“Far too much waste, inefficiency, and special interest programming plague the defense budget and drive up costs for the taxpayer. Our country faces serious fiscal and budgetary challenges that must be addressed. If spending more for defense than the next 10 country combined, many of them our allies, is not enough to keep America safe, then something is terribly wrong. Clear opportunities exist to take the politics out of national security spending and ensure that strategic decision makers have a clearer voice in defining priorities.”
CFR Backgrounders: Gregory Koblentz quoted on Syria’s Chemical Weapons
Scientist Working Group on Biological and Chemical Security member Gregory Koblentz, the Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University, was quoted in a Council on Foreign Relations Backgrounders’ special report on sarin and chemical weapons: The joint mission’s task of working on an expedited schedule amid a civil war is unprecedented, says […]
New Obama Budget Slashes Nonproliferation
More FY 2015 budget analysis over on the mother ship, this time on the Obama administration’s disturbing cuts to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) core nuclear and radiological security programs. Here’s a teaser:
In its Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Obama administration made it resoundingly clear that it is in a full-on retreat from accelerating the security of nuclear and radiological materials around the globe.
This decision is difficult to fathom, given that as recently as this week the President stated that the number one thing that keeps him up at night is “loose nukes.” Likewise the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review identified nuclear terrorism as “today’s most immediate and extreme danger.”
For the third year in a row the NNSA budget submission continues a disturbing trend of funding nuclear weapons and other programs at the expense of core nuclear and radiological material security programs. This year, the tradeoff is starker than it has ever been.
The request slashes nearly eighteen percent compared to the FY 2014 enacted level from core threat reduction and nonproliferation programs such as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) and the International Materials Protection and Cooperation (IMPC) program while increasing weapons funding nearly seven percent (including a massive 20 percent increase for the unnecessary, over budget, and behind schedule B61 mod 12 life extension program). The request also increases funding for NNSA’s Naval Reactors program by nearly 26 percent.
Roughly half of the funding cut to the Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation account (or approximately $250 million) came out of core programs, while the other half was to the controversial Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program in South Carolina.
Read the whole thing here.
Revisiting the Syrian Saga: The End is (Still) Nigh
Author’s note: Significant departures or shifts in timeline are bolded.
A revised plan to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons has been announced, though technical details remain to be negotiated with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The physical plan remains largely unchanged, but the original deadlines have been shifted back. The original plan called for most of Syria’s chemical weapons to be removed by the end of 2013 and the remainder to be removed by early February 2014. Destruction of all materials was slated for June. This revision gives Syria until April to surrender their chemical stockpiles while maintaining the end-of-June deadline for their destruction.
The revised plan, like the original plan, will advance in four stages and will involve cooperation from at least six different countries: Denmark, Italy, Norway, Russia, Syria and the United States. Russian involvement does not seem to have been jeopardized by the crisis in Ukraine.
In the first stage, approximately five hundred metric tons of mustard gas and binary components for sarin nerve agent will be transported from storage facilities overland to the Port of Latakia on the northern part of Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Russia has offered assistance to Syria in completing this stage of the process. The new plan calls for this removal step to be completed by the end of April.
Ahmet Uzumcu, the Executive Director of the OPCW, correctly predicted that the security situation in Syria would cause delays, compounding the difficulties presented by Syria’s stonewalling. The new plan assumes the chemical weapons can be destroyed by the end of June as originally planned so long as they are removed by late April. To date, Syria has surrendered 29% of its chemical weapons material, and that figure will rise to 35% by March 9th. This includes 23% of Syria’s Priority 1 chemicals and 63% of its Priority 2 chemicals.
Second, the chemical weapons will be placed on vessels provided by Denmark and Norway and joined by a Russian naval escort. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated, “We will be ready to provide Russian navy ships to escort those vessels with toxic agents in order to provide the safety of this operation.”
These deliveries slowed during February after Syria missed its initial deadlines, but the new plan calls for accelerated deliveries throughout March and into April.
Third, the Danish and Norwegian vessels will transport the chemicals to the Italian cargo port of Gioia Tauro. The Italian Foreign Ministry has stressed that the weapons would not touch Italian soil, though locals remain wary of the incoming chemical weapons shipments. The weapons will then be loaded onto a Japanese-built roll-on/roll-off vessel that is part of the U.S. Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force, the Cape Ray. The vessel is being leased by the Navy’s Military Sea Lift Command.
Finally, The Cape Ray, which is currently anchored in Spain and awaiting deployment, will enter international waters and neutralize Syria’s arsenal using low-temperature hydrolysis. The ship has been equipped with the U.S. Army’s Field Deployable Hydrolysis System. After destroying the chemical weapons at sea, crews will store the byproducts until they can dispose of them at commercial ports which are being independently contracted by [private firms https:/www.opcw.org/news/article/opcw-receives-tenders-from-14-private-firms-to-destroy-syrian-commodity-chemicals-and-effluents] with the OPCW.
Fundamentally, the core elements of the original plan remain in place. Initially, the end-of-June deadline for the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons was to be met by removing the entirety of the stockpile by February 6. Having missed that deadline, the new plan sets the end of April as the deadline for the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons. Ten of the twelve chemical weapons storage sites are to be cleared by April 13th, and chemical weapons will be removed from the final two sites by April 30th. The United States will require at least 90 days to destroy the 500 metric tons of Syria’s most potent chemical weapons. Given the April 30 surrender deadline, it may be impossible to destroy all of them by late June. Yet, Sigrid Kaag, the Dutch diplomat leading the international effort, affirmed on March 4 that the June deadline remains attainable.
Syria’s delays in giving up its chemical weapons underscore the extent to which the OPCW is dependent on Syrian cooperation. Announcing the new plan, Uzumcu stated that, “The Syrian government has reaffirmed its commitment to implement the removal operations in a timely manner.” In order to secure the Syrian regime’s compliance, however, the United States and the other powers involved in this mission, especially Russia, must continue to press for prompt Syrian compliance with its obligations. The OPCW cannot go it alone.
Eliminate Slush Funds & Wish Lists
“Fundamentally, this slush fund and wish list are an attempt to exceed the Murray-Ryan budget caps and funnel more money into the Pentagon,” noted Executive Director John Isaacs, a 35-year veteran of Capitol Hill politics and budget fights.