Plutonium For Sale

-Rob Edwards: December 19, 2001

With nuclear smuggling on the increase, how long before a terrorist builds a bomb?

THE nuclear arms race has left the world with a terrifying legacy: 3 million kilograms of bomb-grade plutonium and uranium. A terrorist would need no more than a few kilograms to make a devastating bomb, so you'd think this material would be kept under guard in secure military installations. You'd think so, but you'd be wrong.

Radioactive materials are going missing, border controls are almost non-existent, monitoring equipment doesn't work and smuggling is rife. This was the frightening picture painted at a conference of nuclear experts in Stockholm earlier this month organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Interpol and the World Customs Organization. It seems only a matter of time before a terrorist group acquires the ultimate bargaining chip.

Terrorists don't even have to get hold of enough to make a nuclear bomb, says Friedrich Steinhäusler, a physicist from the University of Salzburg in Austria and a former member of the International Commission on Radiological Protection. They could steal radioactive isotopes from unprotected research and medical facilities with "relative ease" and combine them with conventional explosives to contaminate large areas, or simply spread them through the ventilation system of an airport, office complex or shopping mall. "Such a potential future scenario emphasizes the low-tech terror of 'mass disruption' rather than 'mass destruction'," Steinhäusler says.

Today's leading terrorist groups, however, may have the means and the determination to achieve mass destruction. These groups include Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, which bombed US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998, and Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult, which in 1995 released sarin gas on the Tokyo subway. There is evidence that both have been trying to acquire a nuclear capability, and according to the US State Department there are as many as 130 terrorists groups worldwide that pose a potential nuclear threat. If any of these groups is intent on building a nuclear weapon, the end of the cold war has provided them with ample opportunity. According to Steinhäusler, up to a hundred countries may hold radioactive materials that they can't safeguard properly. In many of these countries, often former Soviet republics, the soldiers guarding the materials are hungry and haven't been paid for months. And there are long stretches of open country across their borders where, as Steinhäusler puts it, "no one checks what you have in your rucksack".

Steinhäusler, working with colleagues at Stanford University in California, has just completed a study of nuclear security in 11 typical countries: the US, China, Germany, Austria, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, Israel, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Bangladesh. It reveals gaping holes in their ability to detect nuclear smuggling, worrying flaws in their audits of radioactive materials and serious shortages of trained staff, equipment and resources. None of the 11 countries has any radiation monitoring equipment covering its unfenced borders, where there are few roads, railways or settlements. One of the countries had no radiation monitoring equipment at any of its borders.

Although the study does not point the finger at any particular country, it discloses that around a quarter of them do not keep registers of radioactive sources that may have been lost from laboratories or hospitals. Half of the countries knew of unlicensed radioactive material, and in nearly a third nuclear material has been stolen from licensed sites in the past 10 years. Steinhäusler's unnerving analysis was backed up by other studies presented at the Stockholm conference. These include new figures from the IAEA showing that the number of attempts to smuggle radioactive materials has doubled over the past five years (New Scientist, 12 May, p 6).

Some 10 per cent of the 370 incidents of illicit trafficking confirmed since 1993 have involved plutonium or enriched uranium, six of them since April 1999. "In most cases the quantity of highly enriched uranium and plutonium encountered is small compared with the amounts required for a nuclear explosive," IAEA analysts say, although these may simply have been samples of larger quantities up for sale. And the material that is intercepted may be just a fraction of what is actually being smuggled. Ian Ray, a forensic nuclear scientist from the Institute for Transuranium Elements in Karlsruhe, Germany, estimates that only 5 to 10 per cent of the illegal traffic in radioactive materials is detected.

So why are so few smugglers being caught? One reason is that most radiation monitors at border crossings don't work, according to a survey for the IAEA by the Austrian Research Centre at Seibersdorf. Out of 14 installed systems, 12 failed to meet the IAEA's minimum standards for detecting radiation from weapons-grade plutonium, and 11 out of 24 portable monitors either failed tests or could not be tested.

Another study, by the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate, found "imperfections in many national systems for combating illicit trafficking", including inadequate laws, poor regulations, unclear lines of responsibility and a "shortage of suitable and modern equipment for monitoring and detection".

The US Department of Defense tried to improve this situation with a four-year program to train and equip police and customs officials in 17 Eastern European countries. But it is far from satisfied with the results. "Some recipient countries have failed to demonstrate an earnest commitment to program goals," says the DOD's Harlan Strauss.

Russia is the epicenter of the nuclear smuggling problem, and the US has committed $2.2 billion to a program aimed at ensuring that nuclear material held there is secure. But a report from the US General Accounting Office in February showed that after seven years only 14 per cent of Russia's 603 tons of weapons-grade material has been fully secured.

Norwegian scientists also criticize the program for failing to cover 120,000 spent fuel assemblies from Russian submarines and icebreakers. Spent fuel is usually regarded as "self-protecting" because it is too radioactive to handle safely. But a new investigation by the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority concludes that after 30 years or less the radiation will have decayed sufficiently for terrorists to be able to extract enriched uranium and plutonium. Despite the risks, the Bush administration has said that it intends to scale back the program.

Steinhäusler believes that spent fuel from civilian reactors could also be a danger. There is a already a 1000-tonne stockpile of plutonium from commercial power stations, and recently declassified US documents show that it can be made into bombs. The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has even suggested that only "a relatively low level of sophistication" is needed to make americium and neptunium--also found in spent fuel--into nuclear explosives.

Nuclear authorities are starting to call for action. The Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate wants the IAEA to set up a unit to combat smuggling. And experts are meeting in Vienna this week to discuss plans to strengthen the IAEA's Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. Others advocate a more direct approach. Phil Williams, an international security specialist from the University of Pittsburgh, thinks police forces should step up undercover operations to trap smugglers. More than 40 such operations in six countries have had "considerable success" at catching smugglers, he says.

Alex Schmid, head of the UN's Terrorism Prevention Branch, warns that just as nuclear weapons technology has spread to countries like India, Pakistan and Israel despite the best efforts of the major powers, it may be impossible to stop it spreading to terrorist groups. "Time might not be on our side," he says.