The US-Russian effort that whisked a cache of weapons-grade uranium out of Yugoslavia this week is part of a larger nuclear materials security programme given new urgency after the September 11 attacks.
Experts worry that terrorists or hostile nations may get their hands on enough uranium or plutonium to build a nuclear bomb from one of hundreds of research reactors around the world.
The United States is focusing on 24 reactors in 16 countries that, like the site in Yugoslavia, were built and fuelled with help from the former Soviet Union, State Department officials said on Friday.
”We want to get at all of them. Some of them are more pernicious than others,” said a top State Department official involved in the programme, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ”We have plans to address every single one of these facilities.”
The reactors are designed to use highly enriched uranium ?- which can also be used to make nuclear bombs — to create nuclear isotopes used for medical treatments and other peaceful purposes.
Now, given advances in technology and increased worries about terrorism, there’s no need for those reactors to use bomb-grade uranium, US officials say.
The research reactors are a big worry because they would offer a ready source of precisely the material needed to create a nuclear bomb — and security at some of them is frighteningly lax.
”In some cases security is provided by a single sleepy watchman and a chain link fence,” said a report released in May by Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom.
The US government is constantly tracking reports and rumours that terrorists and hostile nations are looking for enriched uranium and plutonium. Iraq, for example, had ties with former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, though there’s no evidence Milosevic ever gave any nuclear material to Iraq.
”We’re aware on a routine basis of certain countries that go shopping for this material,” the State Department official said, adding, ”We’re going to stop them any place we can.”
The United States is working with Uzbekistan to get rid of the highly enriched uranium stockpile at a research reactor in the former Soviet republic, which borders Afghanistan.
That reactor has been a worry because an Islamist group with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban has been blamed for terrorist attacks in Uzbekistan.
The Harvard report raises similar concerns about a research reactor in the former Soviet state of Belarus and a reactor in Ukraine, and the Energy Department has told Congress it hopes to help Romania get rid of bomb-grade uranium from a reactor there.
US officials declined to name other specific sites for fear of giving terrorists ”a grocery list” of places to seek nuclear materials.
It’s unclear how long it will take to secure all the weapons material at the two dozen sites, since that depends on diplomacy and funding.
The State Department’s nonproliferation programme fund
has only about $15-million, for example, and the operation in Yugoslavia cost the US government about $2,5-million.
Last year, the Bush administration had proposed cutting $100-million from the government’s $874-million nuclear nonproliferation budget, but Congress restored most of those cuts and added $226-million after the September 11 attacks.
This year’s budget proposal calls for spending nearly $1,2-billion, which includes $3,1-million to upgrade the safety and security of research reactors and other civilian nuclear sites.
Matthew Bunn, a Harvard researcher who co-authored the report on research reactors, said the United States should spend much more on the reactor problem.
”I believe that with only $50-million a year or so for a few years, we could eliminate one of the biggest threats from these vulnerable civilian facilities,” Bunn said.
”That would be an excellent, cost-effective investment in national security.”
The operation in Yugoslavia on Thursday involved more than 100 pounds of highly enriched uranium that had been stored at a mothballed research reactor outside Belgrade.
More than 1 200 Yugoslav forces provided security for a dramatic nighttime transfer of the uranium to a jet that flew it to a Russian reprocessing centre to be made into commercial nuclear reactor fuel.
Records showed that none of the Yugoslav uranium – enough to make 2,5 nuclear bombs — was missing, State Department officials said.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private group founded by media magnate Ted Turner and former Senator Sam Nunn, is providing $5-million to help the Yugoslav government deal with nuclear waste at the former reactor.
US officials praised Russia’s cooperation with the Yugoslav operation, which took more than a year to plan.
”There was a sense of urgency and determination to get this done on all sides,” said another top State Department official involved in the programme, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. – Sapa-AP