AMERICAN HIROSHIMA

[greenpagan]

Bush Administration Slammed For Inaction on 'Loose Nukes'

WASHINGTON — With the country on high alert for another Al Qaeda attack, the Bush administration is facing increasing criticism for allegedly not doing enough to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

The 9/11 Commission and leading nonproliferation experts say that the administration has been too lax in securing nuclear weapons and materials in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union. Administration officials are expected to be grilled on the issue next week, during congressional hearings on the report of the 9/11 Commission.

The commissioners, in their final report, stopped short of directly assigning blame for the situation. They did, however, mention that "outside experts are deeply worried about the U.S. government's commitment and approach to securing the weapons and highly dangerous materials still scattered in Russia and other countries of the Soviet Union."

In contrast to the Bush administration, which has focused intensely on neutralizing the threat of nuclear material transfers from Middle Eastern governments to terrorists, the 9/11 report stresses the danger of unsupervised nuclear materials ending up in the hands of terrorists. A nuclear bomb, the report states, "can be built with a relatively small amount of nuclear material." A bomb made with highly enriched uranium or plutonium "about the size of a grapefruit," detonated by commercially available explosives "would level Lower Manhattan," the report warns.

Sensing Bush's vulnerability on the issue, the democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, has recently made the problem of "loose nukes" one of his main arguments in criticizing President Bush for his performance on national security. Experts who, for the most part, agree that Bush has not made the containment of "loose nukes" a high enough priority, expect the issue to emerge during debates between Kerry and Bush.

http://www.forward.com/main/printer-friendly.php?ref=nir200408041110

[teryang]

1. the real security issue beside which all others pale

...into insignificance. The terrorist problem is a media friendly relatively low impact problem which is amenable to state manipulation at propitious moments of political need. At the cost of one to several thousand lives, the terrorist "incident" can be ordered from the machiavellian menu by the covert operators when desirable with disportionate media impact.

The unglamorous but very real and much more dangerous nuclear proliferation issue meets with complete indifference from the Bush regime. Why? If they fail here millions could die. But in the interim, the hard work, analysis, institutionalization of inspections and compliance, and incidental costs running into the hundreds of millions, if not billions, are unglamorous, arcane and require the mix of expertise that only the most talented scientists, engineers and diplomats can provide. Ever heard former Senator Sam Nunn discuss this topic. It is the most pressing security issue of our time. He is one of the leading national security experts our country has.

Yawn, no money for the defense contractors or oil companies equals zero interest from the myopic and corrupt regime of corporate colonial carpetbaggers.

[Pepperbelly]

2. There is another problem that doesn't entail the engineering probs ...

of making a nuke from scratch and that is the quantity of nuclear weapons available in Russia and the break-away republics. Bill Clinton was extremely concerned about this and made sure money was available to ruin their effectiveness. I believe that Bonehead ended that.

on edit: BTW, welcome to DU... :hi:

[newyawker99]

3. Hi greenpagan!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[noonwitch]

4. We should have bought and secured the soviet arsenal when the wall fell

When we could have bought it cheap from Boris Yeltsin. They badly needed the money then, and we could have secured all that nuclear material then, before it could be sold to someone else.

[NewJeffCT]

5. Wasn't Sen. Kerry in the forefront on this issue a while back?

I thought I read that somewhere...

[SOS]

6. Bush is managing this issue VERY poorly

from Nunn-Lugar.com:

"The goal of NUNN-LUGAR is to lessen the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, to deactivate and to destroy these weapons, and to help the scientists formerly engaged in production of such weapons start working for peace.

For a private citizen, the best way to support NUNN-LUGAR is to make sure that the money authorized by the United States Congress for such an important task is being spent efficiently. Unfortunately, Defense Enterprise Fund ("DEF"), a Program funded with NUNN-LUGAR money, fell victim to gross mismanagement, and the US government's investigation of DEF has been, at best, half-hearted. DEF was closed on December 31, 2003, its mission not accomplished at all and its $67M grant shamefully and criminally wasted."

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Ports could be secured for under 1 Billion

I heard a report on NPR that for less than 1 billion dollars we could secure the ports by checking and certifying containers at the port of origin before they even get here.

Even if it were 2 or 4 or 8 or 16 billion, it would be cheaper than a war on non-existent WMD.