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Nuclear Terror Threat Persists, Harvard Report Says By Jon Fox WASHINGTON — While there have been incremental steps forward, significant efforts are still needed to lock down the world’s caches of nuclear material, just a small amount of which could create profound destruction in the hands of terrorists, according to a Harvard University report released this week (see GSN, March 30). The annual report produced by Harvard’s Project on Managing the Atom calls for a global coalition to head off nuclear terrorism and focuses on Russia as the epicenter of undersecured nuclear material. Researchers and experts urged world leaders to address the issue at this weekend’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg. “The threats in Russia are truly frightening,” said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard researcher and co-author of the study, Securing the Bomb 2006. Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons and material to make nuclear weapons in hundreds of bunkers and buildings across the country. Past instances of extreme security dysfunctions at Russian sites have ranged from gaping holes in fences to a lack of radiation detectors. Workers could have just walked out with a lump of uranium without causing an alarm to sound, according to the report. While combating corruption is still a challenge and much work in Russia remains to be done, the most dangerous problems of the 1990s have been addressed, Bunn said yesterday as he presented the report here at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which commissioned the report. The pace of progress has accelerated notably since U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin last year signed an agreement to aggressively address a list of nuclear security concerns by 2008, the report notes. More security upgrades were completed at more buildings housing nuclear material in 2005 than ever before (see GSN, Feb. 25, 2005). Still, according to the report, U.S.-funded efforts to comprehensively upgrade security at former Soviet sites holding weapon-usable nuclear material have covered only 54 percent of the buildings. The authors also noted only “modest progress” has been made in the consolidation of weapons and weapon-usable material into smaller numbers of secure locations. It is imperative that a “security culture” take hold in Russia for upgrades to be effective, the report states (see GSN, Feb. 22, 2002). Guards must no longer “patrol without ammunition in their guns” and staff must “no longer turn off intrusion detectors or prop open security doors.” Bunn noted that the problem of undersecured nuclear material is not confined to Russia. With nuclear material in 40 countries and highly enriched uranium used in 135 civilian research reactors around the world — many of which are poorly secured — the problem is global, he said. “Elsewhere around the world there’s much less progress to report, unfortunately,” Bunn said. “In Pakistan, we have a nuclear stockpile that’s thought to be heavily guarded but faces immense threats from armed remnants of al-Qaeda operating in the country to nuclear insiders who are many of them extreme Islamists with a demonstrated record of being willing to sell practically anything to practically anyone.” Bunn called for a global minimum standard of nuclear security and an international coalition addressing nuclear terrorism. “We think that the work in Russia should increasingly be part of a global coalition,” he said. “We’re going to need to pursue genuine nuclear security partnerships rather than trying to impose made-in-America approaches.” Civilian research reactors fueled with highly enriched uranium often have little more security than a night watchman and a fence, and for most countries other than Russia, U.S.-backed security enhancements have not begun or have not yet been planned, according to the report. “Like a gazelle running from a cheetah we are moving in the right direction but we are still not keeping up with the threat,” said former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. “That takes leadership, and I hope we will see it in the next few days at the G-8.” Bunn called for “sustained, day-in-day-out leadership from the very top” and said the creation of a senior White House post devoted to preventing nuclear terrorism is “beyond due.” The Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction was launched at the 2002 G-8 summit in Canada, but the report criticizes that program for directing just a “dribble of non-U.S. funds” to securing nuclear stockpiles. Rather, the initiative has focused other money on dismantling nuclear-powered attack submarines and destroying chemical weapons. Russia should take a leadership role in a global effort and increase its donations to nuclear security efforts in other nations, said Michele Flournoy, an international security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies “The G-8 is a very important coordination body for doing that,” she said at the presentation of the report. “I think Russia has a real opportunity.” Flournoy characterized the issue as one of political will and leadership. Nunn accused international leaders of making empty promises. “What they’re good at is making pledges. What they’re not good at is follow up. They’re not good about keeping track of themselves,” he said. “Whatever the risk is now, whatever the gap is now, we have to drive it down, down, down,” he said. The pending U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement is also highlighted in the report as lacking a nuclear security program despite persistent years of encouragement from lower-level officials to coax India to cooperate on improvements. Despite a number of dire pronouncements, Bunn offered a glimmer of hope. “The gap between the threat and the response is a least beginning to narrow,” he said. “We do see some significant progress.” [EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nuclear Threat Initiative is the sole sponsor of Global Security Newswire, which is published independently by the National Journal Group.]
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