Clinton Legacy Watch # 6: Crises Involving U.S.-Russian Space ‘Cooperation’ Show Clinton-Gore Errors, Need for Changes

(Washington, D.C.): Few initiatives
have enjoyed higher priority for the
Clinton-Gore Administration than the Vice
Presidentially-sponsored effort to
integrate the Russian and U.S. space
programs. And, arguably, none
better illuminates the faulty premises
and ominous repercussions of the
Administration’s stewardship of relations
between the two countries. To
understand the implications of President
Clinton’s legacy in this area, it is
necessary to consider both the
“cooperative” space program per
se and the policy predilections it
epitomizes.

At the personal direction of Vice
President Gore, the Russian Space Agency
(RSA) has been transformed from a
prospective supplier to a full partner in
the International Space Station (ISS).
Phase I of this partnership — U.S. use
of the Mir space station — became a
pretext for diverting hundreds of
millions of dollars in NASA funds to
Russia. Nominally, this practice was
justified on the grounds that it would
pay for American personnel to make
extended visits to the decrepit Mir
facility. As a practical matter, however,
its real purpose has
been to provide financial life-support to
Russia’s space program (a key element of
the old Soviet military-industrial
complex) in general and to Mir in
particular.

The Vice President’s initiative also
permitted the Russian technological
contribution to the ISS to be made part
of the “critical path” for the
space station — a patently unwise step
driven by high policy, rather than
prudent, programmatic considerations.

The Jury is In

The folly of the U.S. over-investment
in Mir has come into sharp focus recently
as a result of the almost daily reports
of minor, and increasingly frequently, major
technical problems on the Russian space
station.⁽¹⁾ Now, Congress has in hand a damning
assessment of the Phase I program from a
senior Clinton Administration official,
NASA Inspector General (IG), Roberta L.
Gross.

In a letter report prepared at the
request of House Science Committee
Chairman James Sensenbrenner
(R-WI), the NASA IG lays out nine
major areas of concern with the Mir.
These include: problems with the Soyuz
escape vehicle (into which Mir
inhabitants have been obliged to scurry
for safety reasons repeatedly in recent
months); fire hazards; dangerous fatigue;
the lack of adequate training; exposure
to potentially dangerous levels of carbon
dioxide⁽²⁾;
and the cumulative effects of Russia’s
notoriously erratic funding for Mir.⁽³⁾
The language in the letter’s conclusion
is noteworthy:

“When the Shuttle/Mir program
began, the basic safety of the Mir was
accepted based upon a known history of
apparent safe operations. It
appears in recent months that the risk
level associated with Mir operations has
increased. NASA must conduct
credible risk assessments to fully
account for the safety standards it now
applies to Phase I programs. Those
assessments must be based upon
understanding the risks involved, weighed
against the expected benefits of
continued operations.” (Emphasis
added.)

The Other Shoe Drops

The NASA IG report notes that “fulfillment
of foreign policy objectives” is one
of three primary goals of the
U.S.-Russian collaborative space program
(after development of the International
Space Station and research into the Life
Sciences.⁽⁴⁾)
Indeed, at the direction of officials
like Vice President Gore and Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, the
joint space program has been a showcase
for many of the Clinton Administration’s
highest priority — and most dubious —
bilateral initiatives. As such, it serves
to illuminate in microcosm the problems
likely to be forever associated with the
Clinton legacy vis á vis the
former Soviet Union:

• Welfare for Russian
  Scientists: The Clinton
  Administration has vigorously
  supported efforts known
  generically as the Cooperative
  Threat Reduction program — an
  initiative popularly associated
  with its chief congressional
  sponsors, former Senator
  Sam Nunn (D-GA)and Senator
  Richard Lugar (R-IN).
  The theory has been that by
  providing work/funding for
  Russia’s space program and other
  parts of the old Soviet
  military-industrial complex, its
  scientists and technicians would
  not make their expertise
  available to dangerous third
  parties.

As the Washington Times
has reported in recent days, the
bankruptcy of this idea is now
evident. Indeed, Yuri Koptev, the
head of the Russian Space Agency,
and the aerospace director of the
Russian state arms exporting
agency are among those implicated
in a major effort to assist Iran
acquire the ability to
manufacture long-range ballistic
missiles. According to the Times,
these missiles — two derivatives
of the North Korean No Dong,
dubbed the Shahab-3 and Shahab-4
— will have ranges between 800
and 1,200 miles and could be
capable of delivering chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons to
targets as far away as the
European continent within
two-to-three years.

• Reckless
  Intelligence-Sharing:
  The Clinton Administration
  response to these reports has
  been typical: Assume it is a
  “rogue” or
  “freelance” operation
  and provide Moscow information
  that will enable the Kremlin to
  close it down. This assumption is
  probably wrong on the first count
  — the businesses involved⁽⁵⁾
  are closely linked to the Russian
  government. Israel, whose
  intelligence services are
  credited with having first
  discovered what Koptev was doing
  when he was not worrying about
  the Mir program, regards the
  information as sufficiently
  credible, and alarming, to have
  suspended a major natural gas
  deal with Russia.

The effect of the
intelligence-sharing that is
justified by this benign
assumption will almost certainly not
be to end that cooperation.
Rather, it will simply disclose
to the Russians sources and
methods by which this information
has been gleaned and, in effect,
encourage them to conceal such
telltale signs in the future.
This will, in short, not make the
proliferation threat more
manageable, just less well
understood.

• Undue Reliance on
  ‘Assurances’: The
  Clinton Administration has
  announced that it is sending a
  retired career diplomat, Amb.
  Frank Wisner, to Moscow to
  express concerns about Koptev’s
  Iranian connection. According to
  a spokesman for the Vice
  President, among those with whom
  Wisner will address these
  concerns is Koptev, himself!

It is absolutely predictable that
Wisner will be given
“assurances” that
Russia is not involved in any way
in the Iranian missile project.
Indeed, Prime Minister Victor
Chernomyrdin — who will be
meeting with Vice President Gore
next week in Moscow in the ninth
meeting of their so-called
Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission
(GCC-9) — has already denied
that Russia is aiding Iran’s
program, calling such reports
“stupid” and “not
worthy of comment.”

Equally predictable is the
Administration’s response. Among
others, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Robert Einhorn,
the Clinton point-man when it
comes to crediting
unsubstantiated
“assurances” of foreign
governments’ commitment to
non-proliferation in the face of
powerful evidence to the
contrary,⁽⁶⁾
will doubtless give great weight
to the Russian rhetoric. U.S.
intelligence agencies will be
implicitly, if not explicitly,
discouraged from debunking
Moscow’s promises. And there will
be no interruption in the U.S.
taxpayer-subsidized
“cooperation” that
rounds out the pay Koptev and
Company receive from Iran (and
perhaps other clients).

The Bottom Line

House Science Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner
and his colleagues — notably Space
Subcommittee Vice Chairman Dave
Weldon (R-FL), who wrote Vice
President Gore on 10 September urging the
“Administration to denounce
[Koptev’s] actions in the strongest
possible terms and immediately insist
upon his dismissal” — are to be
commended for the hearing they will be
holding this morning concerning
U.S.-Russian space cooperation.

The Center calls on these
distinguished Members of Congress to take
the lead in the following further steps:

• Ensure that another
  American is not placed aboard the
  Mir space station when Michael
  Foale’s harrowing stay there
  comes to an end. Doing
  otherwise would not only put the
  next astronaut’s life at
  unjustifiable risk. It would also
  oblige the United States to
  continue funding for Mir that is
  both unwarranted and that should
  be applied instead to bringing
  the next generation space
  station, the ISS, on-line as
  rapidly as possible.
• Signal before next week’s
  Gore-Chernomyrdin meeting that
  Congress lacks confidence in the
  Cooperative Threat Reduction
  program and similar Clinton
  initiatives that have not kept
  Russia from engaging in
  activities inimical to vital U.S.
  interests — and that may, in
  some cases at least, have
  actually served to facilitate
  such activities. Of
  particular concern is a further
  push the Vice President is
  expected to make at GCC-9 to
  forge an “umbrella
  agreement” authorizing the
  sharing of advanced military and
  dual-use technology like
  supercomputers with Russia.⁽⁷⁾
• Make clear Congress’
  opposition to allowing Russia to
  remain in the “critical
  path” to completion of the
  International Space Station.
  The enormous investment being
  made in this project must not be
  allowed to be held hostage to
  Russian programmatic shortcomings
  arising from the Kremlin’s
  technological, financial and/or
  political problems.
• Insist on an
  investigation into whether there
  has been a cover-up on the part
  of the Clinton Administration
  with respect to information about
  Russian involvement in Iran’s
  ballistic missile program.
  The Washington Times indicates
  that such information has been
  available to the Administration
  since last January, a fact that
  — if true — would, as Rep.
  Weldon put it, be “really
  bad.”
• This is particularly the case
  since, as one of the Congress’
  most thoughtful, national
  security-minded legislators, Sen.
  Jon Kyl (R-AZ), has
  observed: “The
  evidence is mounting that
  significant amounts of [Russian]
  technology are being transferred
  while people are dithering and
  talking. There is a point at
  which it could be too late; Iran
  will have what it needs. There
  has to be action, not talk.”

– 30 –

1.
For more information on the recent
problems with Mir, see the Center’s Decision
Briefs entitled: Pull
The Plug On Mir ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_100″>No. 97-D 100, 18
July 1997); and The Buck
Stops With Al Gore: Veep-Approved Rip-Off
By Russia Of U.S. Taxpayer, Technology
Now Threatens An American’s Life
(No. 97-D 89,
27 June 1997).

2. A particularly
gripping passage in the IG letter
involved the problem of carbon dioxide
(CO₂) removal. Astronaut
Shannon Lucid claimed during a
post-flight debriefing that while on Mir,
she “could tell when the CO₂
concentration was going up. When the CO₂
concentration was getting too high, it
was a little harder to think. It was
easier to make mistakes.” She went
on to say that “there were many
reasons that could cause the CO₂
concentration to go up. The CO₂
level would go up when the life support
system wasn’t working as well as it
should and when there were a lot of crew
members exercising at the same time. I
could tell when the CO₂ was
getting higher, and the rising CO₂
levels definitely increased the crew’s
chance for making mistakes.”
(Emphasis added.)

3. To these safety
concerns must, of course, be added the
obvious “red-flags” associated
with the June collision of a resupply
vessel and a February fire that
threatened the lives of all the crew.

4. Ms. Gross
reports, however that “[There is] nothing
at this point in the Phase 1 program that
is in the critical path for the continued
development and beginning of flight
operations for the International Space
Station” and that the Life
Sciences research had to be abandoned due
to physical crises on Mir.

5. According to
Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources
cited by the Washington Times,
these include: “Rosvoorouzhenie, the
Russian arms-export agency; the Bauman
Institute, the Russian equivalent of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
NPO Trud, a rocket-motor manufacturer;
and Polyus, or ‘North Star,’ Russia’s
leading laser developer. The Russian
Central Aerodynamic Institute is also
said to be involved in the Iranian
missile project. The help being provided
by these entities to Iran is reported to
include: “wind-tunnel testing of
missile nose cones, the design of
guidance and propulsion systems, and
development of a solid-fuel
project.”

6. For example,
Einhorn has in recent months been the
designated hitter in arguing that China
— which is also reported by the Washington
Times to be involved in the Iranian
ballistic missile program through the
transfer of “telemetry equipment
that sends and collects missile-guidance
data during flight tests” — is
meeting its non-proliferation
obligations. It appears likely to fall to
him to justify the preposterous
presidential certification to that effect
required in connection with the sale of
nuclear power technology to China that is
expected to be announced on the eve of
Chinese premier Jiang Zemin’s visit next
month to the United States.

7. Among the
strategically sensitive areas identified
in draft guidance prepared for GCC-9 as
appropriate areas for such collaboration
are: ballistic missile defense, the Joint
Strike Fighter program, “high-speed
penetrators for use against deeply buried
targets,” “a low-cost,
ground-launched hypersonic
interceptor” and “surveillance,
detection and non-lethal technologies in
support of counter-terrorism, landmine
detection and peacekeeping
operations.”