Nuclear Terrorism Risk From Loose Russian Nuclear Materials "Acute," Claims Author

Almost half of Russia's sensitive nuclear weapons materials are stored at facilities with minimal or poor security. In some cases, highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the essential raw materials for building an atomic bomb, are watched over by unarmed security guards, at facilities that in some cases lack locked doors. According to many experts, poorly secured Russian nuclear materials, vulnerable to theft, are the most likely source of H.E.U. and plutonium. eargerly souch by terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda.

"For fifteen years, the United States has had a program of aiding the Russian government in securing those nuclear materials sites," said Sheldon Filger, author of "King of Bombs," a novel about nuclear terrorism. "Unfortunately, the Bush administration has been so severely distracted by the war in Iraq and other matters, it has given only minimal attention to this dire threat to national security. With only a little over half of those nuclear sites secured, at the present rate it may be thirteen years or more before the remaining sites are sufficiently upgraded. To wait that long and hope Al-Qaeda will not take advantage of the tempting vulnerability of those vast stores of fissile materials is to gamble recklessly with the lives of millions of American," warned Mr. Filger.

It is estimated that enough highly enriched uranium and plutonium is stored at poorly secured facilities in Russia to construct 60,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs. "A single atomic bomb, easily within the technical capabilities of Al-Qaeda to construct if they were to aquire fissile materials, requires as little as 35 pounds of highly enriched uranium, or 9 pounds of plutonium, Filger said. "One Hiroshima-type nuclear bomb detonated in mid-town Manhattan, New York City, could kill up to a million Americans. To place such as acute danger on the political back-burner is truly gambling with history."

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