
There is a requirement that you bring in the surrounding areas of the cities, but I can tell you from talking to people that have been involved it is not working very well. We need to have that effort also focused at the State training centers for these fire and EMS personnel. I would just ask you to consider that as you look to establishing your funding priorities.
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I would commit to you, as we did to Ms. Stern, we want both of you to help us draft legislation. We will make that a top priority. I have discussed it with the Speaker. I know that Members on both sides of the aisle would join together, because this is a bipartisan issue, and it should be our highest priority. If we are going to put the words out there in terms of the threat, we have to put the dollars up on the table to make sure we give you the resources to identify, deal with, control, and then respond to and prepare for these incidents if they in fact happen. You have been very gracious with your time.
Ms. Stern, you are an outstanding witness, as was Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, and we appreciate the role you have played. I hope that you will continue to serve this country in some capacity, because you have so much to offer us. And so I hope that wherever your future lies, I hope it is in the service of our country to help us understand and deal with these terrible situations.
Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, I know you are going to continue to serve where you are. Maybe we just get you a few more promotions and you can maybe run the agency, eventually. Thank you for being here, and with that we will call up our next panel.
While we are bringing them up, I remind our colleagues that the hearing tomorrow will not only include Alexei Yablokov, who is right now in the plane on the way here, but I have just been informed that Senator Lugar will be here, and he, too, will share his feelings at our hearing about the Nunn-Lugar program and about steps we could be taking to deal with this issue.
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In addition, at the hearing that will be held at the end of October with General Lebed, we will also have the authors of the book ''One Point Safe,'' Andrew and Leslie Coburn, and there are a number of issues that we can get involved with with the Coburns. I would encourage Members who are here and staff members who are here representing Members, that they encourage their Member to read this book prior to the October hearing, because there are a number of areas that I think our colleagues will want to pursue.
Mr. WELDON. We welcome our next panel, and we apologize again for making you wait. You are all extremely busy and very important. We are very happy to have this very distinguished panel here, which includes Judge William Webster, chairman of the global organized crime project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Frank Cilluffo, director of the Russian organized crime task force at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Gentlemen, your statements will be entered into the record.
We invite you to make whatever verbal comments you like. Welcome and thank you for being here today.
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM H. WEBSTER, CHAIRMAN, GLOBAL ORGANIZED CRIME PROJECT, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. WEBSTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the opportunity to be here. The invitation came yesterday after the announcement of the publication of our book, so we do not have prepared statements.
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Mr. WELDON. Can we enter your document in the record? Is that OK?
Mr. WEBSTER. Certainly, please.
Mr. WELDON. Without objection.
Mr. WEBSTER. That will be my statement.
I would like to say for the record that the Center for Strategic and International Studies since 1993 has been engaged in a project to understand the implications and impact of global organized crime. We are divided into task forces, some seven of them in number. The first task force released its publication last year on the black market of nuclear weapons and weapons material. In a sense that ties in, to the one just released on Russian organized crime.
There is nothing of a hot button nature that has not been discussed in one form or another through the last several years, going back, I recall, to President Gorbachev saying that organized crime was the major problem for him in the Soviet Union. But it does aggregate, I think, in a very meaningful way what is taking place in the Republic of Russia, what kind of organized crime is being exported to other countries, including the United States, how it links up and interfaces with drug cartels and other forms of organized crime throughout the world, and the potential, of course, for the subject that you have been discussing this afternoon.
We have listed a number of findings, the most serious of which is that the Government of Russia has been increasingly unable to deal with the growth of organized crime, massive organized crime organizations, which are consolidating and increasing their impact and ability to corrupt institutions of government, including not only political institutions but military institutions.
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The recommendations are summarized also in the book, and the most important of which I believe is that, first and foremost, efforts must be made to provide for an effective system, rule of law, if you wish to call it that, an independent judiciary, the ability to enforce the laws that are on the books with courage and independence before that aspect of the governmental process is totally subverted.
The second thing is the need for more interagency understanding of the problem and more interagency cooperation here in the United States.
The third would be the necessity of our agencies expanding the levels of cooperation with counterparts in Russia and elsewhere, consistent with our ability to work with institutions of uncertain corruptibility. These three recommendations I think constitute it. I have given you a broad brush. More details are expressed in the report.
I have had the pleasure of working with our project director, Arnaud de Borchgrave, on our entire project. He is very well informed. The project director of the task force, which is, incidentally, chaired by Jerry Burke, former deputy director of NSA, is Frank Cilluffo, who is here at the table with me. If I may, I will turn this part of our presentation over to Mr. de Borchgrave.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 150.]
Mr. WELDON. Welcome. It is a pleasure to have you here, an honor.
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STATEMENT OF ARNAUD de BORCHGRAVE, DIRECTOR, GLOBAL ORGANIZED CRIME PROJECT, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. DE BORCHGRAVE. Thank you. I think it might be helpful, since I was a foreign correspondent for almost half a century, sir, and covering Soviet affairs and what they were up to around the world, to remind ourselves of the culture that conditioned these people when they deny things. Under Soviet rule, to tell the truth to Westerners was considered the height of stupidity, whereas to lie and to lie convincingly was considered a sign of intelligence. I just thought that might be helpful in understanding these denials given the topic your hearings are addressing.
I don't know if you are aware, Mr. Chairman, but there has been an open letter from General Lebed today. Have you received that?
Mr. WELDON. I heard. I have not seen it. Perhaps you could refer to it for us.
Mr. DE BORCHGRAVE. Very well.
He says:
The letter was submitted, Mr. Chairman, to U.S. congressional hearings on nuclear terrorism, control of nuclear weapons, and Russian organized crime, and was made public this morning at hearings held by Chairman Gilman in the Committee on International Relations, where we testified.
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I don't have any prepared remarks, because like Judge Webster, I was asked to do this at very short notice. But I think we should bear in mind that many of the recommendations that you heard on the previous panel are incorporated in our nuclear black market report, which also came under the aegis of the global organized crime project. It was released last June.
It was the first of seven reports, and the underlying assumption was that the nuclear horse is out of the Russian barn. The recommendations were incorporated in the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of last year. And I think we should also remind ourselves of what 17 Russian generals and admirals visiting this country in 1994, what they said when they were asked to grade on a scale of 1 to 10 the chances of nuclear migration, as it was delicately phrased at the time, the chances of nuclear migration from Russia to a Middle Eastern country, one being highly unlikely, 10 being highly likely. And all 17 of these admirals and generals graded it as a 10; what John McLaughlin might call metaphysical certitude.
Insofar as the Russian organized crime report is concerned, you might be interested to know that this morning President Yeltsin through his spokesperson said that this was a ploy to undermine Russia's application for full membership in the World Trade Organization. Now, this is kind of interesting, because just a week ago today President Yeltsin told the Upper House of the Duma, and I quote,
Criminals have today brazenly entered the political arena and are dictating its laws, helped by corrupt officials. They can penetrate everywhere unless the whole of society, from top to bottom, joins in an effort to eradicate this scourge. Our policy will be very tough on this front.
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Well, this was Mr. Yeltsin's seventh crackdown in 6 years against organized crime and corruption. Three years ago it was President Yeltsin himself who said that his country, the Russian Federation, 150 million people, over 20,000 nuclear warheads, was the biggest mafia state in the world, the superpower of crime that is devouring the state from top to bottom.
Grigory Yavlinsky, as you know, the leader of the Yabloko party, was here last week. Again, I would like to quote what he had to say:
A corrupted system of criminal power has been established in Russia and now poses the main threat to the economy, and not a single widely publicized murder has been successfully investigated in Russia over the last 5 years. So he says what we need is a political will, rather than the criminal code, to break the stranglehold of crime and corruption.
I will leave it there, Mr. Chairman, and I am ready for your questions.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cilluffo.
STATEMENT OF FRANK J. CILLUFFO, DIRECTOR, RUSSIAN ORGANIZED CRIME TASK FORCE, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. CILLUFFO. Thank you.
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First, I would like to note that organized crime and corruption are not unique to Russia, of course, but what is unique is the fact that they are a nuclear superpower, and instability coinciding with nuclear weapons can lead to a lethal combination, as we well know.
I also think it is important to recognize that our report looks at Russian organized crime as more than simply a law enforcement challenge. It does not fit into a neat little paradigm, as did the American Cosa Nostra and a number of other conventional crime families.
This phenomenon endangers the still fragile reform and democratization process in Russia. It fosters uncertainty and instability in nuclear security and safeguard issues, and while Russian exports of legitimate goods have remained stagnant, the export of crime continues to flourish. Currently, they have formed alliances with their criminal counterparts in 50 countries, 200 large organizations, 26 cities in the United States.
It must be perceived as a national security priority, as we have all referenced here, but we need to truly bring to bear all of our government's multidisciplinary assets. We simply cannot afford to be asleep at the switch. The stakes are obviously too high.
To put it into perspective, the stranglehold on Russian crime in Russian society is immense. Crime is truly usurping the state's authority to resolve legal disputes. Unable to depend on overburdened courts or corrupt courts, one is forced to turn to crime groups, or kryshas, rooftops, for adjudication. The criminals, on the other hand, do brutally enforce their own criminal code, settling everything from parking tickets to major business disputes.
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Once ingrained into the Russian ethos, this cannot be eradicated overnight. That is precisely why our report stresses the need to support a process, as opposed to individuals. An independent judiciary insulated from corruption and politics is crucial. This is not an issue of simply more laws on the books, it is an issue of professionalizing a bureaucracy and an issue of political will.
The fiscal crisis in Russia, of course, is undermining urgent maintenance of nuclear command systems and is weakening security and safeguards of nuclear weapons.
A former army general and current Duma member, whom you referenced earlier, General Rokhlin, recently stated that the Russian strategic nuclear forces were nearing extinction for want of funds for maintenance. Both officers and ranks are unpaid, unfed, and unhappy. In this atmosphere the prospect for a criminal diversion of nuclear materials or an unauthorized and perhaps even an accidental nuclear weapons launch is at an all-time high, in my eyes; perhaps not as apocalyptic of a threat as it used to be, but the likelihood of a nuclear event is greater today than it was during the cold war.
That said, it is obvious that Russian MPC&A, or materiels protection control and accountability, should be a national priority. It should not be perceived as charity, but rather to enhance our own safety. It is in the world's interest to assure that Russian facilities and weapons are secure at the source itself. It makes sense for all the reasons we have heard earlier today. Preventing, deterring, and in my eyes compelling terrorism, which is a subject for a different time, different place, especially WMD terrorism or weapons of mass destruction terrorism, must be a national priority and foremost national security priority.
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Revamping our national capability, and we heard from Ms. Gordon-Hagerty that we do have quite a robust capability in terms of neutralizing and rendering WMD devices safely, is critical. But should prevention fail—and we must not forget that neutralization is based upon timely intelligence and warning, which we may not get—unfortunately, prevention may not always be possible, or may currently be too late, as we stressed in our first report.
Though another issue, I think it is imperative to recognize the chem-bio threat, which in terms of likelihood is probably greater than nuclear. In terms of infrastructure, you don't need a major infrastructure. Procurement or production is not too difficult, expensive; multiple methods for delivery, few signatures to provide early warning. This is something that should also be given a lot of attention. And I know, Mr. Chairman, that you are focusing on this issue. I think it is imperative to empower our States, as you referenced, to relook at or reexamine how we perceive national security, so at the State and local level and at the first responder level we are able to deal with not just the neutralization issue, but most importantly, the consequence management issue, mitigating the deadly effects. And I think that publicly exercising such a capability would serve as a good deterrent in and of itself.
That said, I think Nunn-Lugar-Domenici must be sustained through the out years. Funding is absolutely critical. I would also argue that it must remain within the Department of Defense, as our executive agent.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you. I thank all three of you for outstanding testimony and outstanding effort that will be very beneficial to Congress. I can tell you, the recommendations you have both for the Russians and for us will be seriously considered, and we will provide perhaps some follow-up dialog and get your advice on what we can do legislatively and administratively to help implement the recommendations you have given for the American side.
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I want to for a moment just clarify the circumstances surrounding the Lebed meeting, because the media has misstated what actually occurred both in America and Russia. Since the ''60 Minutes'' piece, the Russian media has just gone ballistic in reporting, as you know, this story. I get handed a list of Russian stories every day from both the print and the TV media all throughout Russia on the status of Lebed's comments and the follow-up comments by Yablokov and others.
First of all, Lebed did not seek us out. We were going to Moscow for the second trip, in my case, this year, because we were involved in the second phase of our interparliamentary exchange program. The Members that went with me, and there were seven of us all told, were there to involve ourselves in several days of meetings with Russian Duma members. We completed those.
While we were there, we met with senior Russian ministerial leadership, including the Ministers of Natural Resources, Minister Orlov, the Minister of Atomic Energy, Minister Mikhaylov, as I mentioned, the Deputy Minister of Defense, Kokoshin, and number two in the general staff, General Manilov. We also met with Boris Nemtsov. Our meetings were to talk about how we could work with Russia. In fact, we discussed the housing initiative with Boris Nemtsov and how important it was.
But we thought it also important, as members of the Security Committee, certainly in the case of Mr. Pickett and myself, to get Lebed's feel for what was happening in the military. We requested the meeting with Lebed and we met with him for about 2 hours in his office in a very low-key meeting. There was no media there. This was not Lebed's attempt to grandstand and get national media. This wasn't Lebed's attempt to try to create some, you know, scenario to promote himself in Russia. In fact, there were no media with us. There was no press conference, before, during, or after our meeting. In fact, the only way the American media picked up on the story was when I filed the trip report when we got back. They read the trip report, and one of the things Lebed said they picked up on. The producer from ''60 Minutes'' called me in August and said, we want to do a story on Lebed's comments to you.
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Now, Lebed made some other comments. I am glad you brought his letter out today, because he reinforced to us the problems of nuclear waste and the lack of Russia dealing with that. He mentioned specifically nuclear submarines rusting away in the ports up at Severodvinsk up in the Murmansk area. He mentioned the lack of ability to control and deal with the nuclear waste problem.
He mentioned the problems—and I want to get to this, because this ties in with what your report said—he mentioned the very real problem in the Russian military. He said to us, you know, Congressman, the most capable generals and admirals were forced out of the former Soviet military because of the downsizing. They were the first to leave. And when they left, many of these generals and admirals, who were the premier fighters and leaders, were not given their pensions, were not given housing, to house their families. They were basically brushed aside by their motherland and told to go fend for themselves.
In Lebed's mind, many of these more capable generals and admirals turned to criminal activities. In fact, in his mind, the more capable leadership of the former Soviet military are now involved in mafia and clandestine operations.
Do you share that observation of General Lebed?
Mr. DE BORCHGRAVE. Absolutely, sir. The information we have from people who recently returned from Moscow is that these weapons, these nuclear suitcases, so-called, were ordered up by the KGB in the 1970's, and have been under the control of the KGB ever since, which, of course, gives plausible deniability to the military authorities and the civilian authorities. The Defense Ministry can say, we don't have any such weapons. I personally happen to believe that they do have the equivalent of what we had and still have, the satchel charges. The purpose of the KGB in ordering them was in case of war, to go behind the lines and blow up vital installations with secret agents.
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I have absolutely no indication one way or the other, no proof one way or the other, that they do indeed exist, sir. But one thing we should bear in mind is what happened during the trial of Shoko Asahara, the leader of the Japanese Supreme Truth cult. They had accumulated assets of $1 billion. They had recruited 30,000 members in Russia, 10,000 members in Japan. They had accumulated chemical warfare agents. They were testing biological warfare agents on a big ranch northeast of Perth in Australia. And they had sent their top engineer, because they had recruited some highly educated people, their top engineer had gone to Russia 13 times for a total of 180 days. At the trial, a little notebook was produced which listed, one, listed the nuclear scientists that they had allegedly recruited in Russia, three, as I recall, and also the black market prices for nuclear materials and tactical nuclear weapons. I believe the price for the tactical nuclear weapon in this little notebook was $200 million.
Mr. CILLUFFO. Perhaps what is most alarming, Mr. Chairman, is that this group, the Aum Shinrikyo with over 10,000 followers in the Soviet Republics alone, was not even on our radar screen. The motives of such groups, warrant concern, they no longer want a seat at the negotiating table; they want to wreck the table and build a new one in its place. These are groups that are not even on our radar screen, and many of these groups are not state sponsored; determining vulnerabilities or leverage points that can be exploited, is exceedingly difficult. We need to take a more proactive stance, in my view.
Mr. WELDON. One of the things we are doing when we bring in the authors of the book, ''One Point Safe'', which is a nonfiction book, is to ask them to explain several incidents in their book relative to the existence of these devices. One part of the book references an attempt by a Baltic State KGB subgroup to buy one of these devices. Another example in the book documents Dudayev in Chechnya threatening the leadership in Moscow that he, in fact, had these small nuclear devices. And we took it so seriously, at least according to authors, that we sent over in a very clandestine manner CIA operatives who then got together with Russian intelligence operatives and went into Chechnya, actually looking to see and verify whether or not Dudayev did in fact have these devices, which we could not determine. But we have taken it seriously as a country, and when I look at this article that appeared in Zavtra and which I have put into the record here, 1995, and look at the last page, it documents in five paragraphs every detail about the size, the dimension, the capability, the activation of these devices that were built in Russia for a specific purpose. As you mentioned, that purpose was to be used for terrorism if someone would in fact take some action against the former Soviet Union.
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Now, Dr. Yablokov tomorrow when he comes in will be asked to respond to statements that he has made that he in fact talked to individual scientists who built these devices, and who told him they were being built under KGB orders. We have to get at the heart of that, because here is a senior Russian adviser who at one time was on Yeltsin's security council who has now said this on Russian TV, and is now coming over here to make I guess similar statements about his knowledge of the existence of these devices and what their import was.
Judge Webster, I do want to ask you one question before I turn to my friend and colleague, Mr. Pickett. As the former head of the CIA and the FBI, what are your thoughts on the value and importance of the President participating in key nuclear terrorism incidents? Is that something that he should get involved in?
Mr. WEBSTER. Are you referring to counterterrorism exercises, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely.
Mr. WEBSTER. It has always been my view that the leaders of government should be familiar with the techniques that are in place, especially the communication techniques that are in place, and to become familiar and comfortable with their role and their responsibility in responding to a particular terrorist incident.
Not every terrorist incident is going to require the presence of the President. Others will indeed require his presence, if only to communicate to the American people in truthful form what the situation is, so that they can take some comfort in knowing that the situation is being addressed.
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We currently have the electronic capability to keep the entire government involved in any important exercise. We also have these small groups. I have found that in the past, and I am not referring to the President, but political leaders, cabinet leaders and so forth, are sometimes reluctant to get involved. They are not entirely familiar, they are not entirely comfortable with these exercises. All it takes is a little exercising to become comfortable with what you do, but they don't want to look bad, and sometimes they send their deputies, sometimes they hear about it afterwards. I think we are all a little guilty of that.
It was following the first coup attempt in Nicaragua or in Panama that we put in place and started to utilize the equipment that was designed for the types of emergencies you are talking about, and in that way, we could communicate without sending for all the key policymakers and national security leaders, taking time to run to the White House. We could communicate, we could exercise. We have had similar exercises on imaginary terrorist events. I think they should understand the process. I think they should experience the process, and I certainly recommend that they take advantage of that opportunity before they have a real situation on their hands and they have to respond.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Judge. I would assume you would also be inclined to say that probably the Secretary of Defense and State and national security adviser also probably from time to time ought to get involved in these types of exercises.
Mr. WEBSTER. They do, they ought to, and it is my understanding at various times they have been involved. I think any new member coming on board should be sure that he is up to the state of the art methods for functioning and providing leadership.
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Sometimes we have confusion. We have people there who get in the way of a rapid response simply because they are unprepared and uninformed.
Mr. WELDON. The reason why I ask you that question is you heard the earlier testimony where we have not had that involvement, and I think it is important that does take place.
I was going to ask this question and forgot to ask her of the previous witness, but I will ask her to provide the answer for the record. My understanding is there have been not just tests but somewhere near 10 instances where we activated our NEST teams. For the record, I would like our former witness to answer that question for us so that this is not just a pie in the sky pipe dream we are talking about. These are real situations in fact that have occurred.
[The information referred to can be found in the appendix on page 139.]
Mr. WELDON. One final question, and perhaps, Judge, you don't want to ask this, but as the former head of the CIA and FBI I have to ask you, were you aware of the nuclear devices the Russians had?
Mr. WEBSTER. Not in specifics, Mr. Chairman, but I was aware of what we had.
Mr. WELDON. Did you assume the Russians had the same?
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Mr. WEBSTER. Yes, sir.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you. Mr. Pickett.
Mr. PICKETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have not had a chance, of course, to read your material here, but I thumbed through it quickly. It seems that at least this report does not equate the Russian organized crime with any kind of terrorist types of activities. Do you make a distinction between those two?
Mr. WEBSTER. If we fail to make the connection, I hope that we did. There are often accommodations of convenience, and we experience those here in this country and in Latin America and other parts of the world. The terrorist has a political objective. The organized criminal has another objective. Sometimes those two objectives can work well together.
We also have narco-terrorists and other issues of that kind where they are consolidated. But the Russian organized crime groups have the opportunity to provide equipment to terrorist organizations, to provide materials, for a price. The terrorists by other means have the ability to pay for it. So in that sense, terrorism looks to its underground sources for resources to carry out terrorist events on a massive scale. I think you will find some reference, I hope, that will be confirmatory of what I have just said.
Mr. PICKETT. OK.
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Mr. WEBSTER. May I say one more thing, because it is quoted in one of Tom Clancy's books if you are reading novels for information, and that is I have taken the position that terrorism is always criminal. For years we fought to get the United Nations, to get Interpol and others to recognize the criminal character rather than the political, solely the political character, and therefore to become engaged and to require cooperation among civilized nations.
So I certainly agree that terrorism is a criminal activity, but it is carried out for political purposes. The organized criminal is providing the means for a price.
Mr. PICKETT. I know all three of you are here today primarily related to this report, but earlier the question was asked of a previous witness today about the GAO report that recently has been released making an assessment of the United States' capability to respond to weapons of mass destruction, some kind of a threat in that regard.
Have you had an opportunity to review any part of that report or are you familiar with it?
Mr. WEBSTER. I have not had an opportunity, Mr. Pickett. Perhaps one of my colleagues has.
Mr. DE BORCHGRAVE. We conducted an exercise in conjunction with the National Defense University a year ago, Mr. Pickett, and the results of this exercise, Judge Webster played the role of director of the FBI, a role he was very familiar with, this will be published under the title ''Wild Atom'' about a month from now. But otherwise I am not familiar with the question you addressed to the Judge.
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Mr. PICKETT. Has the CSIS done work in the area of making any kind of assessment or evaluation of our Nation's capabilities to respond to terrorism focused on weapons of mass destruction, using weapons of mass destruction?
Mr. DE BORCHGRAVE. We have indeed, sir, with the nuclear black market report that we published last year and which I mentioned became the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act.
Mr. CILLUFFO. We have a separate task force looking at the changing face of terrorism. One of the main efforts of that is looking at consequence management, remedial planning, crisis management, and that is going to be covered in our task force on terrorism, as well as looking at not just WMD, but including infrastructure warfare and information warfare, where an attack upon a critical node or key asset could severely degrade and impact their economic and national securities. That will be coming out in different forms; two seperate task force reports.
Mr. WEBSTER. I am sure, Mr. Pickett, you are aware that there is a Center for Counterterrorism located at the Central Intelligence Agency and another domestic counterpart located at the FBI where they are becoming increasingly effective at coordinating overseas information with domestic information.
The United States, if you count pure numbers, has been very successful in reducing the number of terrorist incidents in this country over the last decade. When I came to the FBI in 1978, there were 100 terrorist events a year. They are down to just a few. In 1994, there were none. The difference is, and I am sure this is on your mind, the capacity of individual or group terrorists to inflict major damage because of the types of explosive devices that they can now produce, and if they don't know how, they just have to turn in on the Internet to learn a cookbook approach to this, which makes our fellow citizens very much ill at ease about the potential for danger. But in terms of actual response and intelligence, getting there before bombs go off, we are much better off than we were a decade ago.
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Mr. CILLUFFO. There was a study I was involved in for the Department of Defense. The Defense Science Board had a summer study, I believe its findings are classified, but you may want to get your hands on that study. It was on transnational threats. It did focus on largely terrorism, WMD terrorism, and honed in even more specifically on chem-bio, with bio what it really stressed. But I cannot comment for the record on that.
Mr. PICKETT. I know the thrust of what we are attempting to do through this committee is to try to make some assessment of what the threat is to our Nation's security as a result of this kind of terrorism. Second, whether or not our Government agencies are properly organized, equipped and prepared to deal with the threat we may identify.
Do you have any basis to form an opinion about the adequacy of our Nation's capabilities to respond to a terrorist threat at the present time, terrorist threats using weapons of mass destruction?
Mr. WEBSTER. My impression is that it is good and getting better. That is, our ability to interdict it. If you don't get there before it goes off, you have a response to a criminal event. If you are successful in getting there first or stopping it through one of the various other methods that are available to us, then you prevented a terrorist event, which is to me the primary objective of all of our agencies working together.
So that requires a capability to share classified information in a meaningful and effective way. Without meaning to alarm you, there are many ways once a nuclear device is put in place to booby trap the area and make it very difficult to get in to turn it off, to avoid it and subvert it. So it is very important that we keep our eyes and ears open and through very good counterintelligence, if you want to call it that, counterterrorist intelligence, and have the means to move quickly to prevent one of these events from happening.
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It does not make any sense to say we are good and getting better if we don't also say and we must keep on improving our capability.
Mr. DE BORCHGRAVE. The thrust of the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici amendment I mentioned a moment ago was to prepare our police and fire departments and health services to react to a nuclear biological or chemical terrorist incident.
Mr. CILLUFFO. I believe that we do have quite a robust capability currently, but, unfortunately, terrorism by definition extends the battlefield to incorporate all of society where we will inherently be vulnerable. It is the weapon of the weak, high leverage, low cost. The United States must do all it can to deter and compel, I think, that there is more we can be doing in the proactive sense in terms of recruiting nasty individuals, unfortunately, these are the types we will have to recruit, since these are hard targets. Terrorists don't frequent the cocktail circuit. Good people don't have insight on terrorist plans, their modus operandi. I also think it is crucial that we identify what our funding gaps and shortfalls are to be able to make that a little more robust. I was glad that was brought up today.
In the WMD arena, I think in terms of detection, there is a lot that can be done. Much of that would obviously be classified, but in terms of detecting chem-bio with unique sensors, there is quite a bit that can be done.
I think it is also a process issue. I truly believe that to be able to effectively respond after an incident has occurred, you truly do need to empower people at the State and local level, and these people need to have the training, the equipment, both in terms of antidote kits, personal protection equipment, detection capabilities, and there needs to be a fluid interagency process that somehow feeds the information down to people who do not have clearances. This is something that is important and it is not something that is insurmountable, but it will cost money.
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Who would have ''thunk'' Oklahoma City, yet that is what we have to deal with. Terrorism doesn't have boundaries, it knows no boundaries. I think that the bad guys learned from Desert Storm, who is going to take us on in a conventional sense, tank for tank. You would be ludicrous. The bad guys are going to adopt asymmetric tactics, both in terms of smaller nations, but also nonstate groups. They concern me even m