By Lt. Gen. Robert Gard

True to past form, John Bolton and Paula De Sutter authored an op-ed in the 15 August 2011 Wall Street Journal advocating withdrawal by the United States from the landmark INF Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, which entered into force on 1 June 1988. A treaty signed by the sainted President Ronald Reagan, no less.  Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the Treaty was extended to include the Soviet successor states.

This Treaty, with a highly intrusive and reliable verification regime, eliminated in slightly less than three years a total of 2,692 ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. These nuclear-armed missiles, deployed in the European theater by NATO and the Warsaw Pact, were ready for launch on short notice.  This obviously was an inherently unstable situation with the danger of an unauthorized or accidental launch that could escalate into an unintended nuclear war.

Even though they have condemned treaties in general for limiting U.S. flexibility and options, why would Bolton and De Sutter recommend that the U.S. should withdraw from such a mutually advantageous agreement? While it’s difficult to believe, their rationale is that other countries, including China, Iran, and North Korea, are deploying short and intermediate range missiles that could threaten U.S. forces.

In their view, this requires us to deploy ground-based missiles prohibited by the INF Treaty to provide a second strike deterrent capability. It is by no means clear why they believe that a deterrent to the employment of cruise and ballistic missiles against our troops must consist of mirror-image weapons systems when we have more than ample military capability that can serve the same purpose. Unless, of course, because this is simply a convenient if illogical excuse to free the U.S. from constraints on adding to our weapons arsenal by deploying short and medium range missiles.

Bolton and De Sutter implicitly dismiss any significant impact on relations with Russia of U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty by asserting that since Moscow has announced that it is no longer bound by the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, it is likely to take the same action with regard to the INF Treaty. So we should pre-empt?

What would Ronald Reagan say?

Image created by the Afghanistan Study Group.

Despite White House promises and a signed agreement to withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq by December 31, 2011, Pentagon Officials, such as Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,  have encouraged the Iraqi government to consider allowing a contingency force of roughly 10,000 U.S. troops to remain and train Iraqi security forces.

The Iraqi government would have to make a formal request for U.S. troops to stay past the deadline and President Talabani and Prime Minister Al-Maliki have agreed to begin negotiations.  But the verdict could tear the fragile government apart.  

Both Sunni and Shi’a blocs in the parliament have spoken out against the troop extension and have warned that it could incite further insurgent violence.  Muqtada Al-Sadr, an important Al-Maliki ally and former head of the Mahdi Army- turned politician, wants the U.S. out.  On his website, in Arabic and English, he wrote to U.S. forces, “[G]o back to your families who are waiting for your arrival impatiently, so that you and we, as well, lead a peaceful life together.”  However, if U.S. troops stay, Al-Sadr threatened to reunite his army, which caused much of the insurgent violence up to 2007, and target the “occupier.”

Pentagon officials have advocated  keeping a contingency force in Iraq because they fear that Iraqi security forces will be unable to maintain stability after U.S. withdrawal and will be unable or unwilling to quell what the Pentagon believes is Iran’s growing influence on Iraqi politics and the insurgency.  

By promoting a deadline extension in Iraq, Pentagon officials are ignoring the evidence that the U.S. presence is provoking an insurgency.   U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart Bowen Jr.,Bowen notes that attacks on U.S. troops by Shi’ite and Sunni militias and rocket attacks on the Green Zone in Baghdad have increased.  Shi’ite militias state their goal as driving American forces out by the deadline.  Keeping troops in Iraq past 2011 will create a backlash and has the potential to degrade rather than increase security.

Iranian influence in Iraq is also a serious concern for the U.S. because Iran benefits from a weak neighbor.   Still,  as the Center for American Progress’ Ben Armbruster writes, “if countering Iranian influence is now the standard for consideration of the U.S. military staying in Iraq past 2011, then American forces would probably stay in Iraq forever.”   Iran has long involved itself in Iraqi affairs, “ U.S. bellicosity and blunders” in the region, as James Zogby, Director of the Arab American Institute explained, has given Iran new clout in Iraq.  Continued U.S. presence will not stop Iran from trying to realize its national interests; only the Iraqis can minimize that influence.

Even if the Iraqi government makes the risky decision to retain a contingency force, let’s hope that the White House recognizes that it is a strategic error to do so and ends American military involvement in  this war for good.

In a recent interview with the Los Alamos Monitor, Kingston Reif correctly noted that, given the current budget environment and the recently passed debt limit deal, Congress is likely to continue to closely scrutinize the major construction projects within the Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).  

In February 2011, the new Republican-led House proposed to cut over $300 million from NNSA’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 request of $7 billion for weapons activities in its version of a year long continuing resolution for FY 2011 (nearly all of this money was restored in the final continuing resolution passed by Congress in April).

On July 13, the House approved the FY 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, which includes a cut of nearly $500 million to the FY 2012 request of $7.63 billion for weapons activities and a reduction of over $150 million to the Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program (see here for my full analysis of the bill).  Even with a $500 million cut to weapons activities in FY 2012, the Committee’s recommendation is still a three percent increase over the FY 2011 level.  NNSA would still have more than enough money to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable stockpile.

In its report on the bill, the Appropriations Committee stated that “the economic crisis requires that NNSA proceed with its modernization activities in a responsible manner and the Committee is seriously concerned with the recent cost growth reported for construction of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Project.”

NNSA has a long history of poor management and cost overruns, which has made it a fixture on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List”.

This cost growth is actually far worse than previously understood.

In 2010, the DOE examined cost overruns for 15 of its most expensive programs over the past decade. Of the 15 programs, six are managed by NNSA. The charts linked to below contain shocking information from that analysis.

Unsustainable Cost Growth

Chart 1 shows the percentage of cost growth compared to each project’s original cost estimate. In 2010, the total increase for all of these programs from their initial baseline cost estimate was $11 billion. In every case, construction cost $100 million more than the original baseline. Four of the programs, the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility (PDCF), Mixed Oxide Fuel Plant (MOX), the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF), and the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) more than doubled in cost before NNSA signed off on their design. MOX and the UPF are still under construction.

NNSA has not even picked a location for the PDCF.

Click here to see a chart of cost growth in major DOE construction projects.

Since DOE’s analysis was completed, two projects have grown even more expensive: the CMRR, which does not appear in the chart above, and the UPF. The CMRR, which was originally estimated to cost $350 to $500 million, is now estimated to cost up to $5.9 billion, almost a 500% increase in cost.

When it was first proposed in 2005, the UPF was estimated to cost $500 million. As of last year that cost had grown to $6 to $6.5 billion. The most recent reports say that the facility could cost up to $7.5 billion. That is a 700% increase in cost over the past five years.

Tough Choices Ahead

Over the next decade, NNSA is planning to complete construction of the CMRR, UPF, MOX and the PDCF. Considering DOE’s history, costs for all of these programs will continue to grow.

In light of the debt limit deal’s new spending cap for defense programs, Congress should search for budget savings by asking tough questions about the affordability and mission of these large-scale NNSA construction programs. In a time of fiscal constraint, Congress should make the best use of our resources and shouldn’t waste precious tax dollars on questionable programs that are constantly over budget.  

In the near term, the Senate should follow the House’s lead and oppose early construction of the CMRR before design activities for the facility are completed.  

Given the incredible cost growth for construction of the CMRR and UPF, Congress should also require NNSA to assess the impact of building one facility before the other.  The bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States stated in its 2009 final report that if funding couldn’t be found, the CMRR should be built before the Uranium Processing Facility proposed for Oak Ridge, Tenn., instead of concurrently with it.

Congress could also demand greater accountability from NNSA in cases when facilities (such as the UPF and the CMRR) that are not completely designed have increased in cost by more than 100%.  In such cases NNSA should be required to go back to the drawing board and come up with a less expensive plan.

Finally, Congress should continue its close scrutiny of the MOX program. Earlier this year, the House voted to significantly reduce funding for the PDCF facility because NNSA failed to make basic decisions about design and construction. The PDCF is needed to provide feedstock for the MOX facility. Without progress on the PDCF facility, the MOX program is essentially dead in the water.