Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Matthew Bunn: More to be Done to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism

Matthew Bunn, an Advisory Board Member at the Center, wrote a terrific op-ed in today’s Washington Post in which he argues that, “We urgently need a high-priority global campaign to make sure every nuclear weapon and every significant cache of potential bomb material is locked down.

The piece promotes the findings of "Securing the Bomb 2007," an annual report on the security of nuclear weapons and materials around the world, which Bunn helped write. The good news of the report “is that much progress has been made toward upgrading security for nuclear stockpiles. The bad news is that the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons exist in hundreds of buildings in more than 40 countries, and terrorists are actively trying to get a nuclear bomb or the materials to make one.”

Bunn states:

While [nuclear terrorism] is a global threat, Russia, Pakistan and research reactors using fuel made from highly enriched uranium pose the most urgent dangers of nuclear theft. Russia has the world's largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the materials to make them, scattered in numerous buildings and bunkers. Security measures have improved dramatically since the early 1990s, but serious weaknesses remain, and threats are posed by outside attackers as well as pervasive insider theft.

Pakistan has a relatively small nuclear stockpile, believed to be heavily guarded -- but the country faces threats from al-Qaeda, other jihadist groups and nuclear insiders with a demonstrated willingness to sell sensitive technology.

Roughly 140 research reactors fueled by highly enriched uranium exist in dozens of countries -- some of them on university campuses -- and many have only modest security measures in place.

Click here to read the complete op-ed and here to download the full report.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice Post! I think we have a lot to worry about, however, the US government is doing a lot to protect us as well. Check out this informative article where you can learn more about nuclear terrorism