Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Introduction: Commission Charge and ProceduresA cardinal truth of government is that policy without proper organization is effectively nopolicy at all. If the Federal Government’s policy is to combat the threat posed by the spreadof weapons of mass destruction, then the government must be organized effectively to doso. The large number of agencies involved in this particular effort makes organizationespecially critical. Recognizing the need, Congress established this Commission toassess the current structure and organization of the government, as well as ourcooperative efforts with foreign governments, and to make recommendations forimprovements. 1The Commission began by assessing the operation of proliferation-related efforts by theresponsible federal agencies. The examination was timely, since many of the agencieswere undergoing substantial reorganization. For example, the Arms Control andDisarmament Agency was being integrated into the Department of State, while theDepartment of Defense was consolidating several activities into a single agency devotedto counter-proliferation, cooperative threat reduction, and on-site arms control inspections.Similarly, the Intelligence Community was taking steps to strengthen community-wideproliferation-related collection and analysis in response to recent recommendations byCongress, the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States (theRumsfeld Commission), the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the UnitedStates Intelligence Community (the Aspin/Brown Commission), the President’s ForeignIntelligence Advisory Board, and the reports issued by Admiral David Jeremiah: one in thewake of the 1998 Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests and another following allegations ofespionage at the nuclear weapons complex.Between January 1998 and June 1999, the Commission held approximately 125 meetingswith Cabinet-level and other senior officials, former senior officials, and non-governmentalspecialists. Appendix C provides a list of individuals whom the Commission interviewed.The Commission also sent a “Baseline Survey of Proliferation-Related Activities”(Appendix D) to all Federal agencies that deal with the spread of weapons of massdestruction. Some of the information contained in their responses is included in this report,as are specific recommendations to improve the agencies’ effectiveness with respect totheir efforts to combat proliferation.In addition to reviewing the efforts of the individual agencies, the Commission evaluatedthe mechanisms by which the interagency process develops policy alternatives andreaches decisions on government-wide policies and programs to combat proliferation. Themanagement of resource allocation received particular scrutiny.Effective export control policy is vital to our efforts to impede the spread of WMD-relatedtechnology. Accordingly, the Commission examined this area and presents a number ofrecommendations for improvements.1See Appendix A for the Commission’s history and its legislative mandate. See Appendix B for alist of Commission members and staff.vii