Sen. Casey talks U.S. nuke policy

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and the Nuclear Threat Initiative came to Pitt to bring… U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and the Nuclear Threat Initiative came to Pitt to bring attention to an issue that some say the current administration and presidential candidates avoid: unprotected nuclear weapons and materials.

Pitt graduate students and other concerned community members attended the event, which was sponsored by Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

The group assembled a panel of experts on the topics of nuclear weapons and terrorism.

Michael Hurley, counterterrorism special adviser to NTI, Carie Lemack, president of Families of Sept. 11 and Pitt professor William W. Keller answered questions as Casey moderated.

The event began with a screening of the Ben Goddard’s 2005 docudrama “Last Best Chance.”

The film opened with an ominous message that some of the events depicted could be going on at the present and all of the events could happen in the future.

In the film, terrorists bought nuclear weapons from thieves in former Soviet states and South Africa.

An al-Qaeda terrorist said that he wanted to claim the lives of 4 million Americans as payment for the deaths of Muslims in Bosnia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

The message of the film was that the effort to prevent the theft of nuclear weapons needs to be a higher priority.

The movie made the point that ports are not secure and nuclear weapons could pass inspection undetected.

“Geiger counters can’t detect radiation of a nuclear weapon when shielded in lead. We have to stop them at the source,” Lemack said.

Casey is at the forefront of the argument for securing materials that can be used for nuclear weapons.

He co-sponsored the Nuclear Policy and Posture Review Act of 2007 and recently made a speech on the Senate floor asking for a review of the current U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

Casey said that more than 40 countries have the materials to produce nuclear weapons and not all of them are safeguarded.

“Additional funding is required, but perhaps even more important, high-level attention, at the level of presidents and prime ministers, is necessary to break through the bureaucratic obstacles and political inertia blocking more rapid security gains,” Casey said in his Senate speech.

The costs of an initiative to lock-down nuclear weapons globally are uncertain.

Casey recently supported an $80 million increase in aid to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program for dissolving chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Hurley and Keller agreed that the effort would be long-term and cost a few billion dollars.

This money is needed to count, protect and eventually dismantle the materials.

“The cost of the Iraq War has been $400 billion,” Keller said. “This effort would equal the cost of the war for a couple days.”

There has already been progress in destroying the materials – but Keller says it’s not enough.

“Already half of the nuclear weapons we had at the end of the Cold War are gone. We need to halve it again and again until they’re all gone,” he said.

The materials for nuclear weapons do not have to be used for destruction.

They can be converted to nuclear power, helping countries like China and India who cannot supply sufficient electricity to their citizens with only fossil fuels.

The NTI works to counter nuclear proliferation and the theft of nuclear weapons by accounting for nuclear materials as well as purchasing them to take them off the global market.

Casey is working with the NTI to find solutions for these issues that are not high priorities among the presidential candidates.

“There is not enough talk about this from presidential candidates,” Casey said.

“Instead of talking about nuclear threats, they are talking about immigrant driver’s licenses in New York. They’ve debated this issue in three debates.”

Casey and the panel also put pressure on journalists to ask questions about the lax security of nuclear weapons reminding the attendees that immigration and border control are not the same.