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Experts Charge United States Not Doing Enough to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, Proliferation
Nuclear weapon experts said yesterday the U.S. government was not doing enough to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism, Reuters reported (see GSN, June 22). Speakers at a public forum said Congress and the Bush administration have become complacent and need to step up nonproliferation efforts, secure nuclear materials and cooperate better with other countries. “We said on the 9/11 commission that there needed to be maximum effort and a sense of urgency. The sense of urgency is more a mood of complacency today,” said Timothy Roemer, a commission member and former Democratic representative from Indiana. “Rather than a brisk pace of activity, we are more seeing a business-as-usual approach.” “From my perspective, the terrorists are racing and we are somewhere between a walk and a crawl,” added former Democratic Senator Sam Nunn (Ga.). He said more needed to be done to secure nuclear materials in former Soviet states and other nations (see GSN, June 27). Security upgrades have only taken place for approximately 26 percent of 600 tons of weapon-usable nuclear material in Russia, according to Reuters. Leonard Spector, a former Energy Department official, added that the United States was in danger of a radiological “dirty bomb” attack. Experts also criticized Congress for withholding funds to secure highly enriched uranium and President George W. Bush for not quickly establishing a weapons proliferation intelligence center (David Morgan, Reuters, June 27). [EDITOR’S NOTE: Sam Nunn is chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]
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