DOE aid to Russian weapons scientists said to abet Iran

A US program aimed at preventing former Soviet nuclear weapons scientists from migrating to other nations’ nuclear programs may be benefiting Iran’s effort to develop nuclear weapons, two key lawmakers have charged.

Representatives John Dingell, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak, who chairs its subcommittee on oversight and investigations, accused the Department of Energy of having subsidized two Russian nuclear institutes that are helping Iran build its first power-generating reactor. The State Department has asserted that the reactor at Bushehr has provided cover for Iran to obtain sensitive technology for its weapons development effort. The two Michigan Democrats said that the two Russian institutes involved with Bushehr—the Scientific Research Institute of Measurements and the Federal Scientific and Industrial Center of Nuclear Machine Building—have together received $3.4 million in funding from DOE’s Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP). The 13-year-old program was designed to provide work to weapons scientists who were left unemployed by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told the committee that the projects cited, and all the department’s scientific engagement projects, “are not enhancing the Iranian nuclear program.” All IPP projects, he testified, are “vetted through a very vigorous interagency effort and are fully consistent with US law and policy.” All projects “are of a pay-for-performance nature,” in which payment is made after the product is delivered, he said.

Bodman acknowledged that he had “no doubt that there are inconsistencies” between his assurances on the Bushehr reactor and the State Department’s position. “I will tell you what I have been told,” an exasperated Bodman told Dingell, complaining that Dingell and Stupak had notified him of their concerns only 15 hours before he was due to appear at the previously scheduled 7 February hearing. Bodman added that he had directed a top deputy to look into the matter in detail and report back to him.

The US has been “in dialog” with Russia for years regarding Bushehr and Iran’s nuclear aspirations, Bodman said, and the reactor under construction will be covered by International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. A long-term nuclear-fuel supply arrangement requires for Russia to take back the spent reactor fuel, thereby reducing the possibility that Iran could recover weapons-usable fissile materials.

At a 23 January hearing of Stupak’s subcommittee, the Government Accountability Office claimed that the IPP had exaggerated its accomplishments. The GAO said it was unable to substantiate DOE’s claim that the program had helped create 2790 long-term private-sector jobs in the former Soviet republics.

DOE says it has expended $309 million through the IPP to engage 16 700 weapons scientists since the program began in the Clinton administration. But the GAO found that more than half of the 6450 former Soviet scientists in its sample who were involved with the IPP said that they had had no weapons experience.

The IPP currently supports 115 projects at more than 100 institutes in Russia and other former Soviet republics. Most of the projects involve US industry partners, and many have resulted in the commercialization of products such as land-mine detectors, needle-free injectors, radioisotopes for cancer treatment, and prosthetics. But the GAO maintained that the commercialization scorecard was suspect since it relied on unaudited statistics provided by the institutes and industry partners.

Stupak and other panel members questioned whether the $30 million-a-year program is needed in view of the significantly improved Russian economic conditions in recent years. They criticized the lack of an “exit strategy” for the IPP, contrasting it with a similar though smaller program administered by the State Department that has been winding down.