Washington's "nuclear blackmail"

Will Russia share Iraq's destiny?

The States continue to “blackmail” Russia claiming they will reduce the amount of promised grants for utilization of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), in case Russia will not compromise certain political and economic aspects. Most likely, Russia will never see those promised $20 billion USD meant for the liquidation of WMD, writes “Vremya Novostei.”

This has been stated yesterday by Director of political research Center of Russia Vladimir Orlov. A new program entitled “Global partnership against the spread of weapons and materials of mass destruction” has been proposed during the G-8 summit which took place in Canadian town of Kananaskis in June 2002. In accordance with the initiative, known as “10 plus 10 over 10”, the US plans to provide half of the money, the rest of the members, including Russia will provide the rest. The total amount will be issued for 10 years.

Today, according to Orlov, this promising program is rapidly going down the drain. Time limits of the destruction of 40-tonns worth of Russian chemical weapons have to be extended; only 5 submarines have been cut in pieces so far of almost 200 subs total. The reason is simple-no money.

Japan for instance, promised to contribute $200 million USD and provided only one or two million. France preferred to keep quite. About 60%-90% of the allocated funds remain in the country-donor in a form of a pay to contractor companies. But even that minimum that makes it to Russia causes nothing but troubles.

Russia will inevitably have to increase its financing portion. This will not be an easy task experts claim, since the country is in need of twice as much as $20 billion USD. Vice-President of the American “Nuclear threat reduction initiative” fund Lora Hallgate has made a rather blatant statement yesterday: “The problems that are intended to be solved by means of the “Global partnership” program are those of Russia.”

The US and NATO have been spending heavily in Afghanistan and Iraq and do not wish (or simply cannot afford) to help Russia. The US tends to use terrorism threat as its main excuse more often in order to justify its financial passivity.

Mrs. Hallgate has made a rather sensational statement the other day. According to her, terrorists can easily create nuclear weapons, in case they have some sort of a fissionable material handy. The statement appears to be rather meaningful, especially considering that it came out of the mouth of ex-Director of the nuclear materials utilization department of the US Department of Energy. This gets even more exciting after one takes into account the newly adopted US strategic defense plan of nuclear materials. What a remarkable position indeed: we refuse to give any money and at the same time, we refuse to loosen control.

In the meantime, nuclear suitcases disappear; Chechen terrorists make their “dirty bombs” in their underground laboratories and so on. Isn't it a real Joker? We leave it up to you to decide: moans of Putin's authoritarianism from across the ocean started to bore people; the Russian bear is no longer bothered by such claims and simply ignores them. How else is it possible to attract his attention? Perhaps, a nuclear war will do?! There is a vast country with massive supply of WMD and no control whatsoever! This, as you may have already guessed, poses potential threat to the civilized world. Let's wave our nuclear cudgel and perhaps, the bear will fall down on his knees or simply die. However, the latter will most likely never happen. After all, present-day master of the White House still needs Russia.

Last year, Russia intended to review its own programs concerning destruction of weapons of mass destruction while relying on international support. A rather “amorphous” position of the West regarding the matter was the main reason for such move.

Partial financing of the program regarding total liquidation of WMD by the West, which it constantly uses as a “pressure lever on our country”, served as the main reason for such statement. Such situation leads to the fact that Russia is no longer capable of making long-term plans concerning construction of special nuclear and chemical destruction facilities. Unofficial experts admit that such statements are absolutely valid, since the US constantly blackmails Russia with the fact that they will reduce the promised funding for the WMD utilization and attempt to use this matter as an excuse to get certain political and economic concessions.

“The West (mainly the United States) constantly promises us to provide funding for the WMD utilization,” said expert of the Institute of strategic and Military analysis, Alexander Khramchikhin to RBC daily. “In the end however, we get much less the initial promise.”

“The West is really behaving unethically, while trying to manipulate Russia,” states Khramchikhin. “Russia in turn will least likely to curtail its program of WMD destruction.” These weapons and materials, mainly chemical, are mostly dangerous for us then they are for them. Our country cannot provide normal conditions to keep them safe. At times, they are simply lying around outside.