Nuclear warning to Bush

Print Story - canada.com network: "Nuclear warning to Bush
Threat 'dwarfs' response

Sheldon Alberts
CanWest News Service
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
WASHINGTON - The U.S. government has left North America vulnerable to nuclear attack by lagging in efforts to prevent terrorists from obtaining warheads or weapons-grade material from Russia and other nations, members of a commission on the 9/11 attacks said yesterday.
Warning that half Russia's nuclear weapons remain unsecured, the bipartisan group blamed a lack of political will and bureaucratic wrangling for an "unacceptable" response to the most deadly security threat facing the United States and its allies.
"We still do not have a maximum effort against the most urgent threat," said Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Public Discourse Group. "The most striking thing to us is that the size of the problem still totally dwarfs the policy response."
Mr. Kean was the head of the commission appointed by Congress to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
It concluded Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda had tried to obtain nuclear devices for 10 years before launching the hijacking plot against the United States.
The 9/11 commission disbanded after issuing its report last year, but has re-formed to deliver regular report cards on the U.S.'s progress in the war on terror.
During last year's presidential election campaign, President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry said they considered a nuclear attack by terrorists the single biggest threat facing the United States.
However, the 9/11 commission members said there was still "insufficient progress" in helping safeguard Russia's estimated 20,000 operable and inoperable warheads.
In the past 14 years, Russia and former Soviet states have dismantled 51% of their nuclear warheads under treaties with the U.S. and through the Co-operative Threat Reduction program.
But "approximately half of former Soviet nuclear materials still lack adequate security protection," the commission said.
In February, Mr. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement to take inventories of nuclear weapons, destroy obsolete warheads and work together on plans to keep them out of terrorist hands.
Mr. Kean, a Republican, criticized Mr Bush for letting nuclear security slip down his list of priorities since striking the deal with Mr. Putin.
At the current rate of effort by U.S. and Russian authorities, "it's going to take 14 long years to complete this job," he said. "Is there anybody anywhere who thinks that we really have 14 years? This is unacceptable."
Just as worrisome is the fact 100 nuclear research facilities in 40 countries lack even basic security features, the commission said. Each facility contains enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.
"The terrorists are smart because they will go where the security is the weakest," Mr. Kean said. "We have no greater fear then a terrorist who is inside the United States with a nuclear weapon ... [so] why isn't the President talking about securing nuclear materials?"
Speaking yesterday night in Alaska, Mr. Bush defended his government's record on disrupting terrorists seeking nuclear weapons. He said in the last year the U.S. and its allies in the proliferation-security initiative stopped more than a dozen shipments of suspect weapons technology including equipment for iran's ballistic missile program.
"So long as I'm your President, we will continue to deny the world's most dangerous men the world's most dangerous weapons," he said.
The Bush administration also received poor grades for efforts to improve the U.S.'s image around the globe, another key recommendation of the 9/11 commission.
While Mr. Bush has named a special envoy -- former political advisor Karen Hughes -- to burnish the U.S.'s international reputation, those efforts have been undermined by scandals over detainee abuse and unclear policies on torture, commission members said.
The White House has not implemented the commission's recommendation to negotiate a "common coalition approach" with allies that would apply Geneva Convention rules to the detention and humane treatment of captured terrorists.
The U.S. Senate recently passed legislation that would ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of detainees in U.S. custody. Mr. Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, arguing it would limit his options in prosecuting the war on terror.
"The suggestion that we are a country that will permit torture is anathema to those of us who look at the importance of winning this battle with jihadists," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic member of the commission.
"We cannot, on the one hand, promote the values of America and on the other say that we will engage in the kind of conduct that our enemies engage in."
� National Post 2005"