How To Stop Nuclear Terror (Article Summary)

"How to Stop Nuclear Terror"

In her article "How to Stop Nuclear Terror", Allison Graham discusses that although President Bush has determined that terrorist nuclear attacks on the U.S. is the biggest threat facing the country in the future, his administration has not created a clear plan to prevent the issue. She uses a quote from the President to show that he thinks that the "highest priority is to keep terrorist from acquiring weapons of mass destruction." Graham goes on in her introduction to explain that the administrations inaction is a reflection on their inability to understand that nuclear terrorism is in fact preventable. She says that the problem should be combated at the root, which is the fissile material, because without that material, nuclear bombs can not be made. She then introduces her idea of the "Three No's": no loose nukes, no new nascent nukes, and no new nuclear states.

In the next section of her article, Graham presents a number that I found extremely startling and eye-opening. She says that "According to best estimates, the global nuclear inventory includes more than 30,000 nuclear weapons, and enough heu and plutonium for 240,000 more." Even more startling is the fact that, according to Graham, hundreds of these weapons are stored in areas where it is not that difficult for certain criminals to steal them and sell them to terrorist. She then gave examples of people who were apprehended trying to smuggle nuclear weapons or nuclear material. She also explained how easy it would be to smuggle nuclear weapons into the U.S.

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because only 2% of the seven million cargo containers that come into the U.S. ports are usually checked.

Next, Graham discusses how Saddam-era Iraq is not even on the top ten countries most likely to provide nuclear weapons to possible terrorist. Graham believes that Russia would top the list because of their enormous supply of nuclear material. Pakistan would rank next because of its ties with Al-Qaeda. Next would be North Korea because