Nuclear terrorism is a threat to everyone
A new organization started operations in Vienna this week with a mission of blocking theft of nuclear materials to use them for terrorist attacks. The New York Times reports that the immense task of the new nongovernmental agency will be to increase security to "eliminate weak links in the global security chain." The NYT said the chief sponsor of the agency is the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) based in Washington, DC.
Former US Senator Sam Nunn is one of the leaders of NTI. He told the NYT,
“The stakes are very high. There’s no doubt that terrorist groups are trying to get this material.” Nunn said the attraction is that an atomic weapon the size of a grapefruit could level an entire city the size of New York.
The new organization is called the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) (press release). It is starting out with a budget of $6-8 million and will initially hire a staff of about a dozen nuclear materials and security specialists. The agency is being set up in Vienna to be close to the IAEA. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director of IAEA, strongly endorsed the new agency. The first director is Roger Howsley, who previous held an executive post for security at British Nuclear Fuels.
Initial work by WINS will be to help bolster security at sites that handle nuclear materials that can be made into a bomb. As funding and expertise expands, the agency plans to work on control of radioactive materials that could be used in a 'dirty bomb."
According to the IAEA in 2007 there were 200 reports of radioactive materials that were unaccounted for. The high profile event last year was the break-in at the Pelindaba site in South Africa. While no nuclear materials are said to have been taken in that incident. the South African government told the IAEA the two teams of intruders had prior knowledge of security systems. Indeed, the alleged mission of one of the teams was to disable the security systems while the other was to acquire HEU stored at the plant.
Howsley said in a prepared statement that his organization can't carry out it mission alone. Last May he told World Nuclear News, "security professionals around the world have a strong common interest not to wait until a security event" before they begin to cooperate." In this week's announcement he reaffirmed that focus.
“We believe that a key element of global nuclear security must be the facility operators who have ‘first-line’ responsibility for the security of their materials. WINS will fill dangerous gaps in existing government and international regulatory efforts.”
Funding for WINS comes from the Peter G. Peterson foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Government of Norway.
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