U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar today met with actor/producer Michael Douglas in his Washington, DC Senate office. Douglas is on the Board of Directors of Ploughshares Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization that awards grants “aimed at preventing the spread and use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and other weapons of war, and preventing conflicts that could lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction,” according to its website.

 

 

Lugar and Douglas discussed the need to stop the proliferation of weapons and materials of mass destruction and to advance the START Treaty (re: Lugar’s speech http://lugar.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=291461&&). 

 

In November 1991, Lugar (R-IN) and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA) authored the Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. This program has provided U.S. funding and expertise to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle its enormous stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, related materials, and delivery systems.

 

Lugar also announced that the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program made the following progress in April 2008:

·           20 strategic nuclear warheads deactivated;

·           13 Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) destroyed; and

·           3 train shipments of nuclear weapons were sent to safe and secure storage

 

The Nunn-Lugar scorecard now totals 7,286 strategic nuclear warheads deactivated, 696 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) destroyed, 496 ICBM silos eliminated, 125 ICBM mobile launchers destroyed, 629 submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) eliminated, 456 SLBM launchers eliminated, 30 nuclear submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles destroyed, 155 bomber eliminated, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles (ASMs) destroyed, 194 nuclear test tunnels eliminated, 385 nuclear weapons transport train shipments secured, upgraded security at 16 nuclear weapons storage sites, and built and equipped 13 biological monitoring stations.  Perhaps most importantly, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program.  Those countries were the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers in the world.

 

Beyond nuclear, chemical and biological elimination, the Nunn-Lugar program has worked to reemploy scientists and facilities related to weapons of mass destruction in peaceful research initiatives. The International Science and Technology Centers, of which the United States is the leading sponsor, engaged 58,000 former weapons scientists in peaceful work. The International Proliferation Prevention Program has funded 750 projects involving 14,000 former weapons scientists and created some 580 new peaceful high-tech jobs.

 

Lugar makes annual oversight trips to Nunn-Lugar sites in the former Soviet Union and Albania. Lugar and former Sen. Sam Nunn visited Russia, Ukraine and Albania in August 2007 to commemorate the 15^th anniversary of the Nunn-Lugar program.

 

On the web:

The Nunn-Lugar program: http://lugar.senate.gov/nunnlugar/

The Nunn-Lugar scorecard: http://lugar.senate.gov/nunnlugar/scorecard.html

Ploughshares Fund: http://www.ploughshares.org/

 

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