US safeguards high-risk nukes

2004-05-26 20:00

Vienna - US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Wednesday unveiled a $450m plan to fight the threat of terrorist "dirty" or other nuclear bombs by safeguarding high-risk atomic fuels and other radioactive sources worldwide.

The US plan will include working with Russia "to repatriate all Russian-origin fresh HEU (highly enriched uranium) fuel by the end" of 2005, Abraham told workers at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He also called for an international conference on the "US Global Threat Reduction Initiative" in the fall of 2004.

The United States also plans "to take all steps necessary" to repatriate "all US-origin research reactor spent fuel" and to "identify other nuclear and radiological materials and related equipment that are not yet covered by existing threat reduction efforts" Abraham said, referring to radioactive sources used in places like hospitals.

"Where one hundred years ago, authorities had to worry about the anarchist placing a bomb in the downtown square, now we must worry about the terrorist who places that bomb in the square but packed with radiological material," Abraham said.

He said the United States was reacting to revelations about the nuclear technology international black market run by Pakistani scientist A Q Khan.

This, "coupled with the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, Bali and most recently, Madrid, (forces us) to assume that rogue states and terrorists, in concert with for-profit proliferators, will act vigorously to achieve their ends" Abraham said.

He said the "large quantities of uncontrolled or lightly controlled nuclear and radiological material of potential use in nuclear weapons or radiological dispersion devices have added an entirely new dimension to this worldwide threat."

- AFP