Nuclear Terror Remains Global Threat, Harvard Study Reports

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Despite significant efforts to lock down nuclear material and weapons in the former Soviet Union, additional measures are still needed to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism worldwide, according to a Harvard report released yesterday (see GSN, July 14, 2006).

Securing the Bomb 2007, the sixth such annual report commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, highlights continued concerns regarding nuclear security in Russia as well as in Pakistan.  It notes that more than 140 research reactors around the world are still fueled by highly enriched uranium, many while kept under only light security.

“In essence, Securing the Bomb 2007 makes clear that there remains a very real danger that terrorists could obtain a nuclear bomb or the materials to make one and turn an American city into a modern Hiroshima,” said Matthew Bunn, the report’s author and a senior researcher at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom.  “The theft of the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons remains a very real global danger.”

Bunn lauded U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism by deploying radiation detectors at U.S. ports, but he likened that approach to a football team setting up its defense on its own 1-yard line (see GSN, Sept. 19).   Such a detection network could play a vital role in preventing nuclear terrorism, but nonproliferation experts have long argued that securing fissile material at its source is the most effective measure.

The egregious security gaps at Russian nuclear sites a decade ago have been largely closed, “but real risks remain,” Bunn writes, noting “persistent underfunding of nuclear security systems, weak nuclear security regulations, widespread corruption and conscript guard forces rife with hazing and suicide.”

In Pakistan, the report states, “nuclear stockpiles are comparatively small, and are believed to be heavily guarded, but face huge threats from armed jihadi groups and nuclear insiders with a demonstrated willingness to sell sensitive nuclear technology” (see related GSN story, today).

The report says that some HEU-fueled research reactors, where reactor fuel could be transformed to the heart of a bomb with “modest chemical processing,” are guarded with “no more than a night watchman and a chain-link fence.”

Still, advances have been substantial.

“Thanks to the good and sometimes heroic efforts of men and women around the world who are working every day to keep nuclear weapons and materials secure, we have made significant progress,” former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and NTI co-chairman said in a statement.

Citing work through the end of fiscal 2006 in September of last year, the report indicates that comprehensive U.S.-funded security upgrades had been finished at 55 percent of sites in the former Soviet Union holding weapon-usable material.  Upgrades at about half of Russian military nuclear warhead sites had been completed.

While the current 2008 deadline to complete all the security upgrades “remains a major challenge,” Bunn wrote that it appears likely it would indeed be completed by then or lag behind by just a year or two.

Funding for security enhancements “has in fact been going up and up and up,” Bunn said yesterday, adding that “the gap between the urgency of the threat and the urgency of and scope of our response has narrowed.”

William Tobey, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration, said he was heartened by the report’s acknowledgement of the “significant amount of work that has been done” and the laudatory comment from Nunn.

Still, he said, “I think we were looking for a more positive report because we know the positive results we have achieved.”

By the end of fiscal 2007 his office within the Energy Department will have completed the conversion of nine additional HEU-burning research reactors around the world to use of low-enriched uranium, Tobey said.

Only about one quarter of the world’s HEU-fuel reactors have undergone conversion, leaving a large security gap, according to Bunn’s report.

Tobey also noted that to date roughly 75 percent of all Russian nuclear sites have received upgrades, work on the remaining locations is under way and will be completed by the end of next year.

“We share a sense of urgency,” Tobey said.

Preventing nuclear terrorism by locking down and protecting poorly secured weapons or the material that could fuel an improvised nuclear device is a challenge that exists beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union.

“The danger of nuclear theft and nuclear terrorism is a global problem requiring a global response,” Bunn wrote.  “While much has been accomplished, much more remains to be done to prevent a nuclear 9/11.”

In the report Bunn called for a senior White House-level nonproliferation coordinator who could provide “sustained top-priority” leadership to overcome remaining nuclear security obstacles.  Outside the former Soviet Union nuclear security enhancements are in their early stages and gaps remain.

“There needs to be someone who can keep that on the front burner at the White House every day,” Bunn said.

He also called for a global campaign to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism in which participants commit to locking down nuclear materials and weapons as quickly as possible.  Nuclear stockpiles in China and India could pose potential risks, he writes.

Bunn urged the international community to commit to the goal of removing all nuclear material from the most vulnerable sites within four years.  He said nations should make presidential-level commitments to institute effective security rules as well as providing the cash and staff to maintain them.

The United States and other countries should also establish a shared database with unclassified information on actual incidents at nuclear sites that highlight tactics and weaponry thieves and terrorists have used, the report says.

Bunn said there is a real opportunity to see the risk of nuclear terrorism decrease substantially by the end of the next presidential term.  “Every presidential candidate should be asked a central question:  What is your plan to prevent terrorists from incinerating the heart of a U.S. city with a nuclear bomb?” Bunn said in the report.

While there has been some dialogue about this issue in the current scrum of presidential aspirants, Bunn would like to see even more attention.  He noted that in 2004 both Republican and Democratic nominees said nuclear terrorism was the most pressing security issue facing the United States.

The question then becomes who would better the threat and what is the best way to reduce the risk, Bunn said.  “I think that’s where the debate needs to be.”

[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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