Increase funds to secure "loose" nuclear weapons, nuclear materials, and nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union within one year, with the anticipation that such funding would range from $15 - $20 billion.

Why are "loose nukes" a priority problem?

Perhaps the biggest threat our United States of America faces today is that unsecure nuclear weapons and nuclear material, particularly in the ex-Soviet Union, could be stolen and used by terrorists.   Nuclear security has failed - and failed repeatedly.  In Germany alone, after the fall of the Soviet Union, over 700 cases of attempted nuclear sales were reported within in just three years, including 60 instances that involved seizure of nuclear materials.¹ 

Most military, terrorism, and national security experts agree.   Democrats and Republicans.  Conservatives and Liberals.  In their own words:

"The most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home" - former Democratic White House counsel, Lloyd Cutler, and former Republican Senate majority leader, Howard Baker, Jan.  2001.

As early as 1991, the U.S.  Secretary of Defense noted on Meet the Press: "If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons - let's assume they've got 25,000 to 30,000; that's a ballpark figure - and they are 99 percent successful, that would mean you still have as many as 250 that they were not able to control."²

"Today there are more than two hundred addresses around the world from which terrorists could acquire a nuclear weapon or the fissile material from which one could be made.  ...Russia is the most likely source [because] Russia's eleven-time zone expanse contains more nuclear weapons and materials than any other country in the world, much of it vulnerable to theft." - former Assistant Secretary of Defense for President Clinton, Graham Allison."³

Only 55 pounds of heavily enriched uranium is needed to make a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb, the same size bomb used against Hiroshima.  If plutonium is available, even less is required - just 18 pounds.

There are over 1 million pounds of highly enriched uranium merely in storage in the ex-Soviet Union alone.⁴ Due to the break-up of the Soviet Union and the poor state of the Russian economy, over half of this material is poorly secured..  For example:

Where do we stand today?

Right now, more than 600,000 pounds of nuclear material in Russia - enough to make over ten thousand nuclear bombs - is simply not guarded well, and has had neither rapid nor comprehensive security upgrades.  The problem: it is being secured much too slowly.   "If even a tenth of one percent of this material were to be stolen, the world could face an unparalleled catastrophe."⁸ 

In spite of the danger to the world, by 2006 only just over half (54%) had been secured since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.  ⁸ 

A mere 21% of Russia's excess highly enriched uranium (HEU) has been destroyed.  It is not used - or even planned to be used - for any reason.  Almost 2 million pounds of HEU.  It is literally sitting around waiting to be stolen.  ¹⁰ 

And it is easy for terrorists to smuggle nuclear weapons and material they steal out of Russia and into the U.S.  Less than half of key border posts in Russia have even been trained and equipped to detect nuclear smuggling.  ¹¹ 

An excellent summary of recent advances (as well as lack of progress) in securing nuclear matieral is provided by the accompanying TABLE, excerpted from "Securing the Bomb 2006" written by Matthew Bunn and Anthony Weir of Harvard University, commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (Figure ES-1, Pg.  vii).    Click here to view the table.

The Solution: What we must do - immediately

"Every nuclear weapon and every kilogram of nuclear material anywhere in the world must be secured and accounted for, to stringent standards." ¹² 

More money is needed. 

The amount of money budgeted for controlling nuclear weapons, material, and expertise has barely increased since 9/11 -- less than 20% more in real dollars.  "Total nuclear threat reduction spending remains less than ¼ of 1% of the U.S.  military budget" ¹³ 

For example, in Vilca, Yugoslavia, a research nuclear facility in the suburbs of Belgrade had enough HEU to build 3 nuclear bombs.  It sat for over three years after the Balkan war's end, potentially allowing alleged war criminal Slobodan Milosevic to sell it to terrorists.  U.S.  officials could not get the approval from the U.S.  government to spend the $5 million needed by the Yugoslav government for closure and cleanup in order to withdraw and secure the material.  A private U.S.  foundation had to agree to cover the costs!

Money is most needed to (1) improve security of Russia's nuclear materials and weapons, (2) destroy excess heavily enriched uranium and plutonium, (3) make sure every kilogram of nuclear material is tracked, and (4) recovery of lost nuclear material.

Since 1992, on average less than ½ billion dollars was spent per year on reducing the threat from insecure nuclear weapons and material.  ¹⁴  Even after 9/11, there has only been a slight increase in spending, and in some cases even a reduction.  For comparison, the amount of money for combined homeland security is more than 40 times larger.  And nuclear threat reduction is 574 times SMALLER than the defense budget.  

The best use of our tax dollars.    The biggest terrorist threat the U.S.  faces today is nuclear terrorism - and loose nukes are the most likely source for a terrorist bomb.  We can prevent this.  Preventing nuclear terrorism requires commitment and political will, and also money - about $20 billion dollars total to secure the "loose nukes" in Russia.¹⁵ To put this amount in perspective, however,  this is less than 3% of just a single year of the defense budget.  

Political will is also needed.

Money alone, however, will not make us safer.  We also need the political will to recognize the urgency of the "loose nukes" problem and to safeguard these "loose nukes" immediately.  "For most of these programs, increased budgets would do little to accelerate the effort unless sustained high-level leadership succeeded in overcoming the non-monetary obstacles to progress" ¹⁶  For example, "A dispute over liability provisions was allowed to drag on for over a year, delaying the destruction of thousands of bombs' worth of excess weapons plutonium, and putting a halt to new projects to retool Russia's nuclear cities..." ¹⁷ 

This is one of the reasons this petition also calls for the President to create a new position, reporting directly to the President, with ultimate authority and responsibility for safeguarding our nation from the danger of nuclear terrorism.  A person whose responsibility includes making sure any problems that come up as we secure the "loose nukes" are quickly addressed and can cut through red tape and bureaucracy.

There is a massive amount of surplus plutonium in the ex-Soviet Union.  Much of this plutonium is poorly guarded and is vulnerable to being stolen by terrorists.   Less than 18 pounds of stolen plutonium is needed by terrorists to make a nuclear bomb.  Russia has approximately 170 tons (340,000 pounds) of surplus plutonium above and beyond what it needs to maintain its 10,000 nuclear warheads.   If just one-third of one-tenth of one-hundreth (0.0003) of the plutonium is stolen, it can be used to make a bomb that will kill over 1,000,000 people and cripple the United States.

The good news is that the seriousness of this risk has been widely recognized by both the U.S.  and Russia.  In fact, we already have a treaty to begin implementing this, the 2000 Plutonium Disposition and Management Agreement signed five years ago.  However, it is desgined to dispose of only 34 tons of plutonium - just a small fraction of the amount of excess plutonium.  The scope of the agreement needs to be dramatically expanded to cover no just the original 34 tons of plutonium, but an additional 100 tons.

More good news: there is a proven method for permanently disposing of plutonium.  It is a two-step process called "immobilization." First, the surplus plutonium is mixed with other nuclear waste products, diluting it and making it difficult to extract to make a bomb.  Second, this mixture is permanently sealed in thick glass and buried deep underground.  Sealing it in glass prevents any harm to the environment and makes it even harder to extract the plutonium; burying it underground.  Alternatively, once sealed it can be stored in an ultra-secure facility deep underground until technology is developed that can quickly and affordably alter, convert, or completely burn-up the plutonium so that it is no longer dangerous or is proliferation-resistant.

Disposing of the plutonium is not cheap.  It will cost about $10 billion dollars to dispose of all of Russia's surplus plutonium in this manner.  ¹⁸ 

Compared to the risk, though, it is clearly worth the investment.   Immobilizing and burying the surplus plutonium directly and significantly reduces the threat of nuclear terrorism.

That's the good news.
But there are a couple of significant problems.

The biggest problem: The current plan is that some or most of Russia's surplus plutonium may NOT be destroyed at all.  Instead, it may be saved to sell on a commercial market for use as a future advanced fuel for nuclear reactors.  This is an extremely dangerous move. Why?

• First, instead of destroying the plutonium it actually presents a motive for not destroying the plutonium at all.

• Second, it helps develop a market in plutonium that will actually encourage the wholesale production of plutonium as a commercial product.  Instead of reducing the amount of surplus plutonium, the amount of plutonium would rise to unheard of levels.   (This is a serious problem in itself and is addressed by the Petition in Section 5.)

• Finally, it would ultimately be stored in commercial, not military strongholds, and thus even more vulnerable to terrorists.

The other significant problem is that excessive bureaucracy has brought the destruction of surplus plutonium to a standstill.  More than five years after the agreement was signed between the United States and Russian, no plutonium has yet been disposed of! This type of hurdle can take bureaucratic agencies years to work out, and we do not have that time.  What is needed is clear and committed leadership by the Presidents of Russia and the U.S.  to push through the issues and obstacles.  Without their direct support, surplus plutonium will remain vulnerable to terrorist theft regardless of how much money is allocated to destroy it.

The current situation and dangers

There are currently international standards in place regarding security of nuclear materials: the July 2005 Amendment to the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials, and UN Security Council Resolution 1540.  Unfortunately, while these standards have been acknowledged, they have not been widely implemented.  Indeed, "the amended Physical Protection Convention and the Resolution do not have specific standards for nuclear materials security.  The Convention has a series of principles, which each country can interpret as it chooses.  The Resolution does require an 'appropriate effective' nuclear security and accounting system, but there is no agreement on what that means, and until there is, it will mean nothing." ²⁰

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) establishes standards for U.S.  nuclear materials security on the basis of a Design Basis Threat (DBT) requirement.  In 2003, the NRC updated the DBT for "formula quantities of strategic special nuclear material" (meaning fissile material usable in a nuclear weapon) as follows: ²¹ 

A physical protection system which will have capabilities for the protection of special nuclear material at fixed sites and in transit and of plants in which special nuclear material is used [against] a determined, violent, external assault, attack by stealth, or deceptive actions by a small group with the following attributes, assistance, and equipment:

1. Well-trained (including military training and skills) and dedicated individuals;

2. Inside assistance that may include a knowledgeable individual who attempts to participate in a passive role (e.g., provide information), an active role (e.g., facilitate entrance and exit, disable alarms and communications, participate in violent attack), or both;

3. Suitable weapons, up to and including hand-held automatic weapons, equipped with silencers and having effective long-range accuracy;

4. Hand-carried equipment, including incapacitating agents and explosives for use as tools of entry or for otherwise destroying reactor, facility, transporter, or container integrity or features of the safe-guards system;

5. Land vehicles used for transporting personnel and their hand-carried equipment; and

6. The ability to operate as two or more teams.

The United States Department of Energy (DOE), which is responsible for nuclear weapons facilities (as opposed to regulation of civilian power generation by the NRC) has its own DBT, also updated in 2003, which is classified but believed to be more demanding than the NRC's.  A publicly available report by the Inspector General of the DOE on implementation of the DBT by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA, a subdepartment of the DOE responsible for nuclear security) found the following: ²² 

• NNSA will not meet its original FY 2005 target of completing 25 percent of its planned upgrades to meet the 2003 DBT threat and has established a new target of 12.5 percent;

• As of June 2005, the Department had not fully evaluated the effectiveness of either the interim measures it had implemented or planned measures to meet the DBT requirements; and,

• Since May 2003, the Department had not completed comprehensive inspections of the security posture at all of the NNSA sites that have special nuclear material.

So even the United States does not appear to be fully compliant with its own DBT requirements.  In fact, on January 4, 2008, the Washington Post put on its front page an article titled, "Video of Sleeping Guards Shakes Nuclear Industry." ²³ The article details how, after initially reporting that fellow security guards were taking naps in what was called the "ready room," the matter was dropped by both the security company of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission until the same man went back and videotaped the sleeping guards and shown on television by WCBS.  It is thus disturbing that the United States is generally considered to have one of the most rigorous nuclear security systems worldwide.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative notes that while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published recommendations for the physical protection of nuclear material, "these IAEA recommendations are not very specific, and they are more rule-based than performance-based - that is, they focus on rules as to where there should be fences, locked vaults, and the like, not on how hard those fences and vaults should be to penetrate, or how well the overall system should perform (that is, what threats it ought to be able to defeat).  In particular, it is possible to comply with these recommendations without having any armed guards at all at nuclear facilities - even facilities with tons of separated plutonium or highly enriched uranium (HEU)." ²⁴

What needs to be done

Protection of nuclear weapons stockpiles is clearly considered a matter of national security by nuclear weapons states and legitimate questions of sovereignty arise when other bodies attempt to dictate a state's national security strategy.  States also have legitimate concerns regarding release of classified information.

But as Mohamed El'Baradei, head of the IAEA stated in an interview on April 9, 2005: "They [Al-Qaeda] were actively looking into acquiring a nuclear weapon...  I would be surprised if [Al-Qaeda] did not try to acquire nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.  That would be the most horrible scenario because these extremist groups -- if they have the weapon, they will use it...  We can't afford one single lapse in the system of security of nuclear material or nuclear weapons." ²⁵ 

In this context, it is unacceptable for any nuclear weapons state to refuse to meet minimum requirements for securing its nuclear materials.  Once nuclear materials are in the hands of terrorists, they are easily moved and easily deployed, and the threat is no longer confined to the nation from which the materials were stolen, but instead becomes world-wide.

Both the Convention on Physical Protection of Nuclear Materials and the IAEA standards must be made more specific and amended to include the DBT standards defined above, which are modeled on the NRC standards.  The U.S.  should provide funding to meet these standards, as well as accelerating compliance with its own standards.

Compliance must be verifiable.  Inspection by other nuclear states will likely be unacceptable to certain nations such as the People's Republic of China.  Inspection capabilities should be concentrated within the IAEA, which is the accepted international body charged with nuclear inspections.  A team within the IAEA should be specifically trained in physical security vulnerabilities by Special Forces personnel.  In order to minimize the perceived threat to sensitive information, this team could be drawn from neutral, non-nuclear weapons states and trained by personnel from states with acknowledged Special Forces capabilities but (i) without nuclear weapons (such as Germany) or (ii) neutral, entirely non-nuclear states (such as Chile).

Finally, the U.S.  must make clear at the very highest levels that failure to comply with these standards will be viewed as a grave threat to U.S.  national security.