Nunn-Lugar appropriations come under fire

Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) has been on the WMD beat longer than most. Readers may perhaps recall his efforts with Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) to provide funding to help Russia secure its nuclear (and later, biological and chemical) stockpiles. He is still hard at work on that effort, but sadly, the Bush administration does not seem to take the threat as seriously, and almost every year Lugar protests. This year is no exception. According to Lugar, the president’s recently proposed budget does not include enough money to destroy or store the stockpiles of anthrax, plagues, and other dangerous bugs in the former Soviet Union.

The $144.5 million President Bush requested for the program, Lugar believes, is $100 million short of what is required. Moreover, the president proposed to cut overall spending on the Nunn-Lugar by 7 percent, from $372 million to $348 million. This is foolish. “It is in U.S. national security interests to improve the security around these deadly diseases,” said Lugar, “but it is also in our interests to assist these governments in becoming a more effective partner in stopping the spread of pandemics, detecting their sources and identifying a response.”

Already nations such as Georgia and Azerbaijan have received U.S. funding to secure pathogen samples and prepare early warning and containment systems. Insufficient funding, however, “has prevented the timely expansion of this program to other important countries like Armenia and Ukraine.”

Lugar has promised to introduce legislation to reinstate the neccesary $100 million to expand the program — “a small price to pay compared to the economic costs and deaths that could result from a biological weapons attack, pathogen outbreak or disease pandemic,” Lugar said.

-read more in Sylvia Smith’s Fort Wayne Journal report