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OCR for page 87
4
Declarations and
Dismantlement
The nuclear weapons and fissile materials that will become excess as a
result of arms reductions are only a part of the world stocks of these items (see
Chapter 11. Thus the measures taken to address the urgent problem of manag-
ing excess nuclear weapons and fissile materials from dismantlement of
weapons through storage and long-term disposition of the resulting fissile
materials must be seen not only as ends in themselves, but also as steps
toward an overall regime designed to achieve higher standards of security and
transparency for the total stocks of weapons and fissile materials in the United
States and the former Soviet Union-and, ultimately, worldwide. The com-
mittee envisions a reciprocal regime, built in stages, that would include:
1. reciprocal declarations of total stocks of nuclear weapons and fissile
materials;
2. cooperative measures to confirm and clarify those declarations;
3. agreed, monitored subtractions from the stocks available for military use,
including:
· monitored warhead dismantlement,
· commitments never again to use agreed quantities of fissile materials for
weapons purposes,
· safeguarded storage and long-term disposition of excess fissile material
stocks, and
87
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88 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
4. agreement on and monitoring of additions to those stocks, including what-
ever warhead assembly continues, and a verified cutoff of production of
fissile materials for weapons.
Such a regime, if agreed between the United States and Russia, would
directly serve the three security objectives outlined at the beginning of this
report- limiting the risk of theft, limiting the risk of breakout, and strengthen-
ing arms reduction and nonproliferation. It would also provide a sound base for
building a similar global regime. Although complex and far-reaching, such a
regime can be approached incrementally, contributing to confidence at each
step while posing little risk. Measures specific to excess weapons and materials,
such as monitoring of warhead dismantlement (discussed in this chapter) and
secure, safeguarded storage of excess fissile materials (discussed in the next
chapter), will be essential building blocks of this larger regime.
Virtually none of this broad regime is currently in place. But the end of the
Cold War offers an opportunity to begin building it that is both unprecedented
and unlikely to be repeated. The Clinton administration, in its nonproliferation
initiative of September 27, 1993, has taken the first steps in this direction,
announcing that it would propose a global convention to ban production of
fissile materials for weapons and that it would voluntarily submit excess U.S.
fissile materials to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.)
In addition, on December 7, 1993, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary declassified
the amount of weapons-grade plutonium that the United States has produced
and the amounts held at several Department of Energy (DOE) sites.2 More
remains to be done, however.
Weapons and fissile materials in the former Soviet Union are currently of
greater concern than those in the United States. Achieving substantial im-
provements in the management of these weapons and materials in the former
Soviet Union, however, will in many cases require reciprocity from the United
States.
THE CASE FOR A BROAD REGIME
Some more limited objectives can be achieved by efforts focused only on
excess weapons and materials such as the highly enriched uranium (LIEU)
~ White House Fact Sheet, "Nonproliferation and Export Control Policy," September 27, 1993.
2 Secretary O'Leary announced that the United States had produced 89 metric tons of weapons-grade
plutonium. In addition, the Hanford site produced 13 tons of reactor-grade plutonium. DOE also declassified the
total current plutonium inventory at Savannah River, Rocky Flats, Hanford, Los Alamos National Laboratory,
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory-West, and Idaho National Engineering
Laboratory. But the "total quantity of plutonium at Pantex remains classified due to a proliferation concern that
the amount of plutonium in a nuclear weapon could be determined by correlating the number of dismantlements
being released to the public, to future increases in die plutonium inventory." The DOE press release also stated
that "today's release should be considered only a beginning of a process." DOE Press Release, December 7,
1993.
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 89
purchase under negotiation and the planned fissile materials storage site to be
built in Russia with U.S. assistance. But measures focused only on these excess
stocks would leave the size and status of the other stocks unknown. Creating a
broader regime covering the total stockpiles of nuclear weapons and fissile
materials would make clear that this total stock was of legitimate interest to the
world community and would have the following specific benefits:
· Strengthening Current Arms Reduction Agreements: Measures to veri-
fiably eliminate the warheads to be retired under recent arms agreements,
monitor the resulting fissile material, and build confidence that there were not
other large, unmonitored stocks of excess weapons and materials available
would substantially strengthen the arms reduction regime, complementing the
limits on launchers in the Strategic Arms Reduction treaties (START I and
START II). Such measures would work synergistically with the measures
already agreed, to make rearmament more difficult, costly, time-consuming,
and observable and therefore less likely.
·Providing the Basis for Deeper Reductions: Similarly, a regime for
agreed, monitored, balanced reductions in the stockpiles of nuclear weapons
and fissile materials would lay a foundation for deeper, post-START II nuclear
arms reductions. Without a regime designed to build confidence over time in
the knowledge of the stockpiles of weapons and fissile materials, concerns
about the military advantage that might be gained by retaining large hidden
stocks could make the United States, Russia, and other nuclear powers reluctant
to agree to reduce to substantially lower levels.
· Improving Resistance to Theft: Such a wide-ranging regime would pro-
vide the basis for significantly improving security and safeguards for nuclear
materials, particularly in the foyer Soviet Union, where the current dramatic
political and economic transformation necessitates strengthening these vital
functions. In order to make comprehensive improvements, it is essential to have
an understanding of how large the stocks of fissile materials are, where they are
located, and the like. The requirement to provide declarations would focus each
party to the regime on the task of accounting in detail for all the material in its
possession and reviewing its own management procedures. Moreover, the
declarations and the visits involved in confirming them would provide a more
educated basis for U.S. offers of assistance to Russia in improving safeguards
and security, allowing discussions on this subject to be more meaningful and
comprehensive, and less impeded by secrecy (see Chapter 5~.
· Strengthening the Nonproliferation Regime: Including monitored sub-
tractions from the total stocks of nuclear weapons and fissile materials in the
arms reduction regime would help convince the rest of the world that the
nuclear states were seriously pursuing their obligations under Article VI of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Indeed, a number of non-nuclear-weapon
states have specifically called on the United States and Russia to agree to such
measures. In particular, agreement on the first steps toward such a regime
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90 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
during preparations for the critical 1995 NET review would help create a
favorable atmosphere for an indefinite or long-term extension of the treaty.
Similarly, a new openness and willingness to accept international monitoring
on the part of the largest nuclear powers would improve the prospects for
gaining acceptance of strengthened safeguards elsewhere. Applying strict
standards of security and accounting to excess fissile materials resulting from
arms reductions could provide the base for setting similar standards for civilian
fissile materials worldwide (see below).
· Providing Information: Current public knowledge of the stockpiles of
nuclear weapons and fissile materials is limited, although as noted above, the
United States has recently begun declassifying some of this information. As yet,
Russia has not reciprocated. Total inventories of weapons and the size of
reserves and "excess" stocks have not been authoritatively disclosed by either
country. The uncertainties in U.S. intelligence estimates of Russian stocks
amount to thousands of weapons and tens of tons of fissile material.3 Each
side's intelligence services have in the past spent billions of dollars attempting
to acquire the information that would be exchanged under this regime. Such
information provides a basis for defense and arms control planning; for coordi-
nating efforts such as the HEU purchase and the planned plutonium storage site
in Russia; and as mentioned, for more educated offers of assistance in manag-
ing these weapons and materials.
· Building Confidence: Establishing such a regime of transparency and re-
ductions in nuclear weapons and fissile materials would reflect and deepen the
significant Russian-American cooperation in denuclearization. Experience to
date with agreements such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I
and II), the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), the Conventional
Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), and START I and II suggests that working
together to reach agreement on reductions, declarations, and monitoring, and
then to implement those agreements, has ~ far-reaching confidence-building
effect. Indeed, the exchange of information alone has generally proved helpful
in resolving uncertainties and concerns, even in cases where the data initially
provided were not immediately accepted as accurate.4 Such a regime could
3 Lawrence Gershwin, National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Programs, told Congress in 1992, that
the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that Russia then had 30,000 nuclear weapons. "The uncertainty is
plus or minus 5,000, which gives you a sense of how uncertain it is. That uncertainty has not improved . . .
because we still don't get direct information on how many weapons are at sites and how many are in inventory."
See House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Department of Defense Appropriations for 1993, Pt. 5,
p. 499, May 6, 1992. Recent statements by Victor Mikhailov, Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy, suggesting
that Russia had significantly larger stockpiles of weapons and HEU than previously believed, have highlighted
those uncertainties (see Chapter 2).
4 hi the case of He CFE treaty, for example, the requirement to exchange information provided each party
with a wealth of hitherto unavailable information. Although initial Soviet data on treaty-limited items in the
limitation zone were not accepted, it was the requirement for full reporting itself that provided the basis for
questioning the Soviet figures and ultimately resolving the issue; in the end, few would argue that the
declarations required by CFE were not a useful, indeed essential, part of the CFE regime. Given the large
quantities of nuclear weapons and materials that would have to be accounted for in a regime such as that
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 91
address some concerns that have undermined confidence: for example, in both
the United States and the former Soviet Union, opponents of the ongoing
reductions have pointed to the lack of any requirement to venflably dismantle
the weapons to be retired as a key justification for continuing suspicion.
·Improving Democratic Management: In democracies the information
needed to make decisions on security and related issues should be available to
the public. Secrecy in this area has affected not only security debates but
environment, safety, and health (ES&H) discussions as well, since the United
States and Russia have been reluctant to release ES&H information that might
provide details of weapons or fissile material production. The committee shares
the view of President Reagan's Blue Ribbon Task Group on Nuclear Weapons
Program Management:
One of the national security responsibilities of DOE leadership is to
make available sufficient information to allow informed public debate on
nuclear weapon issues. The Task Group urges that DOE review its classifi
cation procedures to ensure that criteria are based upon current requirements
rather than historical precedent.S
The Secretary of Energy has statutory authority under the Atomic Energy
Act to declassify restricted data, and Secretary O'Leary has begun what she has
said will be a continuing process with the declassification of some plutonium
stockpile data on December 7, 1993. In addition, the 1993 Defense Authonza-
tion Act specifically granted authority to declassify stockpile information if the
United States and Russia reach agreement on reciprocal release of such data.6
In Russia, some organizations with major responsibilities in these areas
(such as the Foreign Ministry and GOSATOMNADZOR, the Russian equiva-
lent of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) appear not to have access to
information relating to nuclear stockpiles that is necessary to carry out their
duties.7 The need to provide this information to the United States would
envisioned in this chapter, and the long time over which they were produced, ambiguities can be expected in this
case as well, requiring similar efforts to resolve them.
5 "Report of the President's Blue Ribbon Task Group on Nuclear Weapons Program Management," July
1985, p. 13, cited in Energy Research Foundation and Natural Resources Defense Council, Rethinking
Plutonium: A Review of Plutonium Operations in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex (Washington, D.C.:
April 1992), pp. 52-53.
6 The primary relevantlanguage from the Atomic Energy Actis Section 142: "(a) The Department [of
Energy] shall from time to time determine the data, within the definition of Restricted Data, which can be
published without undue risk to the common defense and security and shall thereupon cause such data to be
declassified and removed from the category of Restricted Data." In the case of Restricted Data determined to
"relate primarily to the militarization of atomic weapons," this determination must be done jointly with the
Department of Defense. The recent modification to this language appears in the conference report on the
Department of Defense Authorization Act, Report 102-966, October 1, 1992, p. 338.
7 For example, while President Yeltsin has given GOSATOMNADZOR responsibility for regulating
safeguards and security over both military and civilian nuclear materials in Russia, GOSATOMNADZOR
officials report that they have been denied the access to information and facilities necessary to carry out this
responsibility. See Mark Hibbs, "Watchdogs Say MINATOM Withholding Material Theft and Diversion
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92 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
inevitably make it available to wider circles in Russia, beneficially broadening
participation in decision making itself potentially a major step toward im-
proving the management and security of fissile materials in Russia.
· Providing Incentives: Some have proposed that the United States provide
direct incentives, monetary or otherwise, to the states of the former Soviet
Union for steps such as accelerating dismantlement or committing fissile
material to peaceful purposes under monitoring. This is part of the idea behind
the HEU deal: for example, dismantlement would free HEU that in turn would
earn hard currency, providing a direct incentive for the dismantling.8 If such
incentives are to be offered, there must be a means to check that the specified
goals are being met, which a transparency regime would provide.
· Strengthening Management Organizations: In Russia, the Ministry of
Atomic Energy (MINATOM) and the military are struggling to meet the
challenge of managing the large-scale reductions now in progress in the midst
of a drastic weakening of central authority, the disappearance of their tradi-
tional Cold War missions, and drastic declines in their former budgets and
status. Substantial erosion of these organizations could greatly increase the
risks of theft of nuclear weapons and fissile materials. A regime based on
cooperation in nuclear reductions, combined with appropriate incentives for
accomplishing particular tasks (such as warhead dismantlement and secure
management of warheads and fissile materials) could provide these organiza-
tions with a new and compelling mission to replace their old tasks and with
the resources needed to carry it out.
Similarly, if structured to utilize and expand on the capabilities of interna-
tional organizations particularly the IAEA the regime the committee
proposes could significantly bolster their ability to carry out their global non-
proliferation roles.
· Addressing Some Ukrainian Concerns: Ukrainian officials have
repeatedly expressed concern that if they fulfill their denuclearization pledges
and ship the nuclear weapons now on their territory back to Russia for disman-
tlement, Russia might add the weapons or the materials in them to its own
military stocks. Although the key Ukrainian nuclear concern is the more
general security threat it perceives, Russian willingness to permit Ukrainian
monitoring of the dismantlement of weapons removed from Ukrainian territory
has been an important factor in discussions of this issue. A broader regime
would go further in addressing these Ukrainian concerns.
Data," NuclearFuel, August 16, 1993; and "Uranium, Plutonium, Pandemonium," The Economist, June 5,
1993.
~ The United States has now agreed, however, that it will not insist on transparency measures to guarantee
that the HEU it purchases came from dismanded weapons rather Dan from excess stocks. Since Russia could
therefore continue die deal for a number of years without dismantling any additional weapons, this fact may
significantly limit the effect of the agreement as a dismantlement incentive.
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 93
In 1992, a similar list of objectives led the U.S. Senate to attach the so-
called Biden Condition to its resolution of advice and consent to ratification of
the START I treaty, citing the risk of "loss of control of nuclear weapons or
fissile materials in the former Soviet Union" and requiring the president to seek
an arrangement to monitor the total stockpiles of nuclear weapons and fissile
materials in the former Soviet Union and the United States, using "reciprocal
inspections, data exchanges, and other cooperative measures." This condition is
legally binding on the U.S. government, though when it must be carried out
was deliberately left ambiguous.9
Indeed, some elements of the regime the committee envisions have been
official U.S. proposals in the past. In 1953, President Eisenhower, in his Atoms
for Peace speech, called for transfers of specific quantities of fissile materials
from military stockpiles to civilian purposes under international safeguards.
The idea of cutting off production of such materials and shifting some of the
existing stocks to civilian purposes-known as "cutoff and transfer" was a
major element of U.S. arms control proposals for many years thereafter. By
1965, this proposal had evolved into a formal U.S. proposal for monitored
destruction of thousands of nuclear weapons and transfer of the resulting fissile
materials to civilian stockpiles.
Building such a regime will not be easy, however, despite the compelling
motivations to do so. Far-reaching changes in the way the nuclear weapons
complexes in both the United States and the former Soviet Union do business
will be required, including the exchange of substantial quantities of information
that is currently classified.~° The committee is convinced, however, that
declassification of this information would advance U.S. security and nonprolif
. ~ . .
eratlon objectives.
In principle, the most sensitive information related to stocks of weapons
and materials would be the numbers and locations of currently deployed strate-
gic forces, because of the possibility of an attack on those forces. Yet that
information has been exchanged in great detail as part of the START I agree
9 Specifically, the condition requires that the President "seek" such an arrangement "in connection with
any furler agreement reducing strategic offensive arms," including START II. Arguing that a requirement to
reach such an agreement in parallel with START II could seriously delay that treaty, the Senate Armed Services
Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Sam Nunn, opposed the Biden Condition in its report on the
START treaty. But when the subsequent Foreign Relations Committee report specified that the "in connection
with" language was not intended to prevent action on START II in the absence of such an arrangement, Senator
Nunn withdrew his opposition, and the treaty, with the attached condition, was approved overwhelmingly by the
Senate. In May 1993 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Warren
Christopher acknowledged that no action had yet been taken to implement the Biden Condition, but indicated
that the administration intends to fill this gap.
A In particular, a range of information related to the size and location of all parts of the stockpiles of
nuclear weapons and fissile materials, and information related to the weapons components-specifically the
amount of fissile material they contain could be declassified as part of the regime proposed here. If, in some
cases, the amount or isotopic composition of fissile material in particular components was considered sensitive,
somewhat more complex monitoring arrangements could be devised that would provide confidence in overall
figures without revealing those related to a particular specific device.
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94 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
meet. It is difficult to argue that the numbers and locations of weapons that are
not deployed, or of materials that are not fabricated into weapons, are more
sensitive than those of weapons that are part of the active military force. Thus,
it is difficult to justify the current practice of releasing information on all
deployed strategic delivery systems, while keeping information about the
corresponding weapons and about most aspects of the stocks of fissile materials
secret. As already noted, DOE has begun to address this issue with the release
of some information about plutonium stocks.
Objections that might be raised against a declaratory regime are similar to
those introduced when inventory declarations became part of the INF treaty,
START I, and START II; yet the parts of those regimes involving declarations,
verification, and reductions that have been carried out to date have proven
beneficial. A traditional objection is that if the other party underdeclares its
holdings and keeps a secret stock, it could gain a significant advantage if
drastic reductions were carried out. Clearly, however, that is more an argument
against the drastic reductions than against the exchange of information.
Moreover, the argument simply reinforces the case that deep post-START II
reductions may be impossible to achieve without greater confidence in each
party's knowledge of the other's stocks of nuclear weapons and fissile materi-
als. Another argument occasionally heard is that ignorance of the total stock-
pile itself keeps the opponent guessing and therefore has some deterrent effect.
Yet in an age of cooperation, transparency is more stabilizing than ignorance.
Such a regime would involve costs for the associated monitoring and coop-
erative measures. Monitonng of warhead dismantlement, for example, would
probably require a permanent foreign presence at the dismantlement sites.
These costs would probably be in the range of tens of millions of dollars per
year for each side (not counting the costs of dismantlement itself).
Russian Attitudes. Russian officials have expressed differing views con-
cerning the different parts of such a regime. On February 12, 1992, Russian
Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, in a comprehensive statement to the United
Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, called for "a reciprocal ex-
change of data between all nuclear powers on the number and types of existing
nuclear weapons, the amount of fissionable matenals, and on nuclear weapons
production, storage, and elimination facilities." This proposal, however, was
never pursued by either side, and officials at MINATOM and other agencies
~ To verify warhead dismantlement at existing facilities, a single perimeter-portal monitoring system
would be needed in Me United States (at Pantex), and several in Russia. The existing perimeter-portal monitoring
system at Vodcinsk cost $45-$50 million to install, wide an annual operating cost of $10-$20 million. (See U.S.
Congress, Congressional Budget Office, U.S. Costs of Verification and Compliance Under Pending Arms
Treaties (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1990).) The L\EA safeguards more
Wan 1,000 installations worldwide (see Table 2-1), wide an annual safeguards budget of $60-$70 million,
Cough a few of these facilities (particularly enrichment, reprocessing, and plutonium fuel fabrication plants)
account for a disproportionate share of We safeguards costs. The proposals outlined in this chapter might require
roughly doubling We annual IDEA safeguards budget.
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 95
have expressed considerable resistance to such broad-ranging transparency.
More recently, on August 17, 1993, Russia's representative to the Conference
on Disarmament reiterated Russia's willingness to agree to a verified cutoff of
production of fissile materials for weapons, to put excess fissile materials under
IAEA safeguards, and to exchange information relating to such matenals, on
the basis of reciprocity. Agencies other than the Foreign Ministry, however,
may continue to have different views. The most consistent theme the committee
has heard from Russian officials is that anything more than the most limited
transparency measures would require reciprocity from the United States, which
U.S. negotiators have so far not been prepared to offer. The committee
believes that persistent diplomacy by the United States, coupled with offers of
reciprocal openness and continued financial assistance, would stand a good
chance of overcoming the obstacles to taking the steps outlined in this chapter.
Such a regime must be built in stages. Determining which steps should be
pursued in which order is primarily a matter of negotiating tactics, a subject
beyond the scope of this report. But urgency is in order. In the current envi-
ronment of reasonably cooperative relations between Russia and the United
States, a deliberate effort to understate the stocks and maintain substantial
secret stockpiles appears unlikely. The more information exchanged while this
remains the case, the more difficult it will be to create a secret stockpile in the
future. Translating general good will into substantial understanding removes
the seeds of suspicion and protects against the worsening of political relations.
IMPLEMENTING A BROAD REGIME
Fissile materials and nuclear weapons have a complex life cycle including
mining, milling, processing, and enrichment of uranium; production of pluto-
nium in special reactors; separation of the plutonium from the highly radioac-
tive "targets" from those reactors; fabrication of fissile material weapons
components; assembly of nuclear weapons from these and other components;
deployment of nuclear weapons; retirement and disassembly of nuclear weap-
ons; and storage and eventual disposition of fissile matenals.~3
The regime envisioned in this report would apply a variety of measures to
different parts of this life cycle. The measures involved should be seen as
mutually reinforcing, working together to build confidence that the information
exchanged was accurate and that the goals of the effort were being met.
i2 For a list of the Russian institutions the committee visited during a visit to Moscow ~ May 1993, see
Appendix A.
~3 For a useful short description of this life cycle, see National Research Council, The Nuclear Weapons
Complex: Managementfor Health, Safety, and the Environment (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press,
1989), Appendix B. In both the United States and Russia, the actual deployment and operation of nuclear
weapons is the only part of this process controlled by the military. The rest of the process is controlled by the
department in charge of nuclear energy, the Department of Energy in the United States and the Ministry of
Atomic Energy in Russia.
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96 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
Although it is true that technical measures are not available to verify the total
stockpiles of nuclear weapons and fissile materials with great accuracy, such a
network of measures could build confidence over time much as a bank audit,
which never counts all of the money in a bank's possession, builds confidence
that the bank's records are basically accurate.
Stockpile Declarations and Monitoring
The fundamental basis for an overall regime would be a series of declara-
tions by each party to the regime, specifying its holdings of nuclear weapons
and fissile materials. Consideration would have to be given to how and in what
sequence the various categories of weapons and fissile materials should be
addressed. In addition, declarations would include locations of stockpiles, as
well as descriptions of plutonium production and uranium enrichment plants,
facilities for fabricating fissile material weapons components, and nuclear
weapons assembly and disassembly facilities.
In general, confirming that particular declared facilities held the items de-
clared would be relatively straightforward. If it were considered too sensitive to
provide full information on the locations of all inventories of weapons and
materials at all sites, various sampling techniques might be used.~4 The key
advantage of declaring all major sites is that any weapons or materials detected
outside those sites would then be clear evidence of a secret stockpile.
The more difficult problem will be assessing whether there are significant
undeclared stocks at undeclared sites. This problem could be partly addressed
through three primary approaches:
1. National intelligence already provides rough estimates of other nations'
holdings of nuclear weapons and fissile materials, which could be checked for
consistency with declarations- although, as noted, uncertainties in U.S. esti-
mates of Russian stocks are currently large. Such national means of intelligence
were the sole means of verifying arms agreements such as the SALT treaties,
and remain an essential foundation for verification of more recent agreements
incorporating on-site inspection. But because nuclear weapons and fissile
]4 For example, each side might tag an the weapons in its possession (a process known as "self-tagging")
and provide the other with a list of the tag numbers; various sampling schemes under which one side could
demand to see the weapons corresponding to particular tag numbers could then be envisioned, without revealing
the locations of the entire stock of weapons. A conceptually similar approach might be implemented without the
existence of physical tags: each side might provide the other with a table containing the locations and serial
numbers of every weapon in its stockpile-but in encrypted form, so that the table could not be read. (Both sides
already rely for their national security on the success of their encryption technologies for transmitting sensitive
information.) The table could then be "de-encrypted" one line at a time for the purposes of inspection. For
example, inspectors visiting a declared site might demand to see the line in the table representing a particular
warhead at that site. A warhead that did not have such a line on the table would then be evidence of violation. For
more on this concept, and other means of monitoring warhead and fissile material stockpiles, see S. Drell et al.,
"Verification of Dismantlement of Nuclear Warheads and Controls on Nuclear Materials," JASON, MITRE
Corporation, ISR-92-331, January 1993.
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 97
materials are much smaller than long-range missiles or bombers, and do not
necessarily have comparable operational signatures, national technical means
of intelligence will be less effective in monitoring them, and there will inevita-
bly be less confidence in the accuracy of declared inventories. A number of
techniques have been applied over the years: releases of krypton-85 from
reprocessing plants, for example, have provided considerable information on
production of separated plutonium. Power consumption at enrichment facilities,
heat output from production reactors, and similar data have helped round out
the picture of fissile material production. Intelligence has also provided some
information on which to base estimates of nuclear weapons production and
deployment.
2. In addition to providing baseline estimates against which declarations
could be compared, national intelligence might detect stockpile activity outside
declared sites, or other information that clearly contradicted the exchanged
declarations a possibility that would help deter any party that contemplated
maintaining either a secret stockpile or secret production facilities.
3. Exchanges of operating records of major production sites, followed by
visits to those sites, could help confirm the information exchanged and reduce
the uncertainties in unilateral intelligence. Certain characteristics of reactor
buildings, waste from reprocessing, and tailings from enrichment plants can
help determine how much material was produced and when, and these findings
can be compared to the operating records for consistency. The latter techniques,
sometimes known as "nuclear archaeology," are still being developed and cover
a broad spectrum. is
Physical and radiological examination of the interior of plutonium produc-
tion reactors, for example, can provide information about both their design and
the power levels at which the reactor has operated over its history. There are
important uncertainties involved in this approach, however, including compli-
cations introduced by replacement of reactor parts and changes in design over
time. Examination of the reprocessing wastes where the plutonium was sepa-
rated can also provide some information, though for programs as old, large,
and diverse as those of the United States and the former Soviet Union, this
information is likely to be limited.
Enrichment facility operating records can be checked for consistency with
the tailings of depleted uranium that they produce as waste: examination of the
various isotopes in these tailings can indicate when the uranium was enriched,
and whether it was enriched only to a few percent or to weapons-grade.
is For a general description of these concepts, see, for example, Steve Fetter, "Nuclear Archaeology:
Verifying Declarations of Fissile-Material Production," Science & Global Security, no. 3' 1992, pp. 237-259.
These techniques are also extremely important in a nonproliferation context as the IAEA's current efforts to
verify past production in North Korea and South Africa make clear. It might therefore be helpful for the two
sides, in parallel with the confirmation effort, to undertake a joint research effort to refine these approaches
further.
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100 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
Ironically, at present Russia is continuing to produce weapons plutonium
while requesting assistance to address the shortage of available space to store it
(see Chapter 5~. The Russian government has indicated that the remaining
three plutonium production reactors provide necessary heat and power to the
areas surrounding them, and that their spent fuel must be reprocessed for
logistical and safety reasons, but it has announced plans to end production of
weapons plutonium by the year 2000. The U.S. government has begun discus-
sions with the Russian government concerning possible assistance in convert-
ing these reactors or providing alternate sources of power so that weapons-
grade plutonium production can be cut off in the near term. Particularly as a
cutoff of production plays a central part in the Clinton administration's
September 1993 nonproliferation initiative, the committee believes it is essen-
tial, for both substantive and symbolic reasons, that this continuing Russian
production of weapons plutonium be ended expeditiously. The politics of other
issues, such as the future of nuclear power and nuclear safety in Russia, should
not be allowed to interfere with assistance in shutting down this production as
soon as possible. Technical means are available to achieve this goal.~7
The committee is convinced that a cutoff of fissile material production
could be monitored with relative ease by using a combination of national
technical means of intelligence and inspections of fissile material facilities.
Such facilities could be placed under IAEA safeguards comparable to those in
place in non-nuclear-weapon states; this would allow a global cutoff agreement
to be nondiscriminating. If the cutoff were limited to the United States and
Russia, less intrusive transparency measures would probably suffice, since the
goal would be to detect militarily significant production in states already
possessing substantial stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
i7 The Russian plutonium production reactors use aluminum~ad fuel, which the Russian government
argues must be reprocessed because it cannot be stored safely. There are some questions about this argument:
while some U.S. aluminum-clad fuel has been reprocessed for similar reasons (and problems have arisen with
storage of some fuel), such fuel has been stored safely in water at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for
example, for two decades. Even if this argument is accepted, however, two main options are available for cutting
off plutonium production. The first is converting the reactors to use fuels that would not require reprocessing.
The comparable U.S. N-reactor production facility at the Hanford reservation, for example, used zirconium-clad
fuel similar to that used in commercial reactors, which can be stored safely, and can be used in die reactor for
several times as long, producing much less spent fuel that requires storage. The second is shutting the reactors
and providing alternative sources of power. This would require either new transmission capacity to carry power
from elsewhere or the construction of new power plants (and possibly new gas pipelines). This latter option might
be more expensive and time-consuming than the former, but would eventually have to be pursued in any case.
In 1992, in a letter cosigned by representatives of MINATOM and the Kurchatov Institute, He Russian
government formally requested assistance from the United States in converting these reactors. After some internal
discussion, the United States agreed to send a team to discuss the practicality of converting the reactors. Delays
have been encountered on both sides, but as of late 1993, the pace of efforts in this regard appeared to be
. .
Increasing.
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 101
Adding It Up
As noted, such measures would work together synergistically. To undertake
a militarily significant "breakout," a potential violator would have to deliber-
ately leave large quantities of weapons or materials out of the initial declara-
tions (or successfully produce both later in secret plants without detection);
successfully falsify decades of operating records in a way consistent with the
state of all the existing facilities; provide delivery vehicles to launch the
weapons, in the context of the overlapping START verification regime; and so
on. Each of these hurdles, while not insurmountable in itself, provides an
additional risk of detection. The combination of measures would make the
possibility of successful evasion acceptably remote.
INTERNATIONALIZING THE REGIME
Most if not all of the regime described above can and should be extended
worldwide. The standards set in managing U.S. and Russian excess weapons
and fissile materials can provide the base for improving management of these
items throughout the world, and the opportunity to do so should be taken. As
the Clinton administration's September 27, 1993, statement on nonproliferation
policy put it, world stocks of fissile materials should be "subject to the highest
standards of safety, security, and international accountability."
Declarations of weapons holdings should be made by all the declared
nuclear-weapon states, while declarations of fissile material holdings should
ultimately include all states.~9 Such universal reporting of stocks of fissile
material, which should include information on all imports and exports of fissile
materials, would complement the information that the non-nuclear-weapon
parties to the NET are already required to give to the IAEA, providing a sub-
stantially firmer base for planning international fissile material management
policy, which will remain an essential aspect of nonproliferation.
Similarly, as additional states come to participate in nuclear arms reduc-
tions, arrangements comparable to those described in this chapter for monitor-
ing subtractions from their stockpiles and committing excess fissile materials to
non-weapons use or disposal should be put in place.
Making a cutoff of production of fissile materials for weapons a global
accord, as recently proposed, rather than solely a U.S.-Russian pact, would
have particular significance, marking a major step forward in nonproliferation
efforts. A global cutoff would establish the fundamental principle that it was no
8 White House Fact Sheet, "Nonproliferation and Export Control Policy," September 27, 1993.
~9 At present it is probably not realistic to expect states that have not formally declared their nuclear
weapons capability, such as Israel, India, and Pakistan, to declare the number of nuclear weapons available to
them; hence declarations of nuclear weapons holdings would apply only to acknowledged nuclear-weapon states.
These "threshold" counmes are also likely to be reluctant to declare their holdings of fissile materials, but He
regime should encourage them to do so.
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102 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
longer legitimate for any state to produce the essential ingredients of nuclear
weapons, except for peaceful purposes under safeguards. If states such as Israel,
Pakistan, and India could be convinced to accept such an agreement, it would
cap their undeclared arsenals without requiring them to either acknowledge or
roll back those arsenals immediately. Such a first step would go a long way
toward limiting the potential for a nuclear arms race on the South Asian
subcontinent.
At the same time, the stringent standards of security and accounting that
should be set for storage and processing of excess fissile materials from
weapons (see Chapter 5) should be extended to all civilian weapons-usable
fissile materials worldwide. Such a step would significantly reduce the risks of
diversion or theft of nuclear materials from civilian fuel cycles.
The IAEA secretariat and organizations in several countries are now
working on concepts for such universal reporting and safeguarding of fissile
matenals.
MANAGING AND MONITORING DISMANTLEMENT
Current Practices
Dismantlement in the United States
In the United States, nuclear weapons are being dismantled at the Pantex
plant in Amarillo, Texas, at a rate that has varied over the last several years,
reaching 1,600 warheads in 1991 (see Table 4-1~.2° DOE is striving to increase
this rate to roughly 2,000 per year. The United States plans to dismantle a large
fraction of both its tactical and its strategic arsenals, though decisions on the
number of weapons to be retained as inactive reserves remain to be made-up
The U.S. dismantlement rate is limited by the size of the available infra-
structure and by a set of practical considerations, most of them related to the
need to maintain applicable standards of protection for environment, safety,
20 One type of weapon, the W-33, which did not include plutonium components, was dismantled at
the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, rather than at Pantex. See U.S. Congress, General Accounting
Office, Nuclear Weapons: Safety, Technical, and Manpower Issues Slow DOE's Disassembly Efforts,
GAO/RCED-94-9 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, October 1993).
2} Recent Defense Department statements suggest that the inactive reserve-nuclear weapons that remain
assembled, but are not among the 5,100 weapons slated to be in the future active U.S. nuclear force-may take
on greater significance than it has had in the past. Undersecretary of Defense John Deutch, for example, recently
told Congress that because problems with the weapons complex and the end of nuclear testing would leave the
U.S. ability to produce new warheads "severely constrained," some warheads would be kept in the inactive
reserve "to replace active weapons if necessary." Deutch argued Mat the inactive reserve "holds the Nation's
only capacity for augmenting our significantly reduced active nuclear forces in response to a reversal in current
geopolitical trends or the emergence of a new strategic threat." (See U.S. Congress, House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Energy and Water Development Appropriations for 1994,
Part 6, p. 1311.) The appropriate size and operational posture of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is being reexamined in
new studies by die Defense Deparanent and tile National Security Council.
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DECLARA TI ONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 103
TABLE 4-1 Warhead Dismantlement in the United States
Fiscal
Year
Numbers Retired
and Disassembled
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
535
1,416
1,360
960
860
927
574
1,068
510
1,134
1,056
1,546
1,274
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Energy, cited in U.S. Congress, Office of Technology
Assessment, Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials, OTA-0-572
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1993), p. 24.
and health. Dismantlement is conducted under carefully designed, preapproved,
step-by-step procedures, which are time-consuming. The existing facilities and
personnel are working close to capacity. Thus, significantly speeding the pace
of dismantlement would require either hiring and training a substantial number
of extra personnel, in order to add an additional shift at existing facilities, or
building new facilities. Even hiring and preparing workers for an additional
shift would take several years because there are extensive screening and train-
ing processes for personnel who are to handle nuclear weapons. Since, at the
currently scheduled rate, planned U.S. dismantlements would be largely com-
plete by the year 2000 in any case, such steps would not drastically shorten the
remaining time to completion.
The weapons components resulting from dismantlement are either stored,
destroyed, disposed of as waste, or processed to recover valuable materials. The
plutonium weapons components, known as pits, are currently being placed in
intermediate storage at Pantex, while the highly enriched uranium components
are being shipped to the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where they can
be stored or processed for use as nuclear fuel in naval or civilian reactors. High-
explosive components are being burned in the open at Pantex, but environ
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104 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
mental and public acceptance considerations may malce it difficult to continue
that practice.22
Dismantlement in Russia
In Russia there are four sites where weapons are assembled and can also be
disassembled: Arzamas, Penza, Zlatoust, and Nizhnaya Tura. Information
about Russian dismantlement rates is uncertain. Russian officials responsible
for these programs have indicated that their dismantlement rate is somewhat
greater than that of the United States. In public testimony, the Department of
Defense has estimated that the current dismantlement rate in Russia is
approximately 2,000 per year, comparable to the U.S. rate.23 In both official
and private discussions, Russian officials have indicated that rates as much as
twice or even three times that of the United States could be attained (for exam-
ple, the Central Intelligence Agency reports that the Russians have indicated a
capability to dismantle 4,000-5,000 weapons per year, which the agency says it
has no reason to doubt).24
Why Russian dismantlement is not currently proceeding at the maximum
attainable rate is uncertain. Russian spokesmen have claimed that dismantle-
ment rates are severely limited by available storage capacity for the fissile
components of nuclear weapons. However, making existing storage sites
available, possibly with modifications, in both the nuclear weapons complex
and the military complex would provide adequate space (see Chapter 5~.
The economic and budgetary turmoil in Russia appears to be one source of
significant problems for dismantlement. Workers at some key nuclear sites,
including those involved in dismantlement, have gone unpaid for months at a
time and have threatened strikes. To the extent possible, the U.S. government
should attempt to be helpful in ensuring that sufficient resources are available
to accomplish critical tasks such as dismantlement. The planned HEU deal
should be a step toward that objective, and additional options for providing
financial or other incentives for dismantlement should be pursued.
Unlike the United States, Russia has assumed some formal obligations to
dismantle nuclear weapons, which might be seen as seeds from which the
broader transparency regime might grow. Commitments to dismantle weapons
removed from certain states of the former Soviet Union are contained in some
22 For a more detailed account of current U.S. dismantlement practices, see U.S. Congress, Office of
Technology Assessment, Dismantling the Bomb and Managing the Nuclear Materials, OTA-0-572
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1993).
23 Ashton B. Carter, Assistant Secretary for National Security and Counterproliferation, Department of
Defense, testifying at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "U.S. Aid to the Republics of the
Former Soviet Union," September 21, 1993 (transcript, Federal News Service). In Russia, unlike the United
States, limited production of new nuclear weapons is also believed to continue.
24 Testimony of Lawrence Gershwin, National Intelligence Officer for Strategic Programs, Senate
Government Whirs Committee, February 24, 1993 (transcript, Federal News Service).
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 105
of the accords reached in the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent
States, in the negotiated letters accompanying the Lisbon Protocol, and in an
agreement between Russia and Ukraine reached in April 1992, which contains
detailed provisions for Ukrainian monitoring of the dismantlement of weapons
removed from Ukrainian territory. Russian officials report that the lader
agreement is currently being implemented and that, as of the spring of 1993,
half of the tactical nuclear weapons removed from Ukrainian territory had been
dismantled, with Ukrainian monitoring.25 In addition, as currently conceived,
the arrangements for the HEU purchase now in the final stages of negotiation
and for U.S. funding of a fissile material storage site in Russia will both specify
that the material involved must come from dismantled weapons (though meas-
ures to verify this will be limited or nonexistent). This creates an obligation to
dismantle enough nuclear weapons during the 20-year period of the agreement
to provide 500 metric tons of HEU.
Monitoring Dismantlement
With the exception of the monitoring called for under the Russian-
Ukrainian agreement (and limited openness to the public at Pantex), no
measures are in place that are specifically designed to increase the transparency
of the dismantlement process. Such measures would increase the confidence of
the parties to the current reductions accords, as well as the international com-
munity, that dismantlement is in fact taking place and that the denuclearization
process is being securely managed.26 Increased transparency for weapons
dismantlement has thus far been resisted within the U.S. government and some
sectors of the Russian government, for three reasons: (1) the need to protect
sensitive weapons design information, (2) the urgency of proceeding with
dismantlement, and (3) the costs of monitoring.
These objections have some merit; yet the process of introducing increased
transparency measures need not significantly slow down the process of disman-
tlement, unduly compromise sensitive information, or break the bank. More-
over, as described above, there are compelling motivations for increasing
transparency. Although the uncertainties concerning dismantlement rates are
greater for Russia than for the United States, monitoring of dismantlement
25 Interview win General Sergei Zelentsov (retired) and Colonel-General Vitali Yakovlev, former
commander and current deputy commander, respectively, of the Russian military's 12~ Main Directorate, in
charge of nuclear weapons, Moscow, May 1993.
Ukraine has insisted that all weapons removed from its territory be dismantled, and Kazakhstan appears to
take a similar position. Some weapons being withdrawn from Belays, however, in particular the modern SS-25
mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, may well be incorporated into Russian strategic forces.
Some Ukrainian officials continue to claim Mat the monitoring provisions of the April 1992 agreement
have not been implemented, though others indicate that they are fully satisfied with these verification
arrangements.
26 As part of Me broad regime outlined here, such increased transparency could begin before
dismantlement as well, including, for example, monitored storage of excess weapons awaiting dismantlement.
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106 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
should be reciprocal, both because of the benefits of a reciprocal regime and
because reciprocity would Neatly improve the Dolitical acceptability of moni
torlng measures.
. cat ~
The best available means to monitor dismantlement without significantly
compromising sensitive design information would be a variant of the perimeter-
portal monitoring (PPM) system now in place to verify that missiles banned by
the INF treaty are not being produced.27 Under such an arrangement the
disassembly facility would be securely fenced, with the exception of monitored
entry and exit points. At the entry point, technical equipment could be used to
verify that an entering object is a nuclear weapon. A variety of technical means
to do so exist that could be used in a mutually supportive manner. The leading
technique is x-ray radiography, which could be constrained (to the satisfaction
of both the inspecting and the inspected parties) to ensure that the resolution of
the image provided was good enough to verify that the entering object was a
weapon, but not good enough to reveal the most sensitive design details. Addi-
tional methods include passive detectors to observe the radiation emitted by
nuclear weapons and active detectors to observe the radiation emitted in
response to interrogation by a particle beam, among others.28 At the exit point
of the facility, the material going out could be assayed for fissile material
content (by methods external to the canisters containing the fissile components,
to avoid inspection of the detailed dimensions of the components, which itself
is classified information). Although the committee is persuaded that monitored
dismantlement using such PPM methods can be made without compromising
vital design information, it will be necessary to declassify some limited infor-
mation that is now considered restricted data, such as radiation spectra from
weapons.
Currently, assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons take place in the
same group of structures at Pantex. Similarly, it is the committee's understand-
ing, based on discussions with Russian officials, that in Russia, each specific
weapon type is assembled and disassembled in the same facility, although
within those facilities, assembly and disassembly are segregated. In principle,
perimeter-portal monitoring could simply be imposed on such joint assembly
and disassembly facilities, thereby monitoring both dismantlement and assem-
bly at the same time. Both incoming and outgoing weapons could be counted,
with the difference being credited as disassembled weapons; the fissile material
content of the weapons components leaving the PPM enclosure and going into
safeguarded storage could be assayed after exit; and nonfissile components
could be brought into and out of the facility in opaque containers, with the
27 Under the INF treaty, the United States has a PPM installation at the Russian Votkinsk missile
production facility, to ensure dlat prohibited SS-20 INF missiles are not produced there. The Russians have
similar monitoring opportunities at a U.S. missile facility at Magna, Utah.
28 For more details on pow monitors for identifying nuclear weapons, see DreH et al., op. cit.; and David
Albright, "Portal Monitoring for Detecting Fissile Materials and Chemical Explosives," in Frank von Hippel and
Roald Z. Sagdeev, eds., Reversing the Arms Race (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1990).
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 107
monitors learning nothing about their contents except the basic fact that they
did not contain substantial quantities of fissile material.
Alternatively, assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons could be seg-
regated (as they already are in Russia) in order to exclude assembly operations
from monitoring or to impose different types of monitoring and levels of
intrusiveness on the two operations. At the Pantex plant, some of the essentially
identical structures used for assembly and disassembly could be devoted exclu-
sively to dismantlement, and others exclusively to assembly. This would not
require significant modifications of existing facilities, although it would
probably come at some modest cost in operational efficiency.
If, as it appears, segregating assembly from disassembly would not impose
substantial costs or delays, this would probably be the preferable approach, to
ease the task of designing monitoring arrangements most appropriate to the
degree of sensitivity of the activity being monitored. Information concerning
the design of weapons types to be retained in active service, for example, may
be more sensitive than the design of weapons being retired. The problem of
protecting sensitive information related to the nonfissile components flowing
into the assembly operation would be reduced. Similarly, if the sides agreed to
tag particular weapons to be dismantled under an arms agreement, it would be
considerably easier to determine that these specific weapons had been disman-
tled if intact weapons were not leaving the same facility. As noted above,
however, if a regime is to be built that monitors the net subtraction of nuclear
weapons from each side's arsenal, both assembly and disassembly will have to
be subject to some form of transparency. The specifics of how the monitoring of
dismantlement should be implemented are matters that must be subject to
further internal consideration by each party and to bilateral negotiation.
MANAGING DISMANTLEMENT FOR
ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY, AND HEALTH
Protection of the environment, safety, and health must be a critical part of
the dismantlement effort. The most obvious and compelling safety issue is
ensuring against the possibility of a nuclear explosion. Addressing this problem
requires great care, including disabling warheads prior to disassembly, to
prevent a nuclear yield. A possibility of conventional explosions that might
cause plutonium contamination remains, however. The "Gravel Gerties" used
for dismantlement are designed to contain such explosions, limiting damage
and contamination to the interior of the particular dismantlement module itself.
Nevertheless, precautions must be taken to ensure against such explosions;
none has occurred in the decades of operation at Pantex.
Other ES&H issues involved in dismantlement include worker exposures to
radioactive and toxic materials; transport of hazardous materials to and from
the facility; disposal of hazardous materials on-site (including open burning of
explosives from disassembled weapons at Pantex, which has been the focus of
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108 DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT
particular public concern); criticality safety; and possible safety issues asso-
ciated with storage of weapons and fissile materials (such as the possibility of
an aircraft crash on the storage facility). All these issues are being addressed, to
varying degrees, but dismantlement will never be a risk-free endeavor. The
ES&H dangers involved in dismantlement, however, are far less severe than
those of many other U.S. (and Russian) nuclear weapons complex activities,
particularly since there is no actual processing of plutonium or other radioac-
tive materials. Considering the methods used for dismantlement in the United
States, it is the committee's judgment that there is little doubt that dismantling
weapons and storing or disposing of the resulting materials is safer overall than
storing the assembled weapons indefinitely.
Public support for weapons complex operations, however, can be secured
only by providing greater openness and public participation in decision making.
In the new environment in which DOE finds itself, such participation is re-
quired if dismantlement is to continue at projected rates. DOE is making
progress in setting up mechanisms to meet these needs. Nevertheless, public
involvement is currently embryonic and in need of further developments
RECOMMENDATIONS
The committee has deliberately included consideration of both dismantle
ment and declarations in a single chapter, since both are critical to the creation
of a meaningful future control regime encompassing all nuclear weapons and
weapons-usable fissile materials. The committee recommends that:
· The United States and Russia should make formal commitments that
specific quantities of fissile material from dismantled weapons (representing a
very large fraction of those materials) will be declared excess and committed to
non-weapons use or disposal. Storage and disposition of these materials should
be subject to agreed standards of accountability, transparency, and security. The
standards for accountability and security should approximate as closely as
possible the stringent standards applied to stored nuclear weapons.
· The United States should negotiate with Russia to create, through a step-
by-step process, a broad regime under which each side's stocks of nuclear
weapons and fissile materials would be declared and monitored, and the size of
both stocks would be verifiably reduced over time in line with current reduc-
tions in deployed delivery systems. This regime would include, in addition to
the fissile material steps mentioned in the previous recommendation:
1. a system of mutual declarations of total inventories of nuclear weapons and
of fissile materials in civilian and military inventories;
29 See U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, op. at.
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DECLARATIONS AND DISMANTLEMENT 109
2. measures designed to increase confidence in the accuracy of the declarations,
and the transparency of each side's nuclear weapons production complexes,
including physical access to production facilities and production records for
fissile materials;
3. a monitored cutoff of production of HEU and plutonium for weapons. If
necessary, the United States should be willing to provide limited funding to
assist Russia in the measures necessary to cut off plutonium production; and
4. an agreement providing for perimeter-portal monitoring of dismantlement
facilities, counting warheads entering these facilities and assaying the fissile
material that leaves. If the net subtractions from each side's stockpile are to
be confirmed, some monitoring of warhead assembly will be required as
well.
· Information concerning the total stockpiles of weapons and fissile
materials, and those weapons characteristics necessary for external monitoring,
should be declassified as part of this transparency regime. Appropriate reviews
to prepare for such declassification should be initiated promptly.
· Russia and the United States should dismantle their retired warheads as
expeditiously as is practical, consistent with protection for the environment,
safety, and health, and cost-effectiveness.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
fissile material
