Security experts warn of loose nukes
March 12, 1996
Web posted at: 12:50 p.m. EST
From Correspondent Mark Feldstein
Washington (CNN) -- Security experts are sounding the alarms over loose nukes -- nuclear weapons dangerously within reach of would-be terrorists.
The alarms are ringing the loudest over Russia where there are tens of thousands of atomic weapons left over from the Cold War not to mention more than a thousand tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium.
"As you look at all of the possibilities out there now, I would conclude there's more chance that one or two or three weapons could be used perhaps with unconventional delivery systems that would kill literally tens of thousands of people," said Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services committee. (111K AIFF sound or
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It's not just a hypothetical problem. Authorities have stopped at least seven cases of nuclear-component smuggling from Russia. No one knows how many more have gone undetected. A Harvard study to be released this week warns of "nuclear anarchy."
"It is the single largest threat to the security of Americans today and for the decade ahead."
-- Harvard University professor Graham Allison
So far, Russia's atomic smugglers have been lone insiders -- scientists and servicemen, disaffected and underpaid. But this "disorganized" crime could easily turn to the more lethal Russian Mafia offering terrorists and profiteers a virtual nuclear supermarket.
"Russia itself is in many areas unstable, and the systems and materials aren't being protected anything like what we would like," Nunn said.
At a plutonium warehouse, windows were broken and boarded up. At a nuclear submarine base, one of the Russian navy's main storage areas for atomic fuel, anti-nuclear activists were able to take pictures from close range.
"The gentleman in the taxi said, 'I know somebody in a nearby base, why don't you come take a look at one of the major military pieces of hardware in the base?' So we casually crawled under a fence, over a fence, under a fence, and there we were," said Josh Handle, a Greenpeace activist explaining how easy it was to break into one of the storage areas. (43K AIFF sound or 43K WAV sound)
The fence around the base literally had gaps in it. In 1993 two Russians climbed through, stealing weapons-grade uranium.
U.S. investigators say that Russian scientists are also for sale. A brazen help-wanted ad from a Hong Kong weapons company posted in Russia said, "We have detailed files of hundreds of former Soviet Union experts in the field of rocket, missile and nuclear weapon[s] ... These weapon experts are willing to work in a country which needs their skills and can offer reasonable pay."
"These folks ... are looking for work. And mostly not finding much money," Allison said explaining the lure of such offers.
To be sure, experts say Russia's missiles, unlike its nuclear components, are well-guarded. Russian authorities have already destroyed many nuclear weapons and foiled several smuggling attempts. President Boris Yeltsin will host an international summit next month in Moscow aimed at controlling nuclear leakage.
In Washington, Senator Nunn will hold a series of hearings on the problem this month. The irony overshadowing it all: the end of the Cold War removed the looming threat of mutual destruction -- but has ushered in a new and equally frightening one: nuclear terrorism.
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