G-8 Leaders Agree to Fund Threat Reduction Programs
Meeting in Canada for a two-day summit, President George W. Bush
and leaders of the world’s other top economic powers announced
June 27 that they will aim to spend up to $20 billion over the next
10 years to help Russia and other former Soviet states secure and
destroy their nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons stockpiles
and materials.
Under the initiative, known as “10 Plus 10 Over 10,”
the United States plans to supply half of the funding; and Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom will attempt
to raise the rest. Other countries, aside from these G-7 nations,
were also invited to contribute toward meeting the $20 billion goal.
A senior Bush administration official told reporters after the meeting
that the Nordic countries are “quite interested” in participating.
Effectively, the initiative—formally called the G-8 Global
Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass
Destruction—simply commits the United States to continue its
current level of threat reduction expenditures for the next 10 years.
Bush asked Congress earlier this year for roughly $1 billion in
global threat reduction and nonproliferation funding for the coming
fiscal year. According to the White House, the United States has
allocated approximately $7 billion for threat reduction programs
in the former Soviet Union since October 1991.
Specific plans by the other six countries remain largely undetermined.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice explained June 27 that
because the initiative is new, “countries are going to have
to go back and make commitments.”
Relative to the United States, these other countries combined have
provided a modest amount of funding for threat reduction in the
former Soviet Union, and it remains uncertain whether they will
be able to match the U.S. commitment.
The United States and its allies identified future key priorities
for the program, including assisting with the destruction of Russia’s
40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons agent, dismantling Russia’s
decommissioned nuclear-powered submarines, employing former Russian
weapons scientists, and securing Russian fissile materials, which
are estimated to total more than 1,000 metric tons of highly enriched
uranium and at least 150 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
Any participating country will decide for itself what activities
it wants to fund and will have to negotiate implementation details
with Russia. Moscow pledged that it would grant such contributors
the same rights and protections as it grants the United States,
such as exemption from taxation and liability.
The G-7 countries and Russia, collectively called the G-8, pledged
to annually review programs under the initiative, and they established
nine general guidelines for their projects, including the need for
the creation of milestones to measure implementation.
In addition to the initiative, the G-8 adopted six principles to
deny terrorists and the countries that support them access to weapons
of mass destruction. These principles include broad, political commitments
to bolster border controls and to account for, protect, and destroy
weapons-usable materials. The G-8 leaders also called on other capitals
to do the same.
|
