Statement of Rose Gottemoeller Senior Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Committee on Governmental Affairs This is a critical time to review weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technologies and materials and examine the effectiveness of export controls to curb these threats. Suddenly, the press is full of terrible scenarios: Nuclear weapons in the hands of Osama bin Laden. A suitcase bomb detonating in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge. A radiological bomb spewing plutonium over the White House, creating a keep-out zone in central Washington that could last for many years. After reading about threats such as these, many people are worried. I commend the Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services for confronting these complex and difficult issues in the search for new answers. I would like to begin my remarks by examining the nuclear and radiological threats, how they differ, and what the level of concern should be about them. In describing these threats, I will also summarize the kind of technological challenge that they present to any would-be proliferator, whether state-sponsored, or non-state actors with a terrorist agenda. I will then move on to discuss the nuclear and radiological threats that, in my view, deserve more attention than they currently receive. I will conclude by commenting on how export controls have related to the nuclear nonproliferation regime and peaceful uses of nuclear technologies in the past, and offer my view of how they should relate in the future. Nuclear and Radiological Weapons: The Threats and The Technologies A simple nuclear device of the Hiroshima design is actually not the easiest nuclear capability for a proliferator to acquire, be he a terrorist or a rogue state actor. Although the design is now almost fifty years old, the Hiroshima device, also called a "gun-type" weapon, requires a large amount of nuclear material to achieve a nuclear explosion. We assume that 15-30 kg of highly enriched uranium or 3-4 kg of plutonium are needed for a sophisticated nuclear weapon.' Cruder devices may require more. One estimate, for example, places the likely size of a Pakistani weapon at around 1,500 pounds.2 Therefore, although achieving a workable trigger device and other components would not be a trivial matter, the principal barrier to acquiring a nuclear weapon is the large amount of weapons-usable material that is needed. For this reason, international nonproliferation policy has stressed keeping nuclear material production and enrichment technologies out of proliferators' hands. The crisis David Albright, Frans Berkhout and William Walker, “Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies," SIPRI (Oxford Press, 1997), p. 8. 2 William J. Broad, Stephen Engelberg and James Glanz, “Assessing Risks, Chemical, Biological, Even Nuclear," New York Times, November 1, 2001. begun in 1994, when North Korea threatened to pull out of the Nonproliferation Treaty, was over its production of plutonium at the Yongbyon reactor. The more recent disagreement with Russia over its potential sale of laser isotope enrichment technology to Iran is another example. In all cases, the acquisition of sufficient nuclear material to achieve a nuclear detonation is the goal of would-be proliferators; it is the goal of U.S. nonproliferation policy to prevent that acquisition. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the possibility that large amounts of weapons-usable material could be stolen from former Soviet nuclear facilities has become a major concern for the nonproliferation policy community worldwide. What would have had to be achieved through years of arduous and expensive production, enrichment and separation work--a sufficient amount nuclear material to build a bombcould be acquired in an instant through thievery. Therefore, in the past decade, an enormous amount of attention and significant U.S. dollars ($173 million in FY 01 alone) have been spent on cooperating with Russia and the other states in the region to enhance the physical protection of weapons-usable materials in facilities that housed the Soviet weapons complex. These sites stretch in an archipelago across the former Soviet territory—a vestige of Stalin's mania to spread industrialization to every corner of the Soviet land. In the case of nuclear production, facilities were especially located in remote areas, away from prying eyes and imprudent questions. In addition, operational weapons such as those deployed with the Russian Navy are often located at remote bases in areas such as the Arctic and Far East. The United States is currently working with the Ministry of Atomic Energy and Russian Navy to improve security of nuclear material and weapons at 95 sites in Russia and the former Soviet Union.3 This program complements and strengthens efforts to control exports of nuclear technology. Barriers to the acquisition of weaponsusable nuclear material, in short, take several forms. 3 In contrast to bombs that would produce a nuclear detonation, radiological weapons are a simpler capability for a proliferator to acquire, if only because the threat in the case of a radiological device exists in a wide spectrum. The spectrum could range from low-level nuclear waste planted as a package in an urban location, through highly toxic nuclear material exploded as a "dirty bomb", using conventional explosives to spread it over a wide area. At the extreme end of the spectrum would be an aircraft attack on a nuclear facility that would turn the facility itself into a radiological weapon. As Mohamed El Baradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has said, "We are not just dealing with the possibility of governments diverting nuclear materials into clandestine weapons programs. Now we have been alerted to the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources to incite panic, contaminate property and even cause injury or death among civilian populations.' 24 3 A useful summary of this program, with an excellent map of the sites, is contained in "MPC&A Program Strategic Plan," National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, July 2001. 4 Quoted in Mark Henderson, "Terrorists 'Could Make Atom Bomb By Raiding Hospitals,"" London Times, November 1, 2001. |