Moscow ? Russia’s refusal to allow U.S. inspectors into its biological weapons sites is threatening the funding for the continued destruction of the huge Russian arsenal of chemical weapons, said Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Moscow’s evasiveness and denials about its biological programs have led some members of Congress to question $1 billion in new funding for a decade-long effort known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

The program has spent $6.4 billion since 1992 to help Russia safeguard and dismantle its weapons of mass destruction, from rusting nuclear submarines and poorly guarded warheads to deadly vials of anthrax and smallpox. Lugar, R-Ind., said the elimination of Russia’s remaining chemical stockpile was “a monumental task which Russia cannot afford.”

“Russia’s denials with regard to the biological situation offer an avenue where opponents of spending (this) money can say, ‘See, we still really don’t know,'” Lugar said. “Some members of Congress say, ‘Is Russia complying — literally, to the dotted line — with all the arms-control treaties?’

“But it’s not useful to set up conditions in which there has to be 100 percent compliance before we do anything.”

Lugar said he met recently with President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to seek a presidential waiver that would snip the strings that some in Congress want to attach to the program’s funds in the new U.S. budget. He said Friday he was optimistic that Bush would grant the waiver.

The weapons-elimination program is informally known as Nunn-Lugar after its original co-sponsors — former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia and Lugar.

Lugar has been in Russia in recent days to meet with senior military leaders. He also was due to witness the destruction of several Soviet-era intercontinental ballistic missiles at a military facility in the city of Perm.

Deadly stockpile

Since 1992, the Nunn-Lugar program has overseen the destruction of 440 tons of chemical weapons in Russia — about 1 percent of Russia’s total. More than 43,000 tons of nerve gas and blister agent remain in seven arsenals across the country. Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons expert, has called these sites “the toxic archipelago.”

Most experts say the archipelago remains poorly guarded. Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., was alarmed at the lack of security when he visited a Russian site last year. In one laboratory, he said, the door to a refrigerator containing various animal poxes was secured only by a piece of string.

Lugar said some biological- and chemical-weapon facilities have been converted to civilian uses since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. He visited one such factory where anthrax had once been produced. The very same vats, he said, are now being used to make “Green Mama” shampoo.

‘Vulnerable’ weapons

The General Accounting Office reported to Congress in March, however, that 65 percent of Russia’s nerve-agent stockpile is “unsecured” and that “a large quantity of chemical weapons in Russia will remain vulnerable to theft or diversion and pose a potential threat to U.S. national security interests.”

Lugar said a new chemical weapons destruction facility in Shchuchye, Russia, is woefully behind schedule. He said making the deadline of 2012 for destroying the remaining chemical stockpile was “not going to happen.”