Thwarting Terrorists: More to Be Done
By Matthew Bunn
Washington Post
Today, Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom and the Nuclear Threat Initiative publish their annual report on security of nuclear weapons and materials around the world. The good news in " Securing the Bomb 2007" is that much progress has been made toward upgrading security for nuclear stockpiles. The bad news is that the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons exist in hundreds of buildings in more than 40 countries, and terrorists are actively trying to get a nuclear bomb or the materials to make one.
As early as 1993, al-Qaeda attempted to buy highly enriched uranium in Sudan. Seized documents from Afghanistan detail al-Qaeda's efforts to gain nuclear materials there from 1996 to 2001; Osama bin Laden has called getting the bomb a "religious duty." In Russia, Chechen terrorist teams carried out reconnaissance at two secret nuclear weapon storage sites in 2001.
If terrorists could get enough highly enriched uranium or plutonium, it is frighteningly plausible that they could make a crude nuclear bomb, capable of incinerating the heart of any major city. Some of the multitude of buildings worldwide that hold the ingredients of nuclear weapons have excellent security -- but some have little more than a night watchman and a chain-link fence.
While this is a global threat, Russia, Pakistan and research reactors using fuel made from highly enriched uranium pose the most urgent dangers of nuclear theft. Russia has the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the materials to make them, scattered in numerous buildings and bunkers. Security measures have improved dramatically since the early 1990s, but serious weaknesses remain, and threats are posed by outside attackers as well as pervasive insider theft.
(Continued here.)
Washington Post
Today, Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom and the Nuclear Threat Initiative publish their annual report on security of nuclear weapons and materials around the world. The good news in " Securing the Bomb 2007" is that much progress has been made toward upgrading security for nuclear stockpiles. The bad news is that the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons exist in hundreds of buildings in more than 40 countries, and terrorists are actively trying to get a nuclear bomb or the materials to make one.
As early as 1993, al-Qaeda attempted to buy highly enriched uranium in Sudan. Seized documents from Afghanistan detail al-Qaeda's efforts to gain nuclear materials there from 1996 to 2001; Osama bin Laden has called getting the bomb a "religious duty." In Russia, Chechen terrorist teams carried out reconnaissance at two secret nuclear weapon storage sites in 2001.
If terrorists could get enough highly enriched uranium or plutonium, it is frighteningly plausible that they could make a crude nuclear bomb, capable of incinerating the heart of any major city. Some of the multitude of buildings worldwide that hold the ingredients of nuclear weapons have excellent security -- but some have little more than a night watchman and a chain-link fence.
While this is a global threat, Russia, Pakistan and research reactors using fuel made from highly enriched uranium pose the most urgent dangers of nuclear theft. Russia has the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the materials to make them, scattered in numerous buildings and bunkers. Security measures have improved dramatically since the early 1990s, but serious weaknesses remain, and threats are posed by outside attackers as well as pervasive insider theft.
(Continued here.)
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