Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Loose Nukes

Keeping terrorists from getting nukes involves far more than stopping countries from giving terrorists nukes or stopping terrorists from building their own. Keeping existing nukes from being stolen by terrorists or given to terrorists by sympathizers in nations with nukes is also important.

We are doing this in yet another quiet program whose very silence allows critics of our policies to say we are doing nothing to fight terrorism because Iraq is "distracting" us:

Without too much fanfare or publicity, the United States is providing nuclear armed nations with advice on developing "fail safe" and other technologies to secure their nukes. Help is also provided for improving security at the storage sites for nuclear weapons. While some of this discreet assistance involves American military secrets, much of it is no more than pointing out the commercial technologies and services available from American and European suppliers. The recipients of all this help appear to include India, Pakistan, China and Russia.

I knew about Pakistan and Russian efforts. The Chinese and Indian efforts are interesting.