By Philipp C. Bleek
Cambridge, MA – For most Americans, the worst terrorist nightmare
would be a nuclear bomb blast in one of our cities – the devastation
of September 11 would pale in comparison.
On the one-year anniversary of the September 11 attacks, ABC television
aired a report arguing that America remains vulnerable to just such
a nuclear threat. Reporters shipped a suitcase containing depleted
uranium – a material that cannot be used for nuclear weapons
but does emit low-level radiation – into the United States aboard
a cargo ship.
The main thrust of that special TV report is correct: any adversary
who overcomes the difficult problem of acquiring a nuclear weapon
would face far fewer obstacles getting it into the United States.
Illicit narcotics enter the United States by the truckload every week,
and a nuclear bomb wrapped in heavy layers of lead shielding would
emit little trace radiation. Given the volume of goods that enter
the United States every day, the odds of detecting a properly shielded
weapon are slim – and inspecting more than a tiny fraction of
those goods is simply not feasible.
While more can and should be done to secure our borders against terrorists
trying to smuggle in a nuclear bomb, more must also be done to contain
usable materials at the source. For that, the first line of defense
remains U.S.-funded programs to keep nuclear weapons and weapons-usable
materials out of the wrong hands.
Luckily, the primary obstacle to nuclear terrorism continues to be
the problem of getting the weapon itself. Illegally obtaining a useable
nuclear weapon is essentially impossible. And assembling even a crude
weapon remains extremely challenging. Highly-enriched uranium or plutonium
– required for the fissile material "core" of the bomb
– is extremely difficult to acquire. Iraq, for example, spent
more than $10 billion prior to the Gulf War in an unsuccessful effort
to acquire enough enriched uranium to make even a single nuclear weapon.
That said, substantial quantities of bomb-usable material remain inadequately
secured around the globe. If no theft of that material has occurred
so far, the credit is due to at least two factors: the U.S.-funded
"threat reduction" initiatives to ensure that proper security
measures are in place for such material in the former Soviet states
– and a very large measure of luck.
But even with the necessary material in hand, building a nuclear weapon
remains challenging. Despite the hyperbolic but common myth that physics
graduate students could build nuclear weapons in their garages, most
experts agree that constructing even a basic nuclear weapon would
require, at a minimum, three experts specializing in the fields of
conventional explosives, electronics, and nuclear materials. Still,
we cannot ignore the problem posed by impoverished and even unemployed
former weapons scientists in Russia – only some of whom are currently
receiving limited assistance through U.S.-funded programs.
While there is no need to panic about an impending attack, U.S. policymakers
can take concrete steps to minimize the threat of a terrorist nuclear
attack. Threat reduction programs, which help safeguard fissile material
and keep key scientists from temptation, must be enhanced and accelerated.
The Bush administration’s decision to boost funding for these
efforts, after initially attempting to cut them back, is welcome.
But more can and should be done.
The programs have also been hampered by a lack of sustained high-level
attention, particularly because these rather complex efforts are supervised
and implemented by several different departments of the U.S. government.
The administration should move rapidly to appoint a senior official
with the authority and the manpower required to effectively coordinate
these crucial programs. Congress, too, can play a key role by supporting
these efforts.
Programs to secure vulnerable nuclear material around the globe remain
our first and most important line of defense against our worst terrorist
nightmare. President Bush – and members of Congress – must
become even more fully aware of the importance of these programs,
and they must do all they can to ensure that this first line of defense
against nuclear terror is properly funded, maintained and improved.
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Philipp Bleek, now a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School
of Government, previously worked as a nuclear policy analyst in Washington.
