Cooperative Threat Reduction

The Defense Department has been authorized to spend nearly $3.2 billion on its cooperative threat reduction program since 1992. This program is intended to help the states of the former Soviet Union (1) destroy their weapons of mass destruction, (2) safely store and transport these weapons in connection with their destruction, and (3) reduce the risk of their proliferation. Most of the assistance takes the form of goods and services, including equipment, logistics support, training, and integrated project management. To help guard against the possibility that recipient states could misuse this assistance, Congress requires DOD to report annually on its efforts to account for the assistance and ensure its proper use. So far, DOD has sent Congress five reports on cooperative threat reduction assistance. DOD was 16 months late in submitting its 1997 report to Congress and more than 10 months late in submitting its 1998 report. The delays were primarily due to DOD's prolonged review of the draft reports and the relatively low priority that officials placed on the reports' timely submission. GAO also found that DOD did not provide complete and accurate information in its 1997 and 1998 reports, and the 1998 report lacked information on Russia's arsenal of tactical nuclear warheads.

GAO noted that: (1) DOD was 16 months late in submitting its CTR accounting report for 1997 to Congress and more than 10 months late in submitting its report for 1998 to Congress; (2) the delays associated with both reports were primarily due to DOD's prolonged review of the draft reports and the relatively low priority that its officials placed on ensuring the reports' timely submission; (3) the 1998 report's submission was also delayed because DOD did not clearly communicate to the Department of State the type of information State needed to provide DOD for the report and the deadline for its submission; (4) these delays denied Congress information concerning the status of previous assistance provided to the former Soviet states while Congress considered the appropriation of fiscal year 1999 and 2000 funds for the CTR program; (5) DOD did not provide complete and fully accurate information in its 1997 and 1998 accounting reports; and (6) the reports: (a) failed to list more than $27 million of CTR equipment that DOD provided to recipient states during a 3-month period in 1997; (b) listed only a single form of CTR assistance--equipment transferred to recipient states, (that represented less than 19 percent of the program's 1997-1998 expenditures) rather than all assistance provided; (c) described where the equipment was located at the time of its transfer to the recipients' custody (rather than where it was actually located at the time of the reports) and failed to describe the location or condition of other forms of assistance, such as contractor-provided services; (d) contained either unsupportable or overstated estimates of the percentage of equipment that DOD had audited in determining that assistance was being used as intended; (e) did not include complete information on how State and the Department of Energy (DOE) used CTR funds, largely because DOD did not clearly communicate its information needs to those agencies; and (f) the 1998 report did not include specific information on Russia's arsenal of tactical nuclear warheads.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: