1. Nukes: Spreading fast

2. Atomic bomb primer

3. Lazy man's atomic bomb?

4. Nuclear hound dog

Atoms for Peace? Half the nuclear electricity generated in the United States now comes from fuel containing uranium atoms that once were inside Soviet nuclear bombs. Blending bomb fuel with natural uranium deprives potential proliferators of bomb fuel.
Photo: U.S. Department of Energy .

The benefits of disarmament: These trashed-out nuclear missiles, from the USSR and USA, remind visitors to United Nations headquarters in New York that destroying nuclear weapon systems can make the world a safer place. Photo: Malaysian Institute for Nuclear Technology Research.

The U.S. and U.S.S.R. sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty on July 1, 1968. Some say now is the time to extend it. AP Photo

Making fission fuel is tough, but using it is much easier, says Bunn. "It's beyond the capability of many states to make highly enriched uranium or plutonium, so in principle if you could guard and monitor all the existing stockpiles of nuclear weapons and the material to make them, you could prevent terrorists from getting nuclear weapons. If they can't get the material, they can't get the bomb."

The bad part is the huge quantity of nuclear material now in existence, Bunn says. "There is enough highly enriched uranium and plutonium, all manufactured by humans since World War II, to make one-quarter million nuclear weapons. We have huge stocks of these materials."

One focus of concern is the states of the former Soviet Union, especially Russia, which now has about 18,000 to 20,000 assembled nuclear weapons. Many await disassembly.

Nuclear horror stories
After the Soviet Union melted down, the horror stories about nuclear depots with unpaid guards and simple door locks prompted U.S. programs to improve security and concentrate stockpiles. Another goal was to return to Russia fission fuel that the Soviet Union had sent to its allies, and nuclear weapons that it abandoned in no-longer-Soviet nations like Kazakhstan.

Photos (above and below): Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The situation has improved since the late 1990s, says Bunn. For example, an estimated 13,000 to 15,000 former Soviet nuclear bombs have been dismantled, and their fuel blended with natural uranium. Such "downblending" turns bomb cores into fuel rods for electric generating plants. To turn it back into weapon fuel, the U-235 would need to be separated all over again.

On the darker side, while the American programs are being delayed by contract disputes, Russian uranium is getting ripped off, Bunn says: "The fear that highly enriched uranium or plutonium might be stolen is not a hypothetical concern, it's an ongoing reality." The IAEA, he adds, has documented 18 thefts, largely from storage bunkers in the former Soviet Union. In 1998, an insider conspiracy tried to nab 18.5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, Bunn says. "It would have been the first case of stealing enough highly enriched uranium for an implosion-type bomb at a single theft." (The simpler gun-type bomb requires more fuel.)

One failure. How many successes?
Although that theft failed, others have succeeded, Bunn says. And now that terrorists have repeatedly mounted sophisticated assaults, what is the potential for large-scale heists at lightly guarded, remote sites? "In Moscow in 2002," says Bunn, "41 heavily armed terrorists struck in a suicidal attack, without warning, and seized a theater... Imagine a completely remote storage depot in the middle of the woods. How many terrorists would be able to show up without warning?"

Such a squad could endanger most civilian nuclear facilities, and some military facilities, anywhere in the world, Bunn adds. "Forty-one well-trained, suicidal guys would be a threat that would be hard to ward off."

What to do?
The obvious answer to these concerns, say experts who are paid to dream nuclear nightmares, is to lock up nuclear weapons, and potential fuel for same, whether they are housed at research reactors, military warehouses, or along some forgotten railroad siding in Siberia. The Khan-style transfer of nuclear technology and weapons designs "is a dangerous commodity," says William Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, "but the most dangerous one is the fissile material itself. I worry more than anything, given the thousands of tons of fissile material that exists, at probably five dozen countries, at 350-plus sites, that some small fraction of that material, which is weapons usable, could find itself in the hands of a terror organization.

"There is no technical reason why one needs to have all this highly enriched uranium out there," adds Potter, "and the terrorist threat can be removed, conceptually quite simply, by securing, consolidating and eliminating the material."

Nuclear politics
As efforts to control today's stockpiles of existing nuclear-weapons material inch forward, it might make sense to halt production of more fuel for more bombs. But the politics at this intersection of politics, the economy and the military are gnarly. Around 1995, after the Cold War, says Clifford Singer, director of the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security at the University of Illinois, "there was an opportunity" for progress on several related arms-control agreements. The outlines of a deal included an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a comprehensive nuclear test ban, and then a treaty to cut off production of nuclear-bomb fuel.

The nuclear-fuel cutoff treaty would have banned the use of reactors to make bomb fuel, but the delicate negotiations went asunder around 1997, Singer says, after the U.S. Congress passed a bill dictating that missile defenses be built as "soon as technically feasible."

He says that stuck in the craw of nuclear-armed rivals. "The Chinese, with the Russians behind them, said, 'Why are we going to cut off fissile material production, and limit our offensive capability if you have an unlimited commitment to missile defenses?'"

Today, the political stalemate continues, even though the need may be greater than ever. North Korea apparently has nuclear weapons, Iran seems on the brink of getting them, and Al Qaeda seems determined to get hold of a suitcase-sized weapon.

And with each terror triumph, the need gets more pressing, say Bunn and other nuke-chasers: "We need a global cooperative partnership to secure every nuclear weapon, every pound of highly enriched uranium or plutonium, wherever it may be, as quickly as we possibly can. We are racing against the terrorists. We have got to get it secured before they steal it."

Overall, the last decade has changed the effort to control the spread of nuclear bombs. "The game of proliferation is no longer the same game we assumed it was for long time," says Potter. "The focus is on state actors, but the rules have changed.... We are beginning to appreciate the need to focus on non-state actors, but we have to look at the entire chain, from suppliers, traders, brokers and transshippers to end-users.

Nuclear = Secret. How do we know about nuclear nightmares?

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