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November 3, 2008

Exclusive: Will Missing Russian Nukes be the ‘Test’ Joe Biden Warned About?

Tim Wilson

On Friday, the AP news service reported that “Russia Denies U.S. Charge of Unaccounted for Nukes.” This came in response to remarks made during an October 28th speech by Defense Secretary Robert Gates in which, amongst other relevant things, he included the phrase “What worries me are the tens of thousands of old nuclear mines, nuclear artillery shells and so on, because the reality is the Russians themselves probably don’t have any idea how many of those they have or, potentially, where they are.” Mr.Gateswas answering a question at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based on the informed comments of former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) that they believe it would be a miracle if there hadn’t been a leakage of nuclear material from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both have considerable expertise on the subject and were authors of the Nunn-Lugar sponsored Cooperative Threat Reduction Act.

For the MSM, this story is not nearly as newsworthy as Secretary Gates’s call for modernization of our own nuclear arsenal. Of the 49 stories published and which show a return from a Google search of “Russia Unaccounted Nukes”, only nine are about the Russian denials of nuclear leakage, while 40 are about Secretary Gates’s request (made during the same speech in which he made the unaccounted nukes remark) for funding to service and upgrade the existing U.S arsenal. Democrats apparently oppose any such repairs or upgrades on principal while maintaining that having nuclear weapons old enough to be considered by some experts as unreliable remains acceptable (no new or replacement weapons have been produced nor have any been tested in the U.S. since 1992). Most of the 40 articles on U.S. nuclear weapon repair/replacement are also less than favorable to what seems a common sense request when one looks at the details.

However, this is one of the most frightening news stories to appear for many years, despite the Russian denials and offense at U.S. questions. The comment by Mr. Gates points out that the weapons in question are not the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (of which Russia still holds around 6,000), but “non-strategic” nuclear devices such as mines and artillery rounds (to which Russia admits to 4,000 – a worrying anomaly from Gates’ claimed figure of ”tens of thousands”). These are not huge devices, weighing typically less than one hundred pounds and sized to fit into, for example, conventional six-inch artillery tubes. While this size makes them easily transportable, they are each nonetheless capable of producing detonations which would be equivalent to many thousands of tons of conventional high explosive.

Lest anyone dismiss this as mere fear mongering, ask yourself this: “Would President Bush and the State Department allow this point to be made without some real and concrete reason, even by Defense Secretary Gates?” Bearing in mind President Bush’s close friendship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the liberal stronghold that is Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s Department of State today, it is extremely unlikely that this issue would have been raised without some solid reasons behind it. Of course, it could have been the assertions of a rogue Defense Secretary, but he is unlikely to be that far rogue if he is, as alleged just a week ago by the New York Times, being considered for the same post in an Obama administration. So the most likely scenario is that Mr. Gates’s assertion of concern over the possibility of loss from the Russian nuclear stockpile was based on some form of convincing intelligence.

It is also true that Mr. Gates’ remark, made during the Q&A session after his speech, qualified his concern to center on what might have occurred during the early ‘90s, rather than today’s Russian nuclear arsenal, but it was, at best, a lukewarm qualification which included the above quoted phrase and in which he also said “…..there were times during the 1990s when these facilities [Russian nuclear storage sites] were no better guarded than an ordinary warehouse and by a guard who was barely being paid at all.” Now perhaps Mr. Gates misspoke during the unscripted Q&A part of his appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but if he did that is one heck of a gaffe. At the least it indicates some present day concerns in the Pentagon and a fear which must have been discussed at the highest levels, almost certainly including the Cabinet, and yet which, despite the counter-arguments, still remains sufficiently firm in Mr. Gates mind for him to mention them in public.

Add to this latest information the nuclear programs of North Korea, Iran and Syria, along with their open hostility to the United States, and the knowledge that Osama bin Laden and friends are actively trying to get hold of nuclear materials. In this light, Mr. Gates’s comments are more than worrying. Finally, add in Sen. Biden’s recent remarks about how, under President Obama, “Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.” How many Americans remember that the test faced by President Kennedy was a Soviet nuclear threat? Is that really a chance we want to take as we make our choice this coming week?

Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Tim Wilson is a retired British Army officer who now works as an independent consultant. Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org.

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