Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 4, No. 1 | Nuclear Doomsday: Is the Clock Still Ticking? page 4

Seeking Security
Of the three potential nuclear threats facing America—a direct attack, an accidental launch or nuclear terrorism—only terrorist groups have stated their clear intent and therefore, Ferguson and others say, represent the threat we should most seriously contemplate and act upon.

Writing in 1998, bin Laden makes the chilling declaration that four million Americans must die in reprisal for those Muslims who have died in struggles with the West and Israel. To this end, that same year, bin Laden justified the need to obtain nuclear weapons, “for the defense of Muslims as a religious duty. To seek to possess those weapons that would counter those of the infidels is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired [nuclear] weapons, then this is an obligation I have carried out and I thank G-d for enabling us to do that… It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.”

In 2003, at bin Laden’s request, Saudi cleric Nasser bin Hammed al-Fahd issued a fatwa authorizing the use of a nuclear weapon against U.S. targets: “If a bomb that killed 10 million of them and burned as much of their land as they have burned Muslims’ land were dropped on them, it would be permissible.”

In 2004, Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s bin Laden Unit, provided Congressional testimony as well as media interviews in which he referred to “detailed information” illustrating “the careful, professional manner in which al-Qaeda was seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.” Indeed, media reports demonstrate al-Qaeda’s interests in obtaining fissile materials, but also note little sophistication in their understanding of how to go about using those materials to create a bomb. Although no public reports document terrorists in possession of sufficient quantities of HEU to build a bomb, CIA and FBI authorities express grave concerns.

In 2005, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the intelligence community is “extremely concerned with a growing body of sensitive reporting that continues to show al-Qaeda’s clear intention to obtain and to ultimately use some form of biological, radiological, or nuclear material in its attacks against the United States.”

Appearing at the same hearing, then-CIA Director Porter Goss testified that, “It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that.” Pressed for any evidence that terror organizations had acquired WMD or precursors such as HEU, he replied: “There is sufficient material unaccounted for so that it would be possible for those with know-how to construct a nuclear weapon.”

Actually building a 1-to-10 kiloton bomb, similar to the design and yield used to destroy Hiroshima, requires some sophisticated equipment, but given sixty years of technological advances, the hurdles to building a nuclear device are relatively unremarkable and can be achieved “without state assistance,” according to a 2002 report by the U.S. National Research Council.

If the necessary HEU was available, “building a successful high-yield improvised nuclear device” would take “a year or more” and cost “in the $100,000-to-$1,000,000 range,” according to Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist at King's College, London.

“A crude HEU gun-type bomb has a high probability of producing a massively destructive explosion,” writes Ferguson, in Preventing Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2006) a report supported by Carnegie Corporation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. “Moreover, skilled terrorists could make this type of weapon without state assistance. The truly onerous barrier for nuclear terrorists is acquiring enough HEU.”

So, it seems, acquiring or building a nuclear weapon is well within the realm of possibility for a determined organization. How then to prevent them from succeeding? The only way, many experts suggest, is at the source.

As Sam Nunn has observed, “If you analyze the terrorist path to a nuclear attack, it becomes clear that the most effective, least expensive way to prevent nuclear terrorism is to keep terrorists from getting nuclear weapons or the materials to make them in the first place. Acquiring weapons and materials is the hardest step for the terrorists to take, and the easiest step for us to stop. By contrast, each subsequent step in the process—building, transporting and detonating a bomb—is easier for the terrorists to take and harder for
us to stop.”

Carnegie Corporation, which has been focused on international peace and security since it was founded in 1911 by Andrew Carnegie, who was deeply concerned with preventing war and international conflict, is addressing nuclear security and access to WMD with grants and support for:

A National Academy of Sciences working group involving American and Russian scientists who are exploring cooperative approaches to preventing terrorists from acquiring and using WMD.

CSIS, which promotes adoption of commitments made by the G-8 states against the spread of nuclear weapons, material and know-how.

The Russian American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, which helped develop a framework that led to the creation of the Russian Nuclear Cities Initiative—a U.S. government-sponsored effort to keep Russian nuclear scientists from offering their services to either “rogue states” or terrorists.

A project at the University of Georgia’s Center for International Trade and Security, which has been instrumental in developing export controls for trade in nuclear weapons technologies and materials.

The Monterey Institute, which has developed the most authoritative unclassified mapping of the Abdul Qadeer Khan proliferation network.

Other relevant developments, according to NTI (www.nti.org) and others include:

In July 2006, presidents Bush and Putin announced an agreement under which Russia could get into the multi-billion-dollar business of storing spent nuclear fuel, which the U.S. administration hopes will win Moscow’s support in controlling Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Also agreed upon was the creation of an agency to share intelligence and establish best practices for securing nuclear material.

The Bush Administration’s FY 2007 budget request for controlling nuclear materials, weapons and expertise is about $1 billion, “an amount essentially identical to the previous year’s appropriation,” reports Securing the Bomb 2006.

“As of the end of FY 2005, U.S.-funded comprehensive security and accounting upgrades has been completed at fifty-four percent of the buildings in the former Soviet Union with potentially vulnerable weapons-usable nuclear material,” with a 2008 deadline to complete all upgrades, according to Securing the Bomb 2006.

In mid-1995, the United States initiated the first of a series of operations to remove Soviet-origin HEU from vulnerable sites outside of Russia. Currently the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), launched in May 2004, seeks to “minimize and eventually eliminate any reliance on HEU in the civilian fuel cycle, including conversion of research and test reactors worldwide from the use of HEU to the use of LEU (Low Enriched Uranium) fuel and targets.” At present, GTRI is working to improve storage facilities in Russia. Also, GTRI, operating under a ten-year timetable, seeks the return of spent fuel and HEU, since “enough HEU for a thousand nuclear weapons remains” at research facilities in 43 countries, allies of either the U.S. or Russia. However, as Securing the Bomb 2006 notes, “major gaps” in the GTRI “have not yet been filled,” including conversion of about half the world’s HEU-fueled research reactors and two-thirds of the HEU supplied by the United States to allies.”

UN Security Council Resolution 1540, passed in April 2004, offers the hope of global standards for accounting and securing WMD. However, while the resolution requires every member state to establish laws for the “appropriate, effective” physical protection and accounting of nuclear and other WMD-related materials, debate continues about the definition of the term “appropriate, effective.”

A modest step forward in enhancing the physical protection of nuclear material was taken in July 2005 when the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials was amended, extending a legally binding obligation to protect civilian nuclear materials. However, the amendment has yet to be ratified and the language of the amendment provides only general security principles as opposed to specific security standards.

Even taking these measures into account, Graham Allison notes that today’s effort to contain nuclear terrorism or accidents is built around “a patchwork of treaties” when what is needed is a globally coordinated approach.

Next page: Security experts apply a theoretical formula to express and explore the nature of risk:CONSEQUENCES x LIKELIHOOD = RISK

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