Joe Fiorill at Global Security Newswire has a nice summary of recent developments in the US-Russia nuclear liability issue, with a hopeful note of progress:
Meanwhile, a key U.S.-Russian agreement on locking down and destroying various materials in Russia is fast nearing expiration. Unless a new extension is agreed upon, the 1992 Cooperative Threat Reduction “umbrella agreement” will run out in the middle of next year.
The threat and deadline pressures could lead at last to a resolution to the dispute, officials and experts have indicated in recent interviews and public statements.
“They would like to get it done” within the next few months, a U.S. official close to the talks said in an interview this week. “We should have sorted this out a while ago.”
The disagreement centers on the extent to which U.S. officials and contractors should be shielded from lawsuits arising from their work in Russia to secure nuclear materials. Washington has until recently sought to impose, as a standard to be observed in all U.S.-Russian nuclear security agreements, broad liability protections such as those in the current umbrella agreement.
My favorite part of the article is the passage noting Linton Brooks’ explanation that “We don’t want to subject our companies to that” kind of liability, even though “Among those pushing for a quick resolution to the dispute, though, are many of the companies to which Brooks referred.”
Fiorill reports that an organization representing some of the contractractors called the Contractors International Group on Nuclear Liability wrote to Secretary Rice last month urging ratification of the IAEA Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage “as a long-term and comprehensive solution to the liability issue impasse.”
Of course, we’ve heard news about progress before. Outgoing Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham predicted “positive progress on the liability issue in the months ahead” during remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in January. At the time, one colleague wondered:
A deal acceptable to the Russians, DOE and DOD has been on the table for months. The obstacle has been Bolton. I’m guessing here, but I wonder if the ‘progress’ isn’t as simple as [John] Bolton packing his desk?
That was certainly the impression given by Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer in the Washington Post, when they predicted progress at the G8 summit on US-Russian plutonium disposition efforts now that Bolton is out of the way.
I think it is pretty clear that Bolton really has been the obstacle. Michael Roston, writing at Arms Control Wonk.com, noted that Senator Pete Domenici became so incensed at Bolton’s foot dragging that he “took the unusual step of requesting to testify before Senator Richard Lugar’s Foreign Relations Committee” about Bolton’s efforts and told Bolton that he was “not sure to this point that [Bolton is] up to” resolving the liability dispute.
Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out, John.