[Peace-discuss] While Bush wastes lives and money in Iraq, the real WMD threat grows

[patton paul]

Study: West Too Slow to Counter WMD Terror Threat
By Mark Trevelyan

LONDON (Reuters) - Western governments and Russia are moving far too
slowly to stop terrorists acquiring deadly ingredients to build weapons of
mass destruction, a major international report concluded Tuesday.

Of a total $20 billion pledged by the Group of Eight last year to secure
stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological materials, "only a tiny
fraction" has been spent or even allocated to specific projects, it said.

"The threat is outpacing the response," former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn told
Reuters in an interview in London. He heads the Nuclear Threat Initiative,
an anti-proliferation watchdog which largely funded the study by 21
security think tanks.

Nunn said war in Iraq had distracted the United States and diverted
resources away from the need to secure WMD materials in regions such as
the former Soviet Union.

"We've spent more now (on the war) than it would take to lock up all the
nuclear materials around the globe," he said.

According to the study, there are some 100 poorly protected research
reactors, spread across 40 countries, containing weapons-usable uranium.

"The global community remains alarmingly vulnerable to catastrophic
terrorism. Around the world, and particularly in the former Soviet Union,
materials and weapons of mass destruction are insecure, often protected
only by a padlock or an unpaid guard," it said.

"To construct a nuclear bomb, terrorists would need to steal only a small
amount of nuclear material, about enough to fit in a suitcase."

While praising a European diplomatic initiative to dissuade Iran from
pursuing a nuclear weapons program, Nunn said terror groups were less
likely to acquire WMD from a state than to source the materials from
ill-secured research sites.

"The most likely source of terrorist weapons probably does not come from a
state that has spent 10, 15, 20 years trying to get their own weapons --
they're not likely to turn around and give it to al Qaeda," he said.

"Theft or sale of nuclear material from these stockpiles is the more
likely source of supply."

Apart from money, the report said, "Russian bureaucratic foot-dragging"
and the reluctance of Russian security forces to grant access to some
sensitive sites were also hampering progress.

Nunn said the rate of success in securing such sites was too slow. "At the
pace we're going, you're talking about 20 years. I don't think we've got
that long."


11/18/03 17:58