NUCLEAR TERRORISM

PREVENTING NUCLEAR TERRORISM

On October 11 2001 exactly a month after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre USA, and president GW Bush was informed by the CIA director about the presence of alQaeda-linked terrorists in New York city with a 10 kiloton nuclear bomb. Overwhelmed by paralyzing fear that terrorists could have smuggled another nuclear weapon into Washington DC as well president GW Bush ordered Vice President along with several hundred federal employees from almost a dozen government agencies to leave for some undisclosed location outside the capital where they could ensure the continuity of government in case of a nuclear explosion in Washington DC. Although after subsequent investigations, the CIA report turned out to be false this incident showed that even a false alarm signaling a nuclear attack could lead to a much higher probability of disaster. A nuclear attack in downtown Washington DC has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people immediately and wipe the White House the State Department and many other buildings off the face of the earth making the 9/11 attacks a historical footnote.

It is evident that the spectre of a terrorist-controlled nuclear weapon is a real theat and is global in scope. Given the potentially disastrous consequences, even a small possibility of terrorists obtaining and detonating a nuclear device justifies urgent action. The most urgent security threat to the world today is the possibility of the stealing of weapons or fissile materials by terrorists. After the collapse of the Soviet Union hundreds of confirmed cases of successful theft of nuclear materials were reported in Russia. There are also widespread apprehensions express by the international community that militants could steal Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or fissile material. Unfortunately some incidents of jihadi penetration of Pakistan’s armed forces have further fuelled this perception.

In 2001, the US discovered that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri were in contact with two retired Pakistani nuclear scientists for assistance in making a small nuclear device. Later in 2003 some junior Pakistani army and air force officers colluded with al Qaeda terrorists to attempt to assassinate and enforce sharia in Pakistan. Now with standing that the dangers about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons might be highly exaggerated; some genuine concerns arising due to links between terrorists and government authorities must be immediately addressed.

Unlike the Cold War period when both the USA and the Soviet Union knew that a nuclear attack from either side would be met with a massive retaliatory strike, conventional deterrence does not work against the terrorist groups. It was claimed that most alarmingly the likelihood that nonstarter terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today’s war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass destruction unless urgent new actions are taken the US soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting and economically even more costly than was the Cold War.

Any effort by the international community to combat nuclear terrorism should be based on achieving three fundamental objectives: securing all vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear weapons and materials from such risks of falling into terrorist hands, preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries and replacing all HEU in civilian research reactors worldwide with Low Enriched Uranium which cannot be used in making bombs. Countries where the dangers of terrorists stealing nuclear weapons are very high cannot afford to remain in a state of denial for too long. On the international front immediate steps are needed to be taken to institute a standardized noncompliance mechanism of enforce the Non Proliferation Treaty International Atomic Energy Agency framework.

Last but not least, enhancing nuclear attribution capabilities can make states with nuclear weapons more accountable. Every nuclear device has certain chemical, physical and isotopic properties that can help determinate the weapon’s age and clues about its origins, these properties also give some information about the type of nuclear reactors from which the plutonium came or suggest the nature of the enrichment process used to make the uranium. In this way, the process of nuclear attribution will enable the international community to hold countries more accountable for the security of their nuclear materials.