Preventing Nuclear Terrorism

A Proposal for a Recommendation Area

Warren Bass
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Three years after 9/11, the United States remains unnecessarily vulnerable to the gravest
imaginable terrorist threat: a nuclear explosion in an American city.

While this problem has received significant attention in the past, the Commission's
findings clearly urge renewed activism.

Moreover, it is impossible to make the case that the history-making bloodshed and impact
of 9/11 has slaked al Qaeda's thirst for spectacular attacks. Indeed, if terrorist groups—as
RAND's Bruce Hoffman puts it—are like sharks that need to constantly swim forward to
stay alive, al Qaeda is likely to be feeling significant internal pressure to ensure its next
attack on the United States tops even 9/11. In congressional testimony on February 24,
2004, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet underscored the threat by noting that
Usama bin Ladin had decreed the acquisition of WMD to be a "religious obligation" and
warning that al Qaeda "continues to pursue its strategic goal of obtaining a nuclear
capability." Bin Ladin's spokesman, Sulayman Abu Ghaith, brags that al Qaeda wants
"to kill 4 million Americans, including 1 million children." Nor can we safely assume
that the threat of nuclear terrorism is necessarily limited to al Qaeda; Tenet testified that
"more than two dozen other terrorist groups are pursuing CBRN materials."

With this context, the Commission ought to use its unprecedented platform to promote
the agenda that will do more than anything else to make our nation safer: acceleration of
efforts fo control nuclear material and weapons. This has been a top U.S. priority since Deleted: urgent moves
the signing of PDD-39 in President Clinton's first term; after 9/11, we must do far more.

With bomb designs now widely available, nuclear experts largely agree that the largest
hurdle would-be nuclear terrorists face is acquiring the nuclear material to fuel a bomb.
But there is plenty of that material around. "The world's stockpiles of separated
plutonium and HEU [highly enriched uranium] are estimated to total some 450 metric
tons of military and civilian separated plutonium, and some 1,600 tons of HEU - enough
to make nearly a quarter million nuclear weapons," notes the nonprofit Nuclear Threat
Initiative. The problem is not limited to Russia, Pakistan, and North Korea; policymakers
must also focus on other states supplied by the Soviet Union and the United States with
reactors large enough to produce the highly enriched uranium needed for a bomb,
including Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ghana.

The concern centers less around strategic nuclear weapons and missiles, which are so
bulky as to be very difficult to steal, but around tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons and
around the nuclear material that could be used to make a bomb. Another concern is that a
nuclear bomb might be built with a relatively small quantity of nuclear materials. For
instance, a 15kt nuclear bomb - strong enough to kill over 250.000 people if detonated in
lower Manhattan - could be built with 20kg of HEU or 4kg of Pu. (See Baker-Cutler
Task Force final report for these figures.)
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Security at many of nuclear stockpiles is reassuringly thorough, particularly in NPT
signatory states, but some stockpiles are still kept well below U.S. standards for safety.
Nor is the threat abstract. From 1993 to mid-June 2002, the IAEA's Illicit Trafficking
Database has recorded 440 incidents of illicit trafficking of nuclear and other radioactive
materials that have been confirmed by U.N. member states. Of those, 18 involved
confirmed attempts "to illegally acquire, smuggle, or sell weapons-usable HEU or
plutonium." Press reports note that in August 2003, Russia arrested the deputy director of
Atomflot (the Russian repair agency for nuclear icebreakers and submarines) in
Murmansk for his role in one such plot.

Nor does the United States have reliable ways to stop the shipment of a bomb into
American cities. Ports still screen only a tiny fraction of the massive inflow of cargo into
this country; radiation detectors have not been installed. Even if they were there are
physical limits that may make most radiation detection devices ineffective against a
determined smuggler. Airline cargo remains a major vulnerability, too. And ourTborders Deleted: largely undefended northern
could be penetrated at any number of points. Deleted: permeated
Deleted: •
TU.S.Tefforts
have simply notjtept pace witl^ the .enormity ofjthe former Soviet Union. Deleted: The
poorly controlled and poorly stored, and that the world is not in a near-state of hysteria Deleted: government cannot prevent all
about the danger," - 95% of all nuclear weapons and materials outside of the United terrorist attacks. But it dare
StatesY Deleted: permit nuclear terrorism. Such
an attack is no longer unthinkable, but it
should be made virtually impossible. Like
U.S. efforts have simply not kept pace with the enormity of the threat. The United States, Howard Baker,
which has shown a willingness to wage war in Iraq to foreclose one scenario whereby al Formatted: Font color: Auto
Oaeda might acquire nuclear weapons or other so-called weapons of mass destruction, Deleted: former Republican Senate
should show as much if not more vigor in foreclosing other risks that many nuclear leader, we also find it mind-boggling
experts regard as significantly greater. "that there could be 40,000 nuclear
weapons, or maybe 80,000 in
^ Formatted: Font color: Auto
Both resources and coordination are badly lacking. Over the past decade, the United
' Deleted:.
States has budgeted more than $4 billion (think the number might be a bit more than thisl
Deleted: threat. The United States,
for securing nuclear arms and materials in the former Soviet Union. Washington has also which has shown a willingness to wage
made various agencies responsible for various components of the U.S. effort to increase war in Iraq to foreclose one scenario
whereby al Qaeda might acquire nuclear
nuclear safety, including securing and accounting for nuclear weapons and materials; weapons, should show as much if not
stopping nuclear smuggling; limiting incentives for people to try to steal or sell nuclear more vigor in foreclosing other risks that
many nuclear experts regard as
weapons, fuel, or expertise; and monitoring and reducing stockpiles. After some initial significantly greater.
signs to the contrarv.Jhe administration has modestly increased funding for
I Deleted: The
£ounterproliferation efforts jn the former Soviet Union such as, the Nunn-Lugar
Deleted: now supports the main
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. It has also made a major push to get the G-8
Deleted: program
states to match the U.S. contribution to threat reduction efforts in the former Soviet
Union,—$1 billion per year—each year over the decade. Deleted:,
Deleted: Nunn-Lugar
But these efforts remain inadequate and piecemeal. As Harvard's Graham Allison has
noted recently in Foreign Affairs, "were the president today to ask his cabinet who is
responsible for preventing nuclear terrorism, either a dozen people would raise then-
hands, or no one would." Vladimir Putin would get even less clarity. As NTI notes,
"Total funding for all threat reduction funding, including all the efforts devoted to
ensuring that weapons of mass destruction do not fall into the hands of terrorists or
hostile states, is now running at just over $1 billion per year—less than one third of one
percent of a budget for the Department of Defense that in FY 2003 was over $365 billion.
By way of comparison, the budget Congress approved for missile defense in FY 2003 is
over $7.4 billion." We do not believe that missile defense will make Americans seven
times safer from al Qaeda than a coordinated and appropriately resourced effort to secure
every nuclear weapon in the world.

The failure to fund and coordinate has left dangerous gaps. More needs to be done to
upgrade security—even, as NTI notes, easily done fixes such as bricking up windows at
Russian nuclear facilities. The overwhelming majority of Russia's long-since-unneeded
stockpiles of highly enriched uranium is still in existence, standing as a constant
temptation to terrorists. Tens of thousands of nuclear scientists and technicians could be
out of work in Russia, creating horrifying incentives for them to sell their expertise to
murderous bidders. Americans dare not comfort themselves by thinking that everything
that could be done is being done.

• We recommend the president appoint an NSC national coordinator to supervise an

urgent and highest-priority U.S. program to ensure that we are doing everything
possible to account for and secure every single nuclear weapon and every supply
of nuclear fuel in the world.
• We recommend that this coordinator be tasked to involve both foreign and
domestic arms of the U.S. government to tackle nuclear security, including
homeland defense efforts, and we recommend that the coordinator have
principals-level rank on related issues.
• We recommend that renewed efforts be made to work together with our Russian
friends to ensure that our efforts are coordinated and comprehensive, including
encouraging them to appoint a national counterproliferation coordinator of their
own.
• We recommend follow-on steps to imitate the August 2002 success of Project
Vinca (a few months mere was a similar operation in Romania), which removed
from a dangerously unprotected nuclear facility in Yugoslavia enough HEU to
make three bombs; these steps should include placing such projects under the
control of the proposed national coordinator and appropriating a pool of money—
NTI gives the sensible figure of $50 million per year—to fund rapid security
upgrades.
• We recommend renewed efforts to fund (at similar levels as the above program)
and expand the U.S.-Russian HEU Purchase Agreement to ensure that as much
HEU as possible is destroyed as quickly as possible, including more than
doubling the current pace of destroying 30 tons of HEU per year.
• We recommend tasking the DCI to dramatically upgrade collection efforts on
nuclear safety, including detailed annual reports to principals and the national
coordinator about what we know and don't know about nuclear safety in states of
particular concern, (check CIA report on the insecurity of the Russian arsenal
from early 2002-Februarv. 1 think)
We recommend the screening of all materials entering the United States—by air,
land, and sea—for radiation, including pre-screening at departure ports and faster
methods to search containers upon their arrival at U.S. ports.
We recommend raising funding for counterproliferation and nuclear security
efforts dramatically - up to the $3 billion/annum as suggested by the Baker-Cutler
Task Force. While contributions from allies should be sought, the U.S. cannot
wait for our allies to increase funding while this important problem persists.,. [ Deleted:.
We recommend international efforts, by both U.S. diplomats and those in nuclear-
related agencies coordinated by the new national coordinator, to ensure that the
global regime to counter nuclear smuggling is as Affective as possible. [Deleted: toug
We recommend having the national coordinator rework the promising but thus far
troubled Nuclear Cities Initiative designed to reemploy Russian nuclear workers
in less dangerous economic sectors, as well as other efforts to ensure that
Russians with nuclear expertise are kept promptly paid and fully employed.
We recommend that the new national coordinator ensure that consequence
management efforts for the unthinkable scenarios of a nuclear or radiological
attack on the United States stand ready.
We recommend that counterproliferation efforts be woven fully into U.S. grand
strategy in the war against al Oaeda and other terrorist groups that might engage
in catastrophic terrorism against U.S. targets.