Global Security Newswire

A nine-member U.S. panel examining strategies for preventing WMD strikes has traveled to Russia to tour nuclear security training sites and meet with counterterrorism and counterproliferation specialists, the group said yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 3).

"It is crucial to work with nations such as Russia to block the spread of unconventional weapons," said former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), chairman of the congressionally established Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism.

"We cannot provide meaningful recommendations to the next administration and Congress without examining what international counterterrorism and counterproliferation experts, intelligence officials and international organizations are doing to stem proliferation and terrorism," Graham said in a statement. "Russia and the United States have the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons and materials. Russia's cooperation is critical to our joint efforts to protect the world from nuclear attack."

The panel plans to hold an open hearing on Oct. 1 in Washington.

The group scuttled a planned trip to Pakistan on the advice of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad after a hotel there was bombed on Saturday (Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism release/BreitBart, Sept. 22).