By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The International Atomic Energy Agency established a working group earlier this month with U.S. and Russian officials designed to better secure unregulated but still highly radioactive materials in the former Soviet Union, the agency announced today.  The effort was initiated to address heightened fears industrial and medical materials could be used to make a “dirty bomb,” the agency said in a release (see GSN, June 21).

The three parties have agreed to cooperate in locating, recovering, securing and recycling radioactive sources in the former Soviet Union that are currently outside the control of nuclear regulators.  Such materials are nevertheless sufficiently radioactive to cause serious illness and contamination if dispersed by a conventional explosive.

“What is needed is cradle-to-grave control of powerful radioactive sources to protect them against terrorism or theft,” said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.

The tripartite agreement, reached June 12 between the agency, the U.S. Energy Department and Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry, marks the first international response to the threat posed by vulnerable radioactive sources, according to the IAEA, which acknowledged that additional work is needed to safeguard similar materials outside of the former Soviet Union.

The announcement comes after the May arrest in Chicago of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen with alleged links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network who authorities maintain was planning to build and detonate a dirty bomb (see GSN, June 17). 

The United States, which has one of the most advanced security systems, has lost track of nearly 1,500 radioactive items since 1996, the agency said (see GSN, June 12).

By setting off a conventional explosive that spews radioactive debris, officials worry a terrorist group might cause relatively few direct deaths, but spread mass panic, cause widespread economic dislocation and contaminate a large area for years.

The new effort to track radioactive materials in the former Soviet Union will focus on those sources of radiation deemed most dangerous.  The IAEA has identified radioactive materials used in industrial radiography, radiotherapy, industrial irradiators and thermoelectric generators as having the largest amounts of radioactive isotopes such as cobalt-60, strontium-90, cesium-137 and iridium-192.

Agency officials said the ability to detect radioactive sources depends on the level and type of radioactivity and the possible presence of shielding materials.  “Fortunately, the most intense and dangerous sources normally are the most susceptible to detection,” according to the IAEA.

A Global Threat

The threat is global.  The agency said that dozens of countries worldwide have little or no security in place to safeguard a variety of radiological materials used for common industrial or medical purposes.

“More than 100 countries may have no minimum infrastructure in place to properly control radiation sources,” the agency said.

Worldwide, the agency estimated there are more than 20,000 operators of radioactive sources, including 10,000 radiotherapy units, 12,000 industrial sources for radiography, and 300 irradiator facilities containing radioactive sources for industrial applications.

The IAEA said it is making progress in working with nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where the control of radiological materials is believed to be most lax.  In March, for example, the agency was called in to secure a powerful cobalt source that had been abandoned in a former Afghanistan hospital (see GSN, April 8).  A week later it helped Uganda secure a radiological source that appeared to have been stolen.

Still, the agency remains particularly concerned about the more than 50 countries that are not members of the 134-nation IAEA and therefore do not benefit from its expertise and assistance.

Despite the global concerns, Russia and the former Soviet states are currently the focus of the agency’s radiological safeguard plans.  According to IAEA figures, “orphaned” radiological materials in the states of the former Soviet Union “are a widespread phenomenon.” 

For example, in February two unshielded and unsecured radioactive strontium-90 power sources were recovered in Georgia.  Since 1997, Georgia and the IAEA have recovered an estimated 280 radioactive sources (see GSN, June 10).

“This is the legacy of one of the most dramatic changes in the security environment in our lifetime:  the dissolution of the Soviet Union,” said Roger Hagengruber of Sandia National Laboratory.  “With U.S. help, Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union can secure and control the management of these sources.  The problem is money.”

Meanwhile, the situation in the former Soviet Union “may just be an indication of the serious safety and security implications that orphaned sources may have elsewhere in the world,” said Abel Gonzalez, IAEA’s director of radiation and waste safety.

“Since Sept. 11, there is a perception that threat [of a dirty bomb] has increased,” Hagengruber added.  “And the problem gets bigger when you go to countries with terrorism ties where there is also sources of radiological material.”

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