Pakistan, Russia, US need more nuclear security

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

* Report commissioned from Harvard University Professor Matthew Bunn by US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative says highest risks of nuclear theft today are in Pakistan and Russia
* Nuclear security experts say it is time to agree on ban on producing fissile material for nuclear weapons

WASHINGTON: Rich and poor countries around the world – including Pakistan, Russia and the United States – need to boost security at their nuclear sites if they want to keep atomic bombs out of the hands of terrorists.

The risk of a militant group getting hold of nuclear material and building a bomb with it is “possible, plausible, and over time probable”, Robert Gallucci, president of the MacArthur Foundation, told a gathering of nuclear security experts ahead of a summit meeting on the same subject.

John Brennan, US President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser, underlined the threat by telling reporters on the sidelines of the summit that al Qaeda appears to have been trying to obtain nuclear bomb material.

“There have been numerous reports over the past eight or nine years of attempts to obtain various types of purported material,” Brennan said on the sidelines of the summit.

“We know al Qaeda has been involved a number of times. We know they have been scammed a number of times,” he said.

Highest risk: A new report commissioned from Bunn by the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative said that the highest risks of nuclear theft today were from Pakistan and Russia. The report said Russia’s nuclear stockpiles, the largest in the world, could be vulnerable given the “endemic corruption in Russia.”

Pakistan’s heavily guarded stockpile “faces immense threats, both from insiders who may be corrupt or sympathetic to terrorists and from large attacks by outsiders”, it said.

Gallucci told the gathering of experts that he had a message for the dozens of world leaders in Washington to stop producing arms-grade plutonium and uranium, the raw materials for nuclear bombs.

“This material is going to be around for a very long time,” he said, adding that growing stockpiles of fissile material for arms increased the risk of it falling into the wrong hands.

Brennan said with more countries investing in nuclear power to meet rising energy demand, there would be a growing amount of potentially dangerous atomic material around the world.

The experts said terrorists could theoretically build a crude but deadly nuclear device – or possibly something more sophisticated if they have the money, technical personnel and required amount of fissile material.

Ban: Gallucci and other nuclear security experts said securing nuclear stockpiles was a good place to start, but insufficient. They said it was time to agree on a ban on producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The 65-nation UN-backed Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has long been considering such a ban. But Pakistan has blocked the start of negotiations, arguing that it would put it at a permanent disadvantage to India, with which it has fought three wars since independence in 1947.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier on Monday that he would urge the 47 participants at the summit to resume negotiations on such a ban without delay.

Harvard University professor Matthew Bunn said wealthy Western countries like the United States and European Union members needed to do more to improve security at their atomic sites. He said US research reactors that yield plutonium are exempt from US security rules.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at Quaid-i-Azam University, highlighted the risks in South Asia. He said Pakistan was very vulnerable.

Militants have carried out suicide attacks and successfully targeted installations belonging to the military and the security services in the country. reuters