A Nuclear Weapon Just Waiting to Happen

Terrorists with the makings of a nuclear bomb represent the worst homeland security nightmare. So last week’s removal of enough highly enriched uranium, or HEU, for 2 1/2 bombs from the poorly guarded Vinca research facility in Yugoslavia is a dramatic step toward making the world a safer place. But it is only the first step.

Today, plutonium and HEU--the essential ingredients of nuclear bombs--are in hundreds of facilities, in scores of countries. Because obtaining such materials is the hardest part of making a nuclear bomb, vulnerable nuclear material anywhere is a threat to everyone everywhere. Yet there are no binding global nuclear security standards, and the security for these materials ranges from excellent to appalling. Vinca was so impoverished it had dead rats floating in its spent fuel pool.

There are more than 300 civilian research facilities like Vinca around the world fueled with HEU, which is the easiest material for terrorists to make into a nuclear bomb. Many of these sites do not have enough HEU to pose a serious security threat. But there are others like Vinca: poorly secured and with enough material for a nuclear bomb.

Rather than trying to beef up security everywhere, we need a focused “global cleanout” program targeted on getting rid of bomb material from as many sites as possible around the world and then effectively securing the sites that remain. The surest form of prevention is to ensure there is no bomb material to steal.

Such a global cleanout effort would be feasible and cost-effective. Like Vinca, many of the facilities containing potential bomb material have no genuine need for it anymore, recognize that they cannot afford to secure it effectively for the long haul and can be persuaded to give it up if the right incentives are offered.

The program should have the flexibility to tailor its work to the needs of each site--from paying the cost of shipping the material away, to buying the material outright, to helping to convert research reactors to use fuel that cannot be used in bombs, to paying scientists to do research that no longer requires a research reactor.

A program funded at perhaps $50 million per year would have the potential to eliminate essentially all of the most serious threats--the facilities that are both poorly secured and have a substantial amount of bomb material--within a few years.

The Vinca operation vividly demonstrates why such a focused, flexible program is needed. While ultimately successful, pulling it together required more than a year of secret interagency and international negotiations. And when the U.S. government found that it did not have the authority to spend money on one part of the job crucial to sealing the deal with Yugoslavia, it had to reach out for $5 million from the private Nuclear Threat Initiative, founded by Ted Turner and Sam Nunn. It was a similar story when the United States airlifted nearly 600 kilograms of vulnerable HEU from Kazakhstan in 1994: more than a year of interagency debate to pull the mission together while the material remained insecure.

Post-Sept. 11, we no longer have time for that, and we cannot afford to force the government to go to the private sector for handouts to get these vulnerable bomb caches secured. We need to create one office with all the authority needed to get the job done and to move as fast as we possibly can to reduce this urgent risk to U.S. security.

When Congress returns from its August recess, the House and Senate will be debating language in the Senate’s defense bill that would authorize such an effort (although the Senate failed to provide new money to carry it out).

In the interest of securing ourselves and our children from terrorist nuclear attack, Congress and the Bush administration need to work together to launch a fast-paced effort to clean out all of Vinca’s vulnerable cousins, wherever they may be.