Securing the Bomb

Report On Nuclear Security Urges Prompt Global Action, (Washington Post)…David E. Hoffman, Nov 18, 2008.

When armed men attacked South Africa’s most closely guarded nuclear facility a year ago, they penetrated the detection systems at the perimeter, cut through an electrified fence and broke into the emergency control center, shooting one worker there in the chest before escaping.

The Pelindaba facility holds hundreds of pounds of weapons-grade, highly enriched uranium. Although the attackers last November did not steal any of it, the assault highlights what a new report describes as the increasingly global challenge of keeping nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

…The report, “Securing the Bomb 2008,” the seventh annual study from Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is to be released today. The study was commissioned by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonproliferation organization co-chaired by former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

In an agenda for the incoming administration, the report urges “a global campaign to lock down every nuclear weapon and every significant stock of potential nuclear bomb material worldwide as rapidly as that can possibly be done.” The report also calls for the appointment of a senior White House official with daily responsibility for preventing a nuclear terrorist attack.