Robert P. Casey Jr.
An issue that needs airing; Presidential candidates must address how the world will keep nuclear materials out of the hands of those bent on slaughter
February 8, 2008
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
By Senator Robert P. Casey, Jr.
Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The Democratic presidential debate last month in Manchester, N.H., was noteworthy in one significant respect. For the first time during this long presidential campaign, the candidates were asked how they would work to prevent an act of nuclear terrorism against the United States.
I hope that this is not the last time this issue is raised during this campaign. The prospect that a terrorist group will detonate an improvised nuclear weapon in an American city is the single greatest national security danger facing the United States today. It is the solemn responsibility of our government to confront this grave challenge, and the American people should hold our elected officials accountable.
During my first year as a United States senator, and as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I have met with outside experts to evaluate the threat of nuclear terrorism. I have learned a series of disturbing facts.
Al-Qaeda leaders have openly declared their stated goal of acquiring a nuclear weapon to use against the United States and our friends and allies.
Since the early 1990s, there have been hundreds of reports of attempted smuggling from the former Soviet Union's vast nuclear stockpile of highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, the fissile materials that give nuclear weapons their explosive power. Although the quantities intercepted so far have been very small, we are likely missing some thefts, and small amounts of fissile material can be aggregated into a sufficient core for an improvised nuclear weapon.
Too many nuclear facilities across the globe still do not have the security safeguards we should demand for stockpiles of fissile material, which should be guarded as tightly as Fort Knox. Today, as many as 40 nations possess the key materials and components required to assemble a nuclear weapon, with security conditions varying greatly from nation to nation and site to site.
While nuclear terrorism is a frightening threat, there is reason for hope: We know what needs to be done to meet the challenge. Even a terrorist group as sophisticated as al-Qaeda cannot build a nuclear weapon from scratch. The production of nuclear weapons and fissile material remains a capacity limited to national governments.
First, the United States should work in concert with other nations to lock down nuclear warheads and weapons-grade materials around the world and prevent terrorists from acquiring them in the first place. We're making some progress on this front, but we're not moving fast enough. While additional funding is required, we also need high-level attention from world leaders to break through the bureaucratic obstacles and political inertia blocking improved security.
Second, the United States must also bolster its ability to deter the use of nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack. We must brand any efforts by individuals and businesses to assist terrorists in obtaining nuclear weapons as international crimes against humanity and demand the most severe punishments. While nihilistic groups like al-Qaeda are undeterrable, the states from which they acquire or steal nuclear material are not. The United States can work with international partners to assemble a global library of nuclear fissile-material samples from every nuclear power in the world, so that, in the aftermath of an attack, we can quickly identify the origins of the fissile material used and assess which states may have been culpable.
Finally, we must rededicate ourselves to the overall effort to combat nuclear proliferation. It is a simple equation: The more states that acquire nuclear weapons, the more likely it is that some of those weapons may be vulnerable to theft or illicit sales to terrorist groups. The current political turmoil in Pakistan demonstrates why it is so important to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, especially to unstable and undemocratic regimes.
God forbid, if an act of nuclear terrorism were to occur on American soil, we are likely to ask the morning after the following questions: What could our government have done to prevent such a detonation? What international initiatives should we have pursued? The answers are available to us today; we have no excuse for not acting immediately. The next president, with a strong mandate from Congress, must place at the very top of his or her agenda a full-scale effort to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism.
