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Nuclear terror 'matter of time'

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Don Rizzle:
Nuclear terror 'matter of time'
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohammed ElBaradei, has warned of a "race against time" to stop terrorists procuring nuclear materials.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency was speaking at a US conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He endorsed the influential think tank's new arms control plan.

Under the plan, major nuclear powers would be expected to make concessions in the interests of global security.


We are actually having a race against time which I don't think we can afford
Mohammed ElBaradei
The IAEA director warned there was a real danger of uranium or plutonium falling into the wrong hands.
"We are actually having a race against time which I don't think we can afford," he said.

"The danger is so imminent... not only with regard to countries acquiring nuclear weapons but also terrorists getting their hands on some of these nuclear materials, uranium or plutonium.

"So the sooner that we start, the better for everybody involved."

'Dirty bomb'

The nuclear watchdog chief's message was picked up by the US Senator Sam Nunn, a security expert.

Mr Nunn told the BBC that the security of nuclear material in Russia was a key concern.

He said the biggest challenge was to have US President George W Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin put the issue to the top of their agenda.

Mr Nunn was instrumental in last month's unveiling of a multi-million dollar initiative to stop extremist groups from building so called "dirty bombs" with nuclear material.

Governments around the world are becoming increasingly concerned about nuclear proliferation particularly since the revelations, in February of this year, that the Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan had passed on nuclear secrets to a number of countries.

'Tipping point'

One of the authors of the Carnegie Endowment's plan, Joseph Cirincione, said the world was at "a nuclear tipping point".

The BBC's diplomatic correspondent in Washington, Jonathan Marcus, says the Carnegie plan is certainly ambitious in scope.

It argues that all current nuclear arms control problems need to be put into a single pot and handled together.

Everyone - both the nuclear haves and have-nots - have to be seen to make concessions if all are to gain.

But our correspondent says other experts in Washington are not so sure.

Political capital, they say, is limited and needs to be focused on individual proliferation, problems like that between India and Pakistan or the continuing uncertainties surrounding Iran's nuclear ambitions.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/3827589.stm

Don Rizzle:
Bush's Pyongyang policy 'futile'
By Jonathan Marcus
BBC diplomatic correspondent in Washington

The architect of the Clinton administration's policy towards North Korea has told the BBC the current US approach to Pyongyang is going nowhere.
Ambassador Robert Gallucci stressed the growing danger that North Korea might sell nuclear materials or even a bomb to a terrorist group.

Ambassador Gallucci also urged a fundamental rethink of US policy.

His comments come as a new round of six-party talks on the North Korea nuclear stand-off begin in Beijing.


Proliferation threat

Dealing with North Korea is one of the most intractable problems facing any US administration.


Most experts believe that the Pyongyang government could already have up to eight nuclear bombs.

These weapons, if mounted on ballistic missiles, could threaten many of its neighbours.

But Ambassador Gallucci said North Korea could effectively be deterred from using such weapons and that the principal threat from Pyongyang was that of nuclear proliferation.

"The concern that does, I think, motivate most of the worry in Washington, and should, is that North Korea would transfer material weapons to a terrorist group," he told the BBC.

"The concern here of course is that a terrorist group like al-Qaeda would deliver them to the United States and detonate them in an American city and not be discouraged from doing so by the threat of response."

'Hobbled' US policy

Ambassador Gallucci was the architect of former US President Bill Clinton's administration's policy which persuaded Pyongyang to freeze its weapons programme in return for the provision of power generating reactors.

But this deal collapsed, in large part due to North Korea's actions.

But Ambassador Gallucci says that since then there has been no coherent strategy from the Bush administration in Washington.

Tensions between the State Department, on the one hand, and the Pentagon and the vice president's office, on the other, have hobbled US policy, leading to what he called the most distant of negotiations between the US and North Korea.

Ambassador Gallucci believes that only high level direct talks can succeed and while China's support is important, he criticises the Bush team for effectively-sub contracting Washington's North Korea policy to Beijing.

Such an approach, he says, fails to take into account the very different strategic and regional interests of China and the US.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3831231.stm

Montana00:
you cant stop it.

and its only a matter of time

Trauma-san:
I agree, just a matter of time.  

Lincoln:
Scary.

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