Iraq and Afghanistan

Nuclear Terrorism: The Suitcase Bomb Again

Back in the old days when I concentrated on nuclear threats, there was considerable discussion of nontraditional means of delivery, such as cargo vessels coming into port with a bomb aboard or so-called "suitcase bombs". Now in the age of al-Qaida terrorists I suppose the greater fear might be of small planes with a nuclear weapon aboard, or even more likely a truck with such a device. (The suicide bomb threat was probably more likely when we thought of a highly technical society such as the USSR building the device. Something highly effective of this size is probably beyond the capabilities of Pathan weapons factories.)

I hark back to this time because Kristof's Op-Ed today is based on the conclusions of a recent meeting of the Aspen Strategy Group that came to the conclusion that the likelihood of a 10 kiloton nuclear weapon being smuggled into New York and detonated at Times Square was much greater than is usually believed. Apparently such a threat by al-Qaida was taken so seriously in October of 2001 that Cheney was sent out of town (in case they had the city wrong) and Bush dispatched nuclear experts to New York. This was all done without telling anyone in New York, including the mayor (which makes us ponder again the previous posting on this blog: what should have been done with this information?)

Graham Allison, a Harvard Professor whose new book "Nuclear Terrorism" includes this story, believes that the odds are that a nuclear terrorist attack will occur somewhere in the world in the next ten years. It is known that the Russians and their satellites have not had thorough control over the remains of their nuclear programs. The al-Qaida leaders have boasted of their purchases in this area. Allison and his colleagues in the Aspen Strategy Group believe that we should be making much more strenuous efforts than we are in combating nuclear proliferation. Certainly, our accomplishments in Libya were a step forward, and, whatever we may think of the priority of the effort, our achievements in Iraq certainly took that country off the list of worries for a while. But the essential problem is that as long as we allow the Israelis to maintain an unchallenged nuclear capability and as long as the United States and other leading states rely (at least in public pronouncements) on nuclear weapons as an essential "deterrent", eliminating the efforts of others to obtain and maintain nuclear weapons remains extremely difficult.