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.
