The Washington-Moscow-Tehran nuclear axis

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There's an interesting piece in the Times today about U.S. connections to Iran's nuclear program. It deserves some attention:

The Energy Department is subsidizing two Russian nuclear institutes that are building important parts of a reactor in Iran whose construction the United States spent years trying to stop, according to a House committee.

The institutes, both in Nizhny Novgorod, gave American officials copies of sales presentations that listed the Bushehr reactor, which Russia has agreed to fuel, as one of their projects. One institute is providing control systems, including control room equipment, and the other, hundreds of pumps and ventilation fans.

The Energy Department is subsidizing the institutes under the Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention, a program set up in 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The program was intended to prevent newly impoverished scientists and their institutions from selling expertise to states or terrorist groups that want nuclear weapons.

The United States supplements the salaries of scientists and pays overhead at those institutes, according to the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee.

It was not immediately clear whether the Energy Department was contributing to the salaries of the very scientists involved in the Bushehr reactor project. Two Michigan Democrats -- Representatives John D. Dingell, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak, chairman of that committee's Oversight and Investigations subcommittee -- asked that question in a letter sent on Wednesday to Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman.

"What policy logic justifies D.O.E. funding Russian institutes which are providing nuclear technology to Iran?" the letter asked. "How does this advance our non-proliferation goals?"

Good questions. (The likely answers: "There isn't any." "It doesn't.") Let's hope Bodman looks into this troubling matter and answers the questions honestly. This is sort of like the Dubai Portgate scandal -- but potentially much, much, much worse.