The President traveled to Seoul and back last week so he could deliver his message to an international summit on nuclear security. But he only broke into the news when he made a mildly embarrassing comment that was picked up by an open mike. The summit itself pretty much went unnoticed.
This is unfortunate, but not surprising. Even though recent presidents and presidential candidates have all said that nuclear terrorism poses the greatest threat to the national security, people inside and outside of government do not act as though they believe it. And until they do, real progress toward securing and then eliminating stocks of fissile material will not be made and, in fact, we will continue to add to those stocks.
We should all be concerned that perhaps during one morning rush hour in a major American city, a nuclear weapon of crude and improvised design will be detonated. Such a device's yield will be far smaller than that of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but still tens of thousands will die instantly from the blast, burns and radiation. Over the following month, thousands more will succumb to burns, injuries, or the effects of radiation. The blast area will be uninhabitable for months or longer.
This is unfortunate, but not surprising. Even though recent presidents and presidential candidates have all said that nuclear terrorism poses the greatest threat to the national security, people inside and outside of government do not act as though they believe it. And until they do, real progress toward securing and then eliminating stocks of fissile material will not be made and, in fact, we will continue to add to those stocks.
We should all be concerned that perhaps during one morning rush hour in a major American city, a nuclear weapon of crude and improvised design will be detonated. Such a device's yield will be far smaller than that of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but still tens of thousands will die instantly from the blast, burns and radiation. Over the following month, thousands more will succumb to burns, injuries, or the effects of radiation. The blast area will be uninhabitable for months or longer.
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