As smugglers set their sights on nuclear weapons in the former Soviet states and several Third World nations try to build their own bombs, U.S. intelligence officials are losing hope that the world will be able to avoid a nuclear tragedy.
“I am convinced that somewhere, someplace, sometime in this decade, somebody is going to set off a nuclear weapon in deadly earnest,” the director of naval intelligence, Rear Adm. Edward Sheafer Jr., said in an interview. “And it’s not going to be the Russians, and it’s not going to be us.”
While the end of the Cold War has erased the harshest nuclear fears, the threat of Third World regimes trying to obliterate their neighbors in atomic duststorms is growing almost daily. U.S. defense and intelligence officials say the spread of nuclear weapons to volatile regions is by far the world’s most urgent danger.
During the long faceoff between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the fear of a nuclear Armageddon was so palpable that it carried its own measure of prevention. But many of the nations now seeking nuclear weapons are inflamed by Islamic fundamentalism and centuries-old animosities that could easily send passions swirling out of control.
“I believe we may have a two-year window of opportunity before disaster strikes,” said Kenneth Timmerman, who has written several books on the arms trade and recently joined the staff of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee.
And while U.S. efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons are focused mainly on Iran, Iraq and North Korea, “We may not have identified the real trouble spots yet, and that’s the scariest part of all,” Timmerman said.
Given the likelihood that some dangerous materials will leak out of the arsenal of nearly 30,000 nuclear weapons held by the former Soviet republics, he added: “What about Azerbaijan and Armenia? They are two crazy countries. What if they get a nuke? What about Sudan? What about Libya?”
In fact, that sort of disaster nearly happened in 1990, when Pakistan placed its nuclear forces on alert and India prepared to retaliate in kind. Only urgent U.S. mediation pulled the two countries, which hold nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, back from the brink.
Trying to prevent such recklessness, the U.S. has bombed Iraq’s nuclear research plants and begged allies to quit selling sensitive technology to Iran. Just over a week ago, President Clinton warned North Korean leaders that it would “be the end of their country” if they ever use the nuclear bombs they are building.
In an extraordinary move, the U.S. also has been negotiating to buy all of the uranium that will be released if the former Soviet states follow through with plans to destroy nearly half of their vast stockpile of nuclear weapons.
Under the proposed deal, the Energy Department would pay Russia, Ukraine and the other former republics up to $12 billion over 20 years for at least 500 tons of highly enriched uranium, officials said. The department would dilute the uranium to safer, commercial grades and then sell it to nuclear power plants.
But that deal may never happen if Ukraine decides to hold on to many of the nuclear weapons on its soil, as its parliament is threatening to do. And the Clinton administration is finding that most of its other efforts to crack down on the weapons trade are equally frustrating.
For one thing, hardly anyone overseas seems to be listening.
The CIA has created a non-proliferation center, manned by more than 100 analysts, to track the movement of highly advanced weapons and the tools needed to produce them.
But what disturbs U.S officials is that there seems to be little political will in Russia, China, Japan and much of Europe to shut down the flow of nuclear reactors, computers and machine tools to Third World nations known to be working on nuclear bombs.
In many countries, government efforts to block the passing on of this technology bring complaints from politicians and from industries trying to create jobs and bolster national economies. But it appears that the rest of the world has learned nothing from the mistakes made in selling billions of dollars of weapons and high-technology goods to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.
Nine countries have nuclear weapons today. U.S. intelligence officials say that number could double over the next decade as countries such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya scratch for the means and clout to terrorize their neighbors.
In addition, two dozen nations either have or are developing chemical and biological weapons, often referred to as “poor man’s nukes.”
Sheafer, the naval intelligence director, said he doubts the rest of the world will get serious about stopping proliferation until “something awful” happens and a Third World nation sets off a nuclear or biological bomb.
To be sure, developing such weapons is expensive, and few developing countries have much spare cash. U.S. officials said Iran cut its annual arms budget to $800 million from $2 billion.
But American hands are not entirely clean. The Commerce Department, for example, is investigating 150 cases of possibly illegal exports of high-tech goods to Iran. And U.S. sales of fighter planes and tanks to countries such as Saudi Arabia and Taiwan have fueled the desire for advanced weapons among their rivals.
But countries such as Iran could cut down their lead time and save lots of money if they could pluck off just a single nuclear weapon-or a small batch of plutonium or highly enriched uranium-from the former Soviet stockpile.
Someone with the know-how could fashion a crude bomb from as little as 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium-or, as Britain’s Economist magazine put it in a recent editorial, “less than you would need to fill a fruitbowl.”
Since the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, law-enforcement agencies have investigated more than 100 reports of uranium and other materials being smuggled out of the former Soviet bloc.
So far, most have involved only tiny amounts of relatively safe grades of uranium.
Still, many Western experts doubt that Russia and Ukraine will be able to keep track of every speck of the hundreds of tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium in their arsenals. Their poorly paid military officers could easily prove susceptible to bribes from smugglers.
Another fear is that some of Russia’s best nuclear scientists, who are relatively low paid, could end up taking their expertise to Third World countries. Weapons scientists at one Russian complex, for example, recently staged a protest over wages-about $40 a month, less than some Moscow subway operators make.
The U.S. is planning to give Russia and other former Soviet republics tens of millions of dollars to set up computerized export control systems. U.S. officials also will invite the Russians and others to go through training designed for U.S. customs agents.
But some experts warn that it will take several years before the former Soviet states gain a strong measure of border control.
