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Subject: Smuggling of uranium alarms Nunn
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 92 15:00:28 EST
Message-ID: <news75.1992Nov26.150028@AmeriCast.com>
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\SE A;NATION
\SS (WS)
\HD Smuggling of uranium alarms Nunn
\BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

Uranium has probably been smuggled out of at least one former Soviet
republic, raising new alarms about the spread of nuclear weapons, Senate
Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn said yesterday.

Mr.  Nunn, just back from a trip to five former republics, said senior
officials in Belarus told of "several cases" of intercepting uranium as
smugglers sought to take it across the border into Poland.  Four republics
still have nuclear weapons on their soil.

The Belarus government has security concerns about its border, and the
discovery of the uranium shipments means it is likely that some nuclear
materials have been successfully smuggled out, Mr.  Nunn said.

The Georgia Democrat, who visited the former republics with Sen.
Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, said this and other crises are arising
at a delicate time when neither the Bush administration nor the incoming
team of President-elect Bill Clinton wants to take a firm foreign policy
hand.

Mr.  Nunn called the smuggling news "alarming" because of the
possibility that the uranium could wind up in a nation that wants to use it
to develop nuclear weapons.

Mr.  Nunn and Mr.  Lugar were the sponsors of a law passed in 1991
providing $500 million in U.S.  aid to help the republics collect, secure
and dismantle nuclear weapons, a process that has proceeded slowly.

"The clock is ticking and we have to deal with these things," Mr.  Nunn
said.  "If we don't give it an all-out effort, we will pay the price."

At the same time, the Bush administration seems to have backed away
from negotiations and assistance on several pressing matters with Russia
and the other republics, including arms control, trade, and the development
of free markets and democracy, the senators said.

"This is a high-risk period," said Mr.  Lugar, calling for a better
understanding between Mr.  Bush and Mr.  Clinton about how relations with
the former adversary will be handled during the transition between U.S.
administrations.

"Awesome nuclear weapons remain . . . still in place, still on alert
and still targeted against the United States," Mr.  Lugar said.  Mr.  Nunn
said that while the risk of nuclear war is greatly diminished, "the risk of
an accidental or unauthorized launch, . . . if anything, has increased."

Among items of unfinished business, Mr.  Lugar said, is an agreement by
the United States to pay about $5.5 billion over the next 20 years to buy
highly enriched uranium that comes from nuclear weapons as the republics
dismantle them.  The four nuclear republics - Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and
Kazakhstan - must first agree on how to share the revenue from the sales,
Mr.  Lugar said.

Russia's political uncertainty, ethnic unrest in many republics and
economic distress all make it urgent that the United States remain
involved, said Mr.  Nunn and Mr.  Lugar, who are close to Mr.  Clinton and
Mr.  Bush, respectively.

"President Bush and Clinton have to work together," Mr.  Nunn said,
adding, "The initiative here has to come from the president in power."

While Mr.  Bush has just been through the strain of a campaign and the
shock of a defeat, "he has a rare and unique opportunity and responsibility
to complete important work in the next 60 days," Mr.  Nunn said.  "We don't
have the luxury of declaring a recess" in foreign relations.

With Mr.  Bush shrinking into the background, an acting secretary of
state and no U.S.  ambassador currently in Moscow, "it's alarming," Mr.
Nunn said.  He and Mr.  Lugar plan to offer "a strong recommendation . . .
that this course not proceed in this direction.  . . . It's just going to
take the incoming president and the outgoing president to say there's too
much at stake here."


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