Wall Street Journal‘s Melloan Inveighs Against Russian Aid

(Washington, D.C.): The recently completed Senate Armed Services Committee mark-up of
the
Fiscal Year 2000 defense authorization bill includes calls for long-overdue improvements in the
management and oversight of — and for greater accountability for — several Defense and Energy
Department non-proliferation programs in the former Soviet Union. Of particular concern have
been those pursued in connection with the so-called Cooperative Threat Reduction (or
Nunn-Lugar) program, whose stated purpose is to reduce the danger posed by the
Kremlin’s ongoing
weapons of mass destruction activities.

This legislative action appears to have been prompted by growing concerns about the
diversion of
such funds into foreign bank accounts and undesirable military-related activities in Russia —
concerns that have only been exacerbated by the increasingly chaotic, not to say revanchist, state
of the Russian political system. These apprehensions are enunciated with characteristic eloquence
in today’s Wall Street Journal in an opinion piece by editorial board member and
columnist
George Melloan. In the attached op.ed.,
entitled “Naiveté in ‘Engaging’ Russia Carries a High
Price Tag,” Mr. Melloan properly takes the Clinton Administration to task for its failure to
understand the true character of the present Russian government, to which Messrs. Clinton, Gore
and Talbott remain wedded:

The result of the voter defection [from the democratic reformers] has been the comeback of a
Communist Party that kept Russia in thrall for 72 years, preserving its Third World living
standards while the Western democracies were getting rich. It should come as no surprise that
these Neanderthals have no ideas for solving Russia’s economic problems. Their dreams
of
power and fortune rest not on true reform but on either preserving today’s chaotic status
quo or turning back the clock. They remain good at what they do, politics — but only
for their
own benefit. They run a disciplined political organization and exploit the nationalistic emotions of
that still-large part of the Russian population that remains ill-informed and unsophisticated.

The Bottom Line

The Clinton Administration’s Russia policy is in urgent need of congressional oversight. In
particular, General Accounting Office audits and other investigations are required into the policies
and practices of those like Assistant Secretary of Energy Rose Gottemoeller 1 and others who
have used the Cooperative Threat Reduction accounts as a slush-fund for appeasing corrupt
Russian apparatchiks and subsidizing the military work of the Kremlin’s weapons of mass
destruction scientists.

Such adult supervision is especially needed at a moment when the Administration is frantically
trying to purchase Russian mediation as a deus ex machina for its Kosovo debacle. 2 It is a safe
bet that the Clinton Administration — if left to its own devices — will pour further money down
Russia’s black hole, in amounts that will make the latest, wasted $4.6 billion IMF disbursement
pale by comparison.

1 See the Center’s Decision Briefs entitled
Clinton Legacy Watch #41: Security Meltdown at
DOE (No. 99-D 48, 26 April 1999),
Senate Given Another Opportunity to Reject Clinton’s
Policy of Denuclearization: the Gottemoeller Nomination ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_166″>No. 98-D 166, 29 September 1998),
and Study Co-Authored By Candidate for Top Pentagon job Is
Alarming (No. 97-D 96, 12 July
1997).

2 See Russia Ex Machina ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=99-D_45″>No. 99-D 45, 20 April 1999).