Report: Russian Nuke Theft 'Has Occurred'
NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Feb 23, 2005
U.S. intelligence officials say definitively that theft of Russian nuclear materials "has occurred," even as Russia's nuclear-powered plants remain ripe for terrorist attacks, Agence-France Presse reports.
The new intel report adds additional worry that terrorists will be able to detonate a nuclear device on American soil, or that a rogue nation will obtain one or more nuclear weapons.
Quoting a just-completed assessment by the CIA's National Intelligence Council, an agency that tracks and disseminates data to each of the nation's spy agencies, AFP says NIC's report was finished in time for President Bush's scheduled talks with Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, during the President's European tour this week.
The administration has not made clear whether Bush planned to broach the subject with Putin.
In the past, Russian officials have sometimes angrily denied any possibility of theft of radioactive materials from the country's atomic weapons sites and power plants.
NIC analysts, however, clearly believe otherwise.
According to an unclassified version of the report obtained by AFP, U.S. analysts wrote, "We assess that undetected smuggling has occurred, and we are concerned about the total amount of material that could have been diverted or stolen in the last 13 years."
In the early days following the break-up of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. earmarked funds to assist Russia in either securing or dismantling its vast nuclear arsenal, now estimated to be about 4,000 warheads which are spread out between land, sea and air force-based assets.
But since the last decade, many of those funds have dried up completely, much to the chagrin of American lawmakers and other officials who maintain the program was vital to prevent just this kind of scenario: theft of Russian materials.
Russia also has thousands of nuclear warheads in storage, "plus a network of production and research facilities dealing with fissile substances," AFP reported, quoting U.S. officials.
And though American intelligence analysts are fairly confident Russian weapons deployed in defense of their nation are secure, they added "we continue to be concerned about vulnerabilities to an insider who attempts unauthorized actions as well as potential terrorist attacks," says the unclassified version of the report.
NIC analysts outlined some disconcerting evidence of their conclusions:
In 2002, Russian Defense Ministry agents on two separate occasions "thwarted attempts by known terrorists to scout out nuclear weapons storage sites," AFP reported; A pair of sabotage and scouting groups with ties to Chechen rebels were found to be reconnoitering a number of major Russian railways near Moscow, looking to garner intelligence about trains hauling nuclear weapons; Some fissile material has been lifted from Russian research facilities and manufacturing sites over the past several years, including over 3 pounds of "90-percent enriched weapons grade uranium … from the Luch Production Association in 1992" and, "two years later, about three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of the same material" was taken from a site in Moscow, AFP said; In 1998, thieves made an attempt to steal over 40 pounds of a non-specified radioactive material from a Chelyabinsk plant — "an amount described as 'quite sufficient' to produce a nuclear bomb," says AFP.
Based on the number of attempts, NIC analysts asserted it was "highly unlikely that Russian authorities would have been able to recover all the stolen materials."
The issue came up in the Senate last week as well. Sen. John Rockefeller, D-W.Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, asked CIA Director Porter Goss if the country was safe from terrorists equipped with stolen Russian nuclear materials.
"No, I can't make that assurance," Goss replied. "I can't account for some of the material."
Perhaps worse, NIC warned, Russian atomic power plants "almost certainly will remain vulnerable to a well-planned and executed terrorist attack."
