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Highly Enriched Uranium – so easy to make an atom bomb

Since the end of the Cold War the International Atomic Energy Authority, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has logged 800 incidents of radioactive material going missing or being seized by smugglers.

Mission to stop nuclear terrorism, Telegraph A multi-million dollar US programme is attempting to make safe the world’s bomb-grade uranium before terrorists can get to it. By Nick Meo in Warsaw  11 Oct 2010 “…..Intelligence agencies will not reveal their reasons for being so frightened now about what for years seemed a remote and unlikely risk. But it may be because of the deeply troubling cases of smuggling that surface from time to time in Eastern Europe, hinting at the existence of a nuclear black market.

Such attempts at illicit nuclear sales have been made at least twice this year, once in Moldova, when a gang attempted to sell a small amount of nuclear material, and once in Georgia where several smugglers were arrested with an undisclosed amount of uranium. That was a far more disturbing case, according to investigators who said it showed a worrying level of organisation.

Since the end of the Cold War the International Atomic Energy Authority, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has logged 800 incidents of radioactive material going missing or being seized by smugglers. A handful of cases have involved weapons-grade material.

Nobody knows whether gangsters or corrupt officials really could deliver enough material for a home-made bomb to terrorists or rogue states. US officials fear that anyone trying to acquire HEU on a nuclear black market will want it to destroy an American city…….

Until the attacks of September 11, 2001, there was little concern about the estimated 2000 tons of HEU stockpiled around the world, much lying around half-forgotten in badly-guarded facilities in poor countries with corruption problems.

Facilities often lacked armed guards, secure fences, even locks that worked properly.

American efforts which had begun in the chaos of Russia in the 1990s to secure vulnerable nuclear material were stepped up worldwide after 2001; as long ago as 1998 Osama bin Laden spoke of his determination to acquire the bomb “to terrorise the enemies of God”.

Frank Barnaby, an author and former Aldermaston nuclear physicist, said: “The really frightening thing about HEU is that it is so easy to make an atom bomb out of it. You only need a couple of PhD students and a small amount of material……..Under an agreement between Mr Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last year, the USA and Russia each take back uranium they supplied to friendly countries. So Romania and Poland sent theirs to Russia, while that of Chile and Turkey has been reprocessed in the United States.

There are, however, glaring omissions in President Obama’s plan; the Global Threat Reduction Initiative cannot make HEU safe in a few nuclear nations, most notably Pakistan and North Korea, which are judged to pose the greatest risk of terrorists obtaining the raw material for a bomb…

Mission to stop nuclear terrorism – Telegraph

November 9, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, safety, Uranium | enriched, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear secrecy, uranium