Avoiding a Russian arms disaster
By Ted Turner /Stanley A. Weiss
November 6, 2005
Hurricane Katrina drove home the staggering devastation that disasters — natural or man-made –can inflict. Meanwhile, July’s attacks on the London Underground reminded us terrorists can still strike major world cities. Now imagine the two joined together: terrorists, armed with weapons of mass destruction, unleashing Katrina-scale chaos and death in the heart of a U.S. city.
Such attacks are hardly unthinkable. Roughly half of Russia’s weapons-grade nuclear materials are poorly protected. In the small Russian town of Shchuch’ye, nearly 2 million shells of VX and sarin nerve gas — each lethal enough to kill 85,000 people — lay stacked in chicken cooplike structures. The September 11 commission said al Qaeda has pursued getting and using these weapons as a “religious obligation” for more than a decade. (The Washington Times)
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