NTI Co-Chairman Sam Nunn Praises G-8 Announcement of Global Partnership to Fight Terrorism

Nunn Praises G-8 Announcement of Global Partnership to Fight Terrorism

Former Senator Sam Nunn, Co-Chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, today praised President Bush’s leadership and success in achieving a G-8 commitment to a set of principles that will form the basis of an international partnership to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. According to the text of the G-8 announcement in Canada, the new international partnership is open to all countries who adopt common principles, which includes a pledge to account for and secure all materials that could be used in the creation of nuclear, chemical, radiological, or biological weapons. Senator Nunn and Senator Richard G. Lugar as well as a number of members of Congress and Russian colleagues discussed the necessity and the essential priorities of such a global coalition against catastrophic terrorism at a conference in Moscow last month.

The following is the text of Nunn’s statement:

“The decision by G-8 leaders to establish this global partnership represents a major step in the right direction in terms of how the United States and its partners and allies must work together to prevent dangerous groups from gaining control of the most dangerous materials — materials that could be used to carry out catastrophic terrorism. The G-8 pledge to spend $20 billion over the next ten years to secure the former Soviet Union’s vast stores of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons materials suggests that member states are willing to back their commitments with much-needed resources. Last year, a Department of Energy bipartisan task force headed by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler set the stage for today’s development when it called for a three-fold increase in current cooperative threat reduction efforts.”