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U.S. Aid To Russian Scientists Scrutinized

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By H. JOSEF HEBERT, The Associated Press

Published: January 12, 2008

WASHINGTON - A U.S. economic aid program to keep Russian scientists from selling weapons information to terrorists apparently funneled much of the money to scientists who never claimed to have a background in nuclear, chemical or biological programs, a congressional report said Friday.

The auditors also found that in many cases aid went to scientists who were too young to have participated in the Soviet-era weapons programs, helping Russia and Ukraine train new scientists.

The report by the Government Accountability Office urged the Energy Department to overhaul the nuclear nonproliferation program and craft a way to end it. Some Russian officials told the auditors the program is no longer needed, given economic improvements in Russia.

The department's National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the program, said in a letter attached to the GAO report that the agency viewed the program as justified and will continue to support it. An NNSA spokesman had no additional comment, citing the letter.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, released the report. He said the administration "should undertake a serious review of the program's nonproliferation benefits" and questioned whether its continued funding "makes sense."

"GAO has raised troubling questions about whether a nonproliferation program has perversely funded a younger generation of Russian weapons scientists," said Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Created after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the program - known as the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention - was designed to provide economic assistance and find jobs for Russian scientists involved in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons research. With many of these scientists losing their jobs, the concern was they might use their knowledge to sell information - or themselves - to terrorists.

But the report said the Energy Department has overstated the success of the program both in terms of the number of target scientists helped financially and the number of private-sector jobs created.

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