Earlier this week the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, an extension of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, reported on efforts to protect America from terrorists that seek nuclear weapons and materials. Their verdict was not a happy one. Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton cited “insufficient progress” in the race against time to prevent the world’s most dangerous people from getting the world’s most dangerous weapons. In short, they wrote, “the size of the problem still dwarfs the policy response.”
Kean and Hamilton reported that less than half of Russia’s nuclear material has received security upgrades. In real terms, this means that more than 300 tons of loose nuclear material remains unguarded in Russia and the former Soviet states. That is enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium for tens of thousands of crude nuclear bombs. In the past year, moreover, security improvements were completed twice as slowly as expected. The Department of Energy’s nuclear security administration now estimates that this work will not be complete until 2020. Securing nuclear material in the former Soviet Union is an essential front in the war on terror. We must progress at a faster rate. (Read More)