[Guest post by DRJ]

At his nuclear summit today, President Obama warned of the threats posed by terrorists who get their hands on nuclear weapons:

“The risk of nuclear attack has gone up,” Obama said Tuesday at a 47-nation nuclear security summit in Washington. “Terrorist networks such as al-Qaida have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon and, if they ever succeeded, they would surely use it.”

He added: “Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world, causing extraordinary loss of life and striking a major blow at global peace and stability.”

President Bush was also worried about terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons:

“On Sept. 11, 2001 19 hijackers armed only with box cutters launched the deadliest terrorist act in history. Although low-tech in its approach, the sophisticated, coordinated nature of the attack has sparked intelligence and security experts to reevaluate al-Qaida’s stated goal of developing a nuclear weapon for use in the United States.

Two months after the attacks, President Bush declared that America’s “highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.”

In addition to removing the threat that Iraq would arm terrorists, here are some of the things President Bush did to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons:

“President Bush in May 2003 launched a new plan, called the “Proliferation Security Initiative” (PSI), designed to promote international cooperation against the nuclear terror threat. Under the informal arrangement, 11 countries — Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United States — have agreed to stop and search vessels in their territories suspected of carrying banned weapons or technology in order to stop the transfer of such items.

Many credit the PSI for enabling Italian authorities in October 2003 to seize a German ship headed for Libya carrying 1,000 centrifuges produced in Malaysia. It was this shipment that, analysts say, ultimately convinced Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi to end his country’s WMD programs and allow international inspections.

The PSI is just part of the United States’ broader, multi-pronged approach, which includes diplomacy through the United Nations and the IAEA, detection, export controls of nuclear-related technologies and the ongoing work under the Nunn-Lugar CTR program.

On the diplomatic front, the Bush administration in April 2004 lobbied the United Nations to approve Resolution 1540, which requires all member nations to toughen their export control laws, criminalize the proliferation activities of individuals and to enhance the security of all nuclear materials.

Perhaps the most important actions against nuclear terrorism, experts say, is the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), unveiled by the U.S. Energy Department in May 2004. Over the next decade, the GTRI will work to secure and convert high-risk nuclear materials from some 40 nations into non-weapons grade material, according to Cirincione.

In announcing the plan, then-Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said that the GTRI would coordinate with the IAEA and allies “in order to ensure that such nuclear and radiological materials do not fall into the hands of terrorists or other rogue actors.”

The GTRI’s projects will be prioritized by the potential threats to the world’s most vulnerable facilities storing high-risk fissile materials.”

Kudos to President Obama for working to keep terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons. Hopefully his plans include more than holding summits.

— DRJ

UPDATE 4/14/2010 — The Washington Times looks at the threat of nuclear terrorism:

“The Obama administration is warning that the danger of a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons is increasing, but U.S. officials say the claim is not based on new intelligence and questioned whether the threat is being overstated.

President Obama said in a speech before the 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit, which concluded Tuesday, that “the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up.”
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But Henry Sokolski, a member of the congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, said that there is no specific intelligence on ongoing terrorist procurement of nuclear material.

“We were given briefings and when we tried to find specific intelligence on the threat of any known terrorist efforts to get a bomb, the answer was we did not have any.”

Mr. Obama told reporters that there was a range of views on the danger but that all the conferees “agreed on the urgency and seriousness of the threat.”