One of the greatest fears in the post-9/11 world is the prospect of nuclear terrorism. Indeed, President Bush used this fear to gain public support for U.S. military action to depose Saddam Hussein:
"If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists….
"Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Although President Bush clearly overstated the nuclear threat posed by Iraq – not only did Saddam Hussein not have WMDs or an active nuclear weapons program, he had no history of supporting al-Qaeda or giving chemical or biological weapons to the terrorist groups he did support – the potential threat of nuclear terrorism cannot be dismissed or ignored. After all, Osama bin Laden has declared, "We call for the Muslim brothers to imitate Pakistan as to the possession of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons."
The concern about a nuclear terrorist attack prompted the creation within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO). But trying to detect a nuclear weapon to prevent a terrorist attack is a last-ditch, needle-in-the-haystack effort. Simply being able to detect the presence of radiation (as one indicator of nuclear material) is not sufficient (if the concern is a nuclear device rather than a radiological weapon such as a dirty bomb). For example, there are legitimate commercial sources of industrial and medical radiation that do not constitute a nuclear threat. Moreover, there are many naturally occurring sources of radiation, such as fertilizers, ceramics, bananas, kitty litter, and smoke detectors. The difficulty of being able to detect nuclear materials is best illustrated by the fact that twice ABC News was able to smuggle a 15-pound cylinder of depleted uranium, loaned by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), though U.S. Customs into the United States (September 2002 in Staten Island, N.Y., and September 2003 in Long Beach, Calif.).
Therefore, the best way to prevent nuclear terrorism is to keep nuclear weapons (and the nuclear material to create a weapon) out of the hands of terrorists in the first place – that is, dealing with the problem at its source, which is the focus of nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Toward that end, perhaps the single-most important U.S. nonproliferation effort is the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, which seeks to stop proliferation by assisting Russia and the former Soviet countries to destroy or secure nuclear weapons and materials. CTR programs conducted by the Department of Defense include:
The CTR Program has also begun its first efforts outside of the former Soviet Union, specifically in Albania. The United States should consider conducting similar efforts with so-called D-3 countries that are outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime (Pakistan, India, and Israel), as well as with potential future nuclear powers (North Korea, Iran), all of which likely share a common concern over nuclear safety and security but may not have the requisite experience, expertise, or technical capabilities. It may not be possible to lock up nuclear weapons and materials to a Fort Knox "gold standard" as proposed by Graham Allison, but every effort should be made to minimize the possibility that existing nuclear stockpiles can be easily accessed or compromised – especially since only relatively small quantities of weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium are needed to build a nuclear device.
Pakistan is of particular concern because so many nuclear efforts in other countries (e.g., North Korea, Iran, and Libya) were tied to a nuclear bazaar created by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Kahn, who has been hailed as a national hero by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Since it is unrealistic to expect that Pakistan will give up its nuclear weapons, U.S. efforts would be better spent on making sure that leakage of weapons and materials does not occur. Although the political situation in Pakistan might not allow for U.S. personnel in the country, it might be possible for the U.S. to train Pakistani personnel to better safeguard and secure nuclear weapons and materials. The United States might also be able to provide Pakistan with better technology for nuclear weapons and materials security.
Perhaps the greatest fear with Pakistan is the prospect of that country’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of radical Islamists. At a minimum, the United States should train Pakistani personnel and provide the requisite technology to be able to render safe Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in the event of a hostile takeover of the government. At the other extreme, the U.S. military must be prepared to preemptively destroy Pakistan’s nuclear weapons – which might require an extraordinary and unprecedented cooperative effort with the Musharraf regime to know the location of every warhead to be targeted.
In the grand scheme of things, the several hundred million dollars spent annually on CTR is cheap insurance. And it makes sense to expand those efforts to as many nuclear-armed countries as possible.
