from: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0313nuclear13.html

Nuclear risk high, report concludes
H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press
Mar. 13, 2003 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The threat of terrorists setting off a crude nuclear bomb in a major city is real and should be urgently addressed, concluded a private report issued Wednesday on controlling nuclear materials.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the findings critical to convincing lawmakers and the Bush administration that more needs to be done to safeguard nuclear materials around the world.

The report concluded the easiest way to prevent such a tragedy is to keep terrorists from obtaining material they can use for a weapon. However, hundreds of tons of nuclear material continue to be kept with inadequate security across the globe.

"The scope of the effort does not match the scale of the threat at a time when these programs are more essential than ever," Lugar said at a news conference.

The report, part of a project at Harvard University, is only the latest in a string of studies on efforts to keep nuclear materials and warheads out of the hands of terrorists or rogue states. Much of the study focuses on U.S. efforts to safeguard nuclear materials in Russia.

Matthew Bunn, one of the authors, said an equally daunting task is to develop greater safeguards at research reactors around the world.

"There are hundreds of potential sources of weapons grade material," Bunn said.

"In short, it is simply not the case that the U.S. government is doing everything in its power to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States from occurring," the report said.

"The threat that terrorists could acquire and use a nuclear weapon in a major U.S. city is real and urgent."

Former Sen. Sam Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a private group that sponsored the Harvard study, acknowledged in an interview that similar warnings have been produced in recent years with no increased sense of urgency in Congress or at the White House.

"It takes time. I'm not discouraged, but I am at times frustrated," Nunn said. He said that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies received a report, later found to be wrong, that a nuclear bomb might have been smuggled into New York City.

"Thank God it was not real. If that had happened, and we saw Manhattan disappear from the map, what is it that we would have asked ourselves the next day? We'd be looking all over the place pointing fingers in every direction," Nunn said.