Publications: Testimony, Reports and Speeches

Testimony on U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation

4/26/06 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
This legislation puts the United States at risk.  It is impossible to weaken export controls for India without weakening them for everyone else. The “everyone else” includes Iran, Pakistan, and even terrorist groups that might want to buy the means to make mass destruction weapons.

Written response to questions regarding U.S.-India nuclear cooperation

4/26/06 - Response to written questions from Senator Joseph Biden, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Under the administration's plan, India would be treated better than both nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. In effect, the United States will, in nuclear matters, treat India better than any other country in the world.

United States Policy Toward Iran - Next Steps

3/8/06 - Before the House Committee on International Relations
The United States should start acting as if stopping the Iranian bomb were truly at the top of its foreign policy priority list. That would mean moving quickly to start the sanctions process at the United Nations, shelving the “strategic partnership” with India until the crisis with Iran is over, and telling the government of Dubai that it must stop allowing dangerous exports to go to countries like Iran and Pakistan.

Iran: Weapons Proliferation, Terrorism and Democracy

5/19/05 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Iran has just made a deal with Britain, France and Germany intended to provide an opening for continued talks. The United States has little choice but to join.

The Sanctions Charade

3/10/05 - Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission
Since 1980, China has supplied billions of dollars’ worth of nuclear weapon, chemical weapon, and missile technology to South Asia and the Middle East. It has done so in the face of U.S. protests, and despite repeated promises to stop. The exports are still going on, and while they do, they make it impossible for the United States and its allies to halt the spread of mass destruction weapons.

Export Controls and the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction

3/17/04 - Before the House Committee on Armed Services
The president has just described what one Pakistani scientist, plus a handful of his henchmen, have been able to achieve during the past decade. To Libya, Iran and North Korea, they supplied components for high-speed gas centrifuges, and to Libya, they sold the design for a nuclear weapon. The failure of the United States to close down this arms bazaar must rank as one of the great mistakes of our time.

Iran's Nuclear Program and Imports of Sensitive Technology

9/17/03 - Before the US-Israeli Joint Parliamentary CommitteeImports have fueled virtually all of Iran's known weapon capability. Over the past decade, the United States has sanctioned at least nineteen Chinese firms for contributing to Iran's chemical and other weapon programs, and at least ten Russian entities for helping Iran build missiles.  Examples of Iran's acquisitions are set out in the following table.

Iraq's WMD Programs and Export Controls

9/19/02 - Before the House Committee on Armed Services
In reaction to the attacks on September 11, the United States should search for ways to strengthen controls on the sales of  products that terrorists need to make weapons of mass destruction. Instead, this bill would authorize the Commerce Department to drop export controls on the very items that our enemies would most like to use against us.

Export Control and Arms Proliferation: China and Russia

6/6/02 - Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on International Security
If we look around the world today, and ask what are the "pacing items" in the spread of mass destruction weapons, the answer is clear: they are Chinese and Russian exports. If we look back over the past several years, we see that China and Russia have done the following.

Reauthorizing the Export Administration Act

2/28/02 - Before the House Committee on Armed Services 
Unlike our present law, the proposed new Export Administration Act does not strike a balance between national security and freedom of trade.  Instead, it is a one-sided list of provisions advocated by commercial interests that have long opposed any form of export control.  If the bill passes, it would essentially dismantle the system of export control that the United States has built up over the past half-century.  

China's Efforts to Obtain Sensitive US Technology

1/17/02 - Before the U.S.-China Security Review Commission
The Commission has asked for comment on China's efforts to obtain sensitive technology from the United States, and on the effectiveness of export controls to protect U.S. national security. The Commission should see the following report on sensitive U.S. exports to China that my organization published in April 1999.

Export Controls and Weapons of Mass Destruction

11/7/01 - Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services
This testimony covers four topics: first, whether export controls are protecting our security; second, whether they are being weakened; third, whether violations are being punished; and fourth, how export controls can be stronger.

China's Proliferation Record

10/12/01 - Before the U.S.-China Security Review Commission
Since 1980, China has sold billions of dollars' worth of nuclear weapon, chemical weapon and missile technology to South Asia and the Middle East. For a comprehensive look at China's export activities, I invite the Commission to examine the charts prepared by the Wisconsin Project entitled "China's Dangerous Exports" that are available in your briefing packets.

The WMD Threat Posed by Iraq

10/4/01 - Before the House Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia
Since the cease fire agreement that terminated the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq has waged an unceasing struggle to undo the strategic results that the Gulf War produced. Iraq's procurement network is a vital component of this effort. The network, which U.N. inspections have failed to eradicate, is still active despite the embargo.

The Export of Dual-Use Technology

5/26/00 - Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs
The Committee has asked for comment on two concepts that have been proposed for use in U.S. export controls. The first is known as "mass market status;" the second as "foreign availability." The Committee has asked what the effect would be on our national security if these concepts were adopted as U.S. policy.

The Export Administration Act of 2000

3/23/00 - Before the Senate Committee on Armed Services
The Committee has asked for comments on S. 1712. If this bill were enacted it would overturn and to a great extent nullify the system of export controls that the United States has built up over the past half-century. S. 1712 is a list of provisions advocated by commercial interests that have long opposed any form of export control. It would be more accurate to call the bill the "Export Decontrol Act."

The Situation in Iraq

3/22/00 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
Three items are submitted for the record. The first is an article I recently published in the New Yorker detailing Iraq's use of the oil-for-food program to buy components that can trigger nuclear weapons. The second is a table my organization prepared after the inspectors left Iraq in 1998, which lists what remains unaccounted for in Iraq's mass destruction weapon programs. The third is a chart on Saddam Hussein's procurement network that my organization prepared a few years ago but which is still relevant to the issues we face today.  

Supercomputer Export Controls

10/28/99 - Before the House Committee on Armed Services
This Committee should be proud of taking the lead on what is now known as the "NDAA process." The notification process has stopped a number of dangerous exports without imposing any real burden on industry--the very definition of a good export control system.

Reauthorization of the Export Administration Act

4/14/99 - Before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance
Export control is not a jobs issue. Of the total American economy, less than two tenths of one percent ($10.7 billion) went through Commerce Department licensing in 1994, and more than 95% of applications were approved. Only $141 million in applications were denied in 1994--which is less than one hundredth of one percent of the U.S. economy and roughly equal to six percent of the cost of one B-2 bomber. The figures today are the same. Reducing export controls will not stimulate the U.S. economy; it will only stimulate the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. 

US Export Controls on Dual-Use Technology

7/09/98 - Before the Senate Armed Services Committee
Export controls can buy the time to turn a country off the nuclear weapon path. Argentina and Brazil gave up nuclear weapons in part because of the costs that export controls imposed upon them. And in Iraq, U.N. inspectors found that export controls seriously hampered the Iraqi nuclear weapon design team. These controls are now hampering India's effort to build an ICBM and will hamper the efforts of both India and Pakistan to weaponize their nuclear arsenals.

Cooperation in Space and Missiles

6/25/98 - Before the House Committee on Science
This testimony will discuss the U.S. policy of cooperation with foreign space programs and the risk that it will contribute to the spread of missile technology.  The history of India's biggest nuclear missile, the Agni, proves that you cannot help a country build space launchers without helping it build missiles.

China's Proliferation Record

6/17/98 - Before the House Committees on International Relations and National Security
We have heard a lot about satellites lately, but what we have not heard is that the Clinton Administration has decided to give Chinese companies a green light to sell missile technology to countries like Iran and Pakistan.

US Satellite Exports and China

6/11/98 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Our sanctions laws are based on a simple idea. A foreign company cannot import American missile technology with one hand and proliferate missile technology with the other. That idea has now been abandoned by the executive branch. When the Administration transferred licensing authority over satellites from the State Department to the Commerce Department, satellites were effectively removed from the U.S. exports subject to missile sanctions.

Supercomputer Export Controls

11/13/97 - Before the House Committee on National Security
Silicon Graphics, Inc. has recently shipped four American supercomputers to Chelyabinsk-70, the second most famous nuclear weapon laboratory in Russia, without obtaining the required U.S. export licenses. Chelyabinsk claims to have developed the world's most powerful hydrogen bomb. These machines will allow Russia to design nuclear warheads cheaper and faster through simulations and to design more accurate long-range missiles.

China's WMD Exports

10/8/97 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
These remarks will cover three subjects: First, China's exports to countries that are trying to make weapons of mass destruction, second, the strategic impact of American exports to China, and third, nuclear cooperation between the United States and China. The attached tables list China's exports of nuclear, chemical and missile technology since 1980.

China's Proliferation Activities

9/18/97 - Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
This testimony will cover three subjects: First, China's exports to countries that are trying to make weapons of mass destruction, second, the strategic impact of American exports to China, and third, the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor China's activities. 

Iran's WMD Helpers

5/6/97 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
The Subcommittee has asked who is helping Iran build weapons of mass destruction. By now China has been selling Iran ingredients and equipment to make poison gas for at least five years. U.S. officials say that the poison gas sales had continued to the present time, unabated.

Selling US Supercomputers

4/15/97 - Before the House Committee on National Security,
Subcommittee on Military Procurement
The Subcommittee has asked me to describe supercomputer sales that have happened recently, and to assess their impact on U.S. national security. Viktor Mikhailov, Russia's Minister of Atomic Energy, announced recently that his ministry had managed to buy powerful American supercomputers for Russia's nuclear weapon laboratories.

China's Role in the Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction

4/10/97 - Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services
I have been asked to discuss the U.S. "engagement" policy toward China and whether the executive branch is implementing the U.S. law on sanctions. The evidence is clear on both questions. The administration's engagement policy has run out of gas and the administration is not complying with sanctions laws. 

The Spread of Weapons of Mass Destruction

3/20/96 - Before the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
The Subcommittee has asked me to describe how proliferant countries are getting what they need, and to suggest what the United States should do to reduce the threat.  Attached is a list of China's nuclear and missile exports to the Islamic countries from 1980 to 1994, and China's promises to stop these exports.

China's Military Growth and Implications for the United States

10/12/95 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs
This testimony will cover three areas: China's current status as a nuclear power; China's record as a supplier of nuclear, chemical and missile technology; and U.S. export policy toward China. 

The Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

3/15/95 - Before the House Committee on National Security, Subcommittees on Military Procurement and on Research and Development
The Subcommittees have asked me about the present proliferation threat. Today, the risk that thousands of nuclear weapons will obliterate civilization has gone down. But the risk that a few nuclear weapons will obliterate a few cities is going up. The cold war's stability is being replaced with the instability that shook the worlds of 1914 and 1939.

The US-North Korean Nuclear Accord

1/26/95 - Before the Senate Committee on Armed Services
The Committee has asked me to discuss the United States-North Korean nuclear accord signed last October. I will cover the agreement's effect on our nonproliferation policy, its effect on the International Atomic Energy Agency, and its effect on the peninsula. 

The US-North Korean Nuclear Accord

1/19/95 - Before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
This testimony will cover three points concerning the accord with North Korea. First, what are America's gains under the agreement compared to its obligations? Second, what are the dangers of treating North Korea as a "special case" under international inspections? Third, how might North Korea take advantage of the agreement to advance its plutonium production?  

The US-North Korean Nuclear Accord

12/1/94 - Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,
Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs
The Subcommittee has asked me to discuss the U.S.-North Korean nuclear accord, under which North Korea is getting two free reactors over the next decade, worth $4 billion. The risk? These reactors will make far more bomb-grade plutonium than the graphite reactors North Korea has now, including the ones under construction. These two reactors could turn out at least 70 bombs' worth of "weapon-grade" plutonium per year. North Korea's existing reactors are only one eighth as big, and could make only about 25-30 bombs' worth per year.

Renewing the Export Administration Act

6/15/94 - Before the House Committee on Armed Services
The Export Administration Act is now before Congress, which should remind us that export controls are needed more than ever. It is illogical to say that because the Cold War is over, proliferation is the main international threat, and then to say that export controls, one of the best ways of containing that threat, should be reduced.

Weaknesses in the International Atomic Energy Agency

6/29/93 - Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittees on Europe and the Middle East, on Economic Policy, Trade and the Environment, and on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights
The three Subcommittees have asked me to discuss the effectiveness of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq. In roughly one month, we will pass the third anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. If Iraq had not invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein might also be passing a milestone: assembling his first atomic bomb.  One of the most frightening things about this possibility is that the Agency never would have detected it.

American Trade Relations with China

5/20/93 - Before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittees on Economic Policy, Trade and the Environment, on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights, and on Asia and the Pacific
My testimony today will cover American trade relations with China--specifically, whether China should continue to enjoy the status of a most favored nation. I believe that China should lose that status unless it stops sabotaging Western efforts to curb nuclear and missile proliferation.

US Exports to Iraq

10/27/92 - Before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
The Committee has asked whether American exports aided Iraq's effort to build weapons of mass destruction. The short answer is "yes." In June 1991, my organization released a study of the dual-use exports that the U.S. Commerce Department had approved for Iraq since 1985. I would like to offer the study today for inclusion in this committee's hearing record.  

Nuclear Arms Proliferation

5/8/92 - Before the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs
My testimony will emphasize the fact that countries can be persuaded that the costs of developing nuclear weapons can be greater than the benefits. Argentina and Brazil have stopped short of nuclear weapon status, and South Africa has promised to become a non-nuclear weapon state although that country may have actually manufactured warheads.

Low-tech Delivery of Nuclear Weapons

4/30/92 - Before the House Committee on Armed Services
Subcommittee on Research and Development
The Subcommittee has asked how a nuclear attack on the United States might be carried out by means other than a long-range ballistic missile. Some of the possibilities are listed in Figure III. To show the impact of a twenty-kiloton bomb on central Washington, D.C., I have prepared Figure IV.

In China We Trust? (PDF)

Diagrams: BHA and HHNEC (PDF)

1/08 - In mid-October, the U.S. Commerce Department began to allow certain “trusted” companies in China to receive militarily useful products from the United States without obtaining an export license that would otherwise be required. Of the first five companies approved, however, two (forty percent of the total) do not meet the selection criteria. They are affiliated closely to China’s military industrial complex and to companies that have been punished by the U.S. government for proliferation or other improper export behavior.

Seventeen Myths about the Indian Nuclear Deal

Executive Summary

Section I, Part A - Dual-Use American Equipment Licensed for Export to China, 1988 - 1998 (PDF)

Section I, Part B - U.S. Equipment Approved for Chinese Nuclear, Missile or Military Sites
(PDF)

Section II - Espionage and Diversions (PDF)

Section III - China: The Strategic Outlook (PDF)

Section IV - China's Dangerous Exports(PDF)

4/99 - U.S. Exports to China 1988-1998: Fueling Proliferation

During the past decade, the U.S. Commerce Department approved more than $15 billion worth of strategically sensitive U.S. exports to the People's Republic of China. The exports included equipment that can be used to design nuclear weapons, process nuclear material, machine nuclear weapon components, improve missile designs, build missile components and transmit data from missile tests. Some of this equipment went directly to leading nuclear, missile and military sites -- the main vertebrae of China's strategic backbone. And several of these Chinese buyers later supplied nuclear, missile and military equipment to Iran and Pakistan.

25 Myths about Export Control

3/94 - The Export Administration Act is now before Congress and a group of American exporters has mounted an unprecedented campaign to weaken this vital law. If they succeed, developing countries will find it easier to build atomic bombs and long-range missiles under the Clinton administration than they did under either presidents Bush or Reagan.

The Pentagon and the Bomb

1/93 - For years the Pentagon has relegated nuclear nonproliferation to the status of a housekeeping chore, to be pursued on a perfunctory basis by a handful of mid-level specialists buried in the Pentagon hierarchy. With such meager tools the Pentagon cannot confront the proliferation menace in the dozen or more nations that have crossed, or are trying to cross, the nuclear arms threshold.

Missiles Too Dangerous to Name

8/92 - On June 16, 1992 the U.S. Department of Commerce published its long-awaited list of missile projects in the Third World. The list was supposed to name secret missile makers, and thus deny them U.S. exports. Instead, the administration bowed to pressure from Israel and other special interests.

Pursuing the Bomb in North Korea

6/3/92 - U.S. intelligence has estimated that North Korea may have produced enough nuclear weapon material for six to eight atomic bombs. These conclusions are based on overhead photographs and environmental sampling.

Exports and Terrorism
US Export Licenses to Iran, September 1990 to September 1991

1/92 - From September 1990 to September 1991, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved nearly $60 million dollars' worth of sensitive exports to Iran. Most of these items were "dual use," meaning that in addition to their civilian uses, they can be used to make nuclear weapons, long-range missiles or other military equipment. 

U.S. Export Licenses to Iran and Syria:  1986 to 1990

7/91 - From 1986 to 1990, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved over $300 million worth of sensitive American exports to Iran and Syria. Most of these were "dual-use" items, capable of making nuclear weapons or long-range missiles if diverted from their claimed civilian purposes.

Licensing Mass Destruction
US Exports to Iraq, 1985-1990

6/91 - The U.S. Department of Commerce licensed more than $1.5 billion worth of sensitive U.S. exports to Iraq from 1985 to 1990. Most were "dual-use" items, capable of making nuclear weapons or long-range missiles if diverted from their claimed civilian purposes. This report shows that U.S. export controls suffered a massive breakdown in the period preceding the Gulf War. When U.S. planes were sent to destroy Iraq's strategic sites, much of the equipment they bombed was made in the United States.

Bombs from Beijing
China's Nuclear and Missile Exports

5/91 - This report reviews China's nuclear and missile export record over the past decade.

Responding to Iran's nuclear challenge

7/25/07 - The Heritage Foundation. After missing our two best chances to stop Iran’s drive for the bomb, we are now faced with alternatives that are expensive, and even frightening.

The International Atomic Energy Agency: The World's Enforcer or Paper Tiger?

9/28/04 - American Enterprise Institute . The IAEA both promotes and regulates nuclear energy—a conflict of interest.  If its inspectors find that “peaceful” nuclear equipment has been diverted to bomb making somewhere, then the technology should not have been sold in the first place.  Thus, there is an incentive to find no diversions.

Remarks about the importance of export controls

9/11/04 - Southeast Europe Defense Ministerial Border Defense Conference. Israel, India and Pakistan have depended on imports for virtually everything they have put together in the nuclear sphere. That is true of reactors, heavy water plants, and Pakistan’s uranium enrichment effort. No counterproliferation effort can succeed without export control.

The spread of weapons of mass destruction

5/04 - American Israel Public Affairs Committee Conference. Just about everybody who has looked at Iran’s nuclear program believes Iran is going for the bomb. Its efforts to enrich uranium, and to build heavy water reactors, make no sense for a civilian nuclear power program, even if it needed such a program, which it doesn’t, because of its oil and gas reserves.   

Seminal Issues as Viewed through the Lens of The Progressive Case"

3/2/04 - Conference on "Weapons of Mass Destruction, National Security, and a Free Press. We have an extensive system in the developed countries for controlling the export of sensitive items like centrifuges for enriching uranium, but A. Q. Khan’s Pakistani network went around it like the German army around the Maginot line.

Remarks on Iran's Nuclear Program

10/16/03 - Democratic Study Group on National Security. Iran is building all the things necessary to give it nuclear independence: a uranium mine, a plant to convert the uranium to gaseous form for centrifuges, and the centrifuges to enrich the uranium to reactor- or weapon-grade. Once Iran's nuclear program matures, Iran will have what it needs to fabricate a bomb.

The Missile Threat: Who Has What and Where Did They Get It?

10/1/03 - Aspen Institute Berlin, Conference on Transatlantic Cooperation on Missile Defense (Rome, Italy) . Long range missiles have been developed to carry nuclear weapons. They don't make sense otherwise. A country is not going to spend the money to develop a 5,000-mile missile to knock down a building with high explosives.

The Road to War . . . and Beyond

3/4/03 - American Enterprise Institute. Inspections are not really designed to produce disarmament. They're designed to verify that disarmament has happened. As long as the country being inspected is not cooperating, there is little chance that inspections can provide confidence.

Export Controls: Why We Need Them More Than Ever

12/9/02 - Keynote address before the Practicing Law Institute. There are at least three lessons from the attack on 9/11.  First, we know that Al Qaeda is interested in getting weapons of mass destruction. Second, we know that a terrorist organization could probably deliver any weapon it might produce. Third, we know that the attack may be anonymous.

Use of Export Controls to Stop Proliferation

4/15/02 - Central Asia and Caucasus Nonproliferation Export Control Forum (Tashkent). Export control is essential to keep the means to make mass destruction weapons out of the hands of terrorists. We are now in a new war against terrorism, and the front line troops are customs officials, border guards, licensing officers and intelligence agents.

The Proliferation Threat

1/15/02 - University of Chicago, Program on International Security. Iraq and Iran are in an undeclared race to get weapons of mass destruction; India and Pakistan are in a military face-off with nuclear arms pointed at each other; all this has been, and is being, fueled by imports.

Remarks in honor of Jerry Brubaker

4/01 - Jerry was one of the most committed, consistent and effective leaders in America’s attempt to stop the spread of the bomb. He had three principles he used to repeat about proliferation: we shouldn’t assist it, we shouldn’t pay for it, and we shouldn’t lie about it.

The Link Between Space Launch and Missile Technology

3/16/00 - Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (Honolulu, Hawaii). India's biggest nuclear-capable missile is an international product. Under the mantle of peaceful space cooperation, the United States, France and Germany all helped create the most advanced nuclear missile in South Asia.

The Proliferation Threat Today

2/1/00 - International Law Enforcement Academy (Budapest, Hungary). Egypt, Syria and Iran can all target Israel with chemical warheads and Israel can target each of these countries with the same, plus nuclear warheads. India and Pakistan can target each other with nuclear warheads and Iran and Iraq will continue their mass destruction arms race, with Iranian missiles being able soon to reach Europe.

Ballistic Missiles: Who Are the Future Suppliers?

3/2/99 - CSIS/NIC Conference on the Alternative Futures for Missile Proliferation. The history of North Korea's missile effort is a good predictor of what we are likely to see other countries do. First, North Korea imported missiles made by others; then it became an exporter in its own right.

Norwegian Heavy Water Exports

617//93 - Rjukan, Norway. Despite its small size, Norway has made a large contribution to the spread of nuclear weapons--essentially by selling heavy water. According to the Norwegian government, by 1987 Norway had produced 440 to 450 tons of heavy water, and virtually every kilogram of it was exported.

Can Sanctions Stop the Bomb?

4/93 - Conference: Economic Sanctions and International Relations at Notre Dame University. The West was sending billions of dollars in foreign exchange into India at the same time that India was sending out billions to import its nuclear and missile infrastructure. In effect, the West was buying breakfast, lunch and dinner for India's nuclear and missile makers.