In
1996 the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
IPPNW - 1985 winners of the Nobel Peace Prize) released a document
entitled "Crude Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and the Terrorist
Threat," the first report of its Global Health Watch Information
Series.
In its 60 pages, Crude Nuclear Weapons takes a careful look at what
many now recognize as a growing threat -- nuclear weapons falling
into the hands of terrorists or sub-national groups. The report concludes
that the threat of nuclear terrorism is very real; its prevention
requires unprecedented international cooperation. IPPNW concludes
that a number of points that must be addressed in order to prevent
the threat of nuclear terrorism from becoming real. For example, a
determined sub-national group can fabricate a simple and crude, yet
highly lethal nuclear device if it can obtain 28 pounds of highly-enriched
uranium or as little as 18 pounds of plutonium. For the first time
in one publication, the report compiles the factual information on
how a bomb using this material might be constructed.
Since the technical barriers to constructing a crude nuclear weapon
are frighteningly easy to overcome, obtaining fissile material is
the only serious obstacle. The report goes on to point out that both
the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the proliferation of nuclear
technology have made the fissile materials needed to make crude nuclear
devices more accessible, thus seriously diminishing that obstacle.
In support of this point, there is increasing evidence that a nuclear
black market exists, with at least seven documented and verified cases
of fissile materials smuggling.
After discussing the alarming and potentially fatal ease with which
nuclear technology and fissile material can be obtained, the report
addresses the effects should a crude nuclear device actually be used.
The destructive force of even a crudely designed nuclear weapon would
easily be 1,000-fold -- and perhaps 20,000-fold -- greater than the
fertilizer bomb that devastated the US Federal Building in Oklahoma
City. Successful construction and use of such a devise could kill
or wound tens of thousands of people. To demonstrate this point, the
report includes a guide to estimating the effects of a terrorist nuclear
explosion in any city world-wide.
The report also explores the threat posed by radiological dispersal
weapons, used to spread plutonium over cities without an actual nuclear
explosion. Such a weapon would be a particularly effective weapon
of terror. Severe social disruption would result from widespread fear
of radioactive contamination, and long-term health effects, particularly
increased cancer deaths, would result.
Finally, the report makes a cogent case that the pathways both to
preventing nuclear terrorism and to the total elimination of nuclear
weapons and fissile material are one and the same. In order to succeed,
unprecedented political will must be generated.
