Time and time again, politicians, pundits, and security experts have painted the terrifying picture of a mushroom cloud looming over the vaporized remains of an American city.  If you look at the budget for missile defense (DoD has requested approximately $10 billion for FY 2011) you’d think that the most likely attack on the United States would come via a ballistic missile, given that what the U.S. spends on missile defense greatly exceeds combined spending on domestic and international maritime and port of entry interdiction efforts and nuclear detection activities.

The dirty little secret of domestic nuclear defense, however, is that should the US ever come under nuclear attack, odds are that it will not come from a missile launch.  Instead, a nuclear device or dirty bomb is likely to be delivered from a non-missile source, such as a container entering a U.S. port..  On June 30, witnesses at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs revealed that the US remains woefully vulnerable to this kind of threat…

The committee heard from three witnesses:

•    Eugene E. Aloise
Director, Natural Resources and Environment Division
U.S. Government Accountability Office

•    Micah D. Lowenthal, Ph.D.
Director, Nuclear Security and Nuclear Facility Safety Program, Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
National Research Council of the National Academies

•    Dana A. Shea, Ph.D.
Specialist in Science and Technology Policy; Resources, Science, and Industry Divsion; Congressional Research Service
Library of Congress

The purpose of the hearing was to examine the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO), a little-known agency established in 2005 within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detect nuclear smuggling operations (the hearing coincided with the release of a GAO report on the issue).  The office is charged with creating an overarching system of domestic nuclear detection involving the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State (as well as others), a mandate that has met with some success.  About two-thirds of the more than 2,100 radiation portal monitors planned for by the DHS have been deployed at points of entry around the US.  Today, nearly all cargo containers transported by vehicles across our borders are scanned for nuclear materials, as are almost 100% of all containers coming through our seaports.

However, according to the GAO report, only a small percentage of rail and air cargo is ever scanned, and DHS has also failed to meet its scanning and inspection goals for commercial air cargo, baggage, and passengers.  Indeed, as Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman noted, “As I look back and look at where we are now…the threat of nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is growing faster than our ability to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack.”  The witnesses confirmed this conclusion, placing the blame squarely on the DNDO.

A January 2009 GAO study, for instance, recommended that DHS address critical gaps in nuclear detection identified by the DNDO, especially un-policed border areas, commercial aviation, and small sea vessels operating outside of large ports, as soon as possible.  DNDO has since taken no action on these issues.  Instead of focusing on expanding coverage, since 2006 DNDO spent $234 million dollars (out of a possible $2 billion allocated) on developing advanced spectroscopic portal (ASP) radiation detection monitors, an upgrade over the current monitors that both Mr. Aloise and Dr. Lowenthal described as being a marginal improvement at best.  In addition, all three witnesses criticized the DNDO for failing to create a strategic plan to address the domestic nuclear threat (originally called for by the GAO in 2002), leading to a lack of cohesion between departments and wasted time and tax dollars.

When pressed by Sen. Lieberman for his opinion, Mr. Aloise said that had the DNDO focused on coverage instead of technological upgrades, closing gaps in protection would have been achievable: “There’s certainly ways, if given the resources and analysis, you could do it.  So yes, we believe it can be done.”

Even the DNDO seems to have realized that its current direction is the wrong one, having requested an additional $13 million for another round of studies to produce a new master plan.  Officials from DHS were invited to the hearing, but were apparently not prepared to testify. Another hearing has been scheduled for July 21.

“The time,” said a clearly frustrated Lieberman, “for multi-year ‘studies’ is over; the time for urgent action really is now.”

After weeks of intense debate, the House passed an approximately $80 billion emergency supplemental appropriations bill last night that will lend an additional $33 billion to the wars in Afghanistan in Iraq.

In the end, the vote to advance the nearly $60 billion Senate-passed measure came under a vote on the rule, an obscure process used to allow the House to vote to set the terms for debate on the bill, but not on the underlying bill.  Inside the rule, the bill was deemed passed after the rule passed.  The vote was close, but eeked by at 215-210.  The budget resolution (that isn’t really a budget resolution) was included within the self-executing rule.

The House then took up five separate amendments.

(after the jump)

The first includes a $1 billion youth summer jobs program and a settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar and Pigford v. Vilsack class action lawsuits, among other things.

The bulk of the House’s $20 billion addition, however, comes from the second amendment which includes:

•    $10 billion for an Education Jobs Fund that will prevent impending local teacher layoffs
•    $4.95 billion to address the current year shortfall in the Pell Grant Program
•    $701 million for border security
•    $304 million for the Gulf Coast oil spill (the Senate bill carried $162 million)
•    $50 million for The Emergency Food Assistance Program
•    $163 million to improve elementary and secondary schools on DoD installations
•    $180 million in loan guarantees, split evenly between nuclear and renewable energy programs
•    $16.5 million for the replacement of the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood.
•    $538 million to strengthen waste, fraud and abuse prevention and enforcement for Medicaid, Medicare and the IRS.

The spending in the amendment is entirely offset by cuts.  One of these cuts, though, sparked an immediate reaction from the White House.  In an unusually public clash with Democratic allies, the President has promised to veto the bill if a proposed $800 million cut from programs such as the Race to the Top grant initiative is adopted.

The final three votes were largely symbolic and focused primarily on Afghanistan.

The first, with no named sponsor, would eliminate military funding for Afghanistan from the bill, but received only 25 votes.  The second would call for the money to go only toward a withdrawal.  This amendment garnered significantly more votes, with 100 ayes and 321 noes.

The third, sponsored by Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.), received 162 votes.  The bill would require a new National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan by January 31, 2011, and a plan by April 4, 2011, on the redeployment of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, including a timeframe for the completion of the redeployment.

While none of these three Afghanistan amendments ultimately passed, they send a powerful message about the country’s growing impatience with the war.

At 6:15 this evening, in the East Room of the White House, President Obama will sign into law “the toughest ever unilateral US sanctions against the Islamic republic” that nobody believes will work.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act was passed last week by overwhelming margins in both the House and Senate: 408-8 and 99-0, respectively.  

Despite Congress’ denial of exemptions for cooperating countries sought by the administration, reactions from the White House have been mostly positive.  In a statement released Friday, Secretary Clinton welcomed the passage of the legislation, saying that both she and President Obama support the “broad aims” of the Congressional action.

While the final measure does contain significant human rights and development initiatives that should not be discounted, they do little to offset the fact that the people of Iran, not the regime, are most sensitive to broad sanctions such as those passed by Congress.

Update 7/2/10: Remarks by the President at the signing can be found here.

Over the past several months, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others have urged Congress to pass a $33 billion supplemental spending request to continue funding the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  In recent weeks, the tone of the rhetoric has intensified, with Gates warning that the military may have to start doing “stupid things” if the supplemental is not passed by the upcoming July 4th recess.  Even General David Petraeus has weighed in on the issue in recent days, urging the House to pass the bill during his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Reversing the usual pattern, the Senate passed its version of the bill on May 27, but the bill has stalled in the House, largely due to two concurrent factors:

1) Large-scale defections of Democratic representatives who do not wish to go on record as having voted for more war funding, and;
2) Republican resistance to billions in spending that has been tacked on to the bill for programs unrelated to the war.  These include aid to Haiti, other disaster relief funds, disability payments to veterans, and much more.

Congress won’t make its July 4 deadline for a conference agreement, but the House hopes to pass its version of the bill later today.  In the final scramble, the bill is changing by the hour, but as of June 30 it had ballooned to nearly $75 billion.

(Highlights of the bill after the jump)

While we all wait patiently, let’s take a look at some highlights of the Senate’s recommendation:

•    $33.43B in emergency war appropriations
•    $13.37B in compensation for Vietnam veterans who suffer from a variety of health issues due to exposure to Agent Orange
•    $5.48B in domestic disaster response funding
•    $2.13B for various Haiti relief efforts
•    $1.72B in economic support to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jordan, Vietnam, and El Salvador
•    $1.26B for Diplomatic and Consular Programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Mexico
•    $1.181B emergency funding for the War on Drugs (at least this is a war of some type)
•    $30.58M in emergency farm loan subsidies, plus an additional $950M authorized (which technically doesn’t count towards the grand total of the bill)
•    $165M global refugee assistance
•    $45M to fight H5N1 (bird flu) and H1N1 (swine flu) worldwide
•    $22M for increased Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission salaries
•    $12.96M for emergency acquisition of a new radio system for the US Capitol Police
•    $1.8M to study the ongoing financial crisis
•    $174K for the late Rep. John Murtha’s widow, Joyce
•    -$111.5M in emergency rescissions from the federal Digital-to-Analog Converter Box program (Americans unable to watch TV? Now that would have been an emergency.  Thankfully it seems we overestimated the number of 30 year-old television sets out there.)

The total cost of the bill is $58,962,089,000.

In this Senate version, at least, a slim majority of the funding (56.7%) goes towards the war.  22.7% goes to Vietnam veterans.  The remaining 20.6% mostly goes to Haiti and domestic disaster relief, which are at least stated to be part of the bill’s purpose.

With vast sums being spent on unrelated programs such as farm subsidies, police radios, and the never-ending War on Drugs, the definition of the word ‘emergency’ has become blurred.  This is not to say that many of these programs are a bad use of taxpayer dollars, but the salient question is: Why must they be included in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill?  Then again, the student of American government (also known as “the cynic”) knows that this happens every year.

The point is, whether add-on funding comes in the form of highly controversial or legitimately useful programs, this is a war funding bill, and pork is still pork no matter how it tastes.

The House version will no doubt contain much more unrelated spending, with the war quickly becoming a minority provision.

Guest Post by Volha Charnysh

Yesterday, U.S. ambassador to Russia John Beyrle urged Moscow to join Washington in building a worldwide missile defense system. Last week, prior to his meeting with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, Barack Obama was quoted as saying that “cooperative missile defense with Russia has enormous potential” and that the United States “want[s] to work with Russia to be a key player and beneficiary in this global [missile defense] architecture.”

The idea of U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation is not new, and the initiatives considered today have been pondered for decades. The two countries agreed to “explore opportunities for intensified practical cooperation on missile defense for Europe” in a joint declaration at the May 2002 U.S.-Russia Summit, but their dialogue reached an impasse when George W. Bush unveiled the plan to build 10 interceptor missile systems in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic.

A window of opportunity for Russia’s participation reopened with Obama’s September 2009 decision to deploy a phased adaptive missile defense in Europe. As per the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, U.S. proposals for missile defense cooperation with Russia include integration of U.S. and Russian sensors; joint research and development; joint missile defense testing; joint modeling and simulations; missile defense exercises; and joint analyses of alternative U.S.-Russian missile defense architectures for defending against common, regional threats. After the U.S. change of plans, NATO has also expressed readiness to explore the potential for linking U.S., NATO and Russian missile defense systems and declared missile defense cooperation with Russia its target for the next NATO Summit in Lisbon in November 2010…

Despite its longevity and revived popularity, missile defense collaboration remains a contentious issue, and not only because the technical plausibility and cost-effectiveness of missile defense systems are still being debated. However modest the scope of cooperation in question – primarily technology and information sharing – some in Washington fail to see its potential benefits. For example, Bill Gertz writes in Washington Times that the Obama administration is “secretly working with Russia” on an agreement that may limit U.S. missile defenses.

I argue that missile defense collaboration with Moscow, which has already become an important U.S. partner in confronting nuclear proliferation challenges, would not only help to reduce Russia’s concerns regarding U.S. missile defense plans, but also provide Washington with additional technology and expertise, send a stronger message to regimes developing ballistic missile capabilities, improve the U.S.-Russian bilateral relationship, and open possibilities for further arms reductions.

First, by cooperating with Moscow, which has a wealth of missile defense technology and expertise, Washington could reap important technological benefits. In fact, U.S. firms like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are already exploring the possibilities of joint design and development projects with Russian companies: a Russian liquid fuel rocket engine is used in new U.S. space launch vehicles, while a Russian rear moveable exhaust nozzle is employed in some models of the Joint Strike Fighter.

Washington could both augment its capabilities and save resources by taking advantage of the Kremlin’s 2007 proposal to grant the United States access to the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan and the Armavir radar station in Russia’s Krasnodar Territory. The Russian radars are much closer to Iranian targets than any potential U.S. installations, and with some adjustments, they could detect missile launches not only from Iran, but also from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. The radars could also be linked to the missile launch data exchange center in Moscow, created by the U.S.-Russian Memorandum Of Agreement in 2000 “to minimize the consequences of a false missile attack warning and to prevent the possibility of a missile launch caused by such false warning,” but never built due to liability and tax issues. The efforts to make the JDEC a reality have intensified with the Obama Administration’s change of plans, and the center could become an important element of the U.S. phased adaptive missile defense in Europe.

Second, U.S.-Russian missile defense collaboration would send a strong message to regimes seeking to develop missile capabilities. For example, Tehran might think twice about developing longer range ballistic missiles if Russia, its long-time economic partner and ally, were integrated into European missile defenses against an Iranian strike. With a stake in the European missile defense system, Moscow might also be more eager to support international sanctions against Tehran and less careless about the technology it exports.

Third, engaging Moscow in a joint missile defense project could only improve U.S.–Russian bilateral relations. Information exchange and joint R&D efforts could increase transparency and trust between Moscow and Washington, thereby deepening their understanding of each other’s capabilities and intentions and reducing the incentives for mutual suspicion. By working with the West to defend Europe, Russia would feel more integrated into the European security architecture. In an indirect way, this would help address the concerns expressed by Moscow in its draft of the European Security Treaty, which failed to elicit a thoughtful response from the West.

Most importantly, missile defense collaboration could pave the way for the next round of bilateral strategic arms reductions. Moscow and Washington have reached their first shaky compromise on missile defense in New START. The treaty’s preamble notes the interrelationship between offense and defense and bars the United States from placing missile defense interceptors in ICBM silos or SLBM launchers – something the United States no longer plans to do. In addition, Moscow issued a unilateral statement that it would consider withdrawing from the treaty if the U.S. develops strategic defenses capable of threatening the Russian deterrent –something the United States also has no intention of doing. However, the most difficult and bitter disagreements over missile defenses lie ahead, and the amount of contention generated by the modest wording in the New START in Washington suggests that the road to further reductions will be closed, unless the United States and Russia are able to collaborate on missile defenses in the future.

Of course, whether the benefits mentioned above actually come to fruition depends on overcoming some important political and technical challenges. However, the two sides concluded far more complicated agreements in far less auspicious circumstances during the Cold War. Today, with the “reset in their relationship and with the possibility of the NATO framework bringing the two countries together on this sensitive issue, the success of the U.S.-Russian missile defense cooperation looks even more likely.

In her January 29 speech at L’Ecole Militaire in Paris, Secretary of State Clinton called missile defense “an extraordinary opportunity for us [the United States, NATO and Russia] to work together to build our mutual security.” It’s time for the two countries to muster enough political will to make this happen.

Volha Charnysh is currently the New Voices Nonproliferation Fellow at the Arms Control Association and will begin a Ph.D. in government program at Harvard University in the fall. The views expressed are her own.