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| Current nuclear threat worse than during Cold War - U.S. expert |
| 2007-07-19 |
| WASHINGTON, July 19 (RIA Novosti) - The risks of an accidental nuclear war have increased since the Cold War as Russia's early warning capability has deteriorated, a former U.S. defense official said. William J. Perry, who is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-Director of the Preventive Defense Project at Stanford University, said in congressional testimony Wednesday that "the danger of nuclear war occurring by accident" still existed. "Both American and Russian missiles remain in a launch-on-warning mode," Perry, who served as U.S. defense secretary in 1994-97, said. "And the inherent danger of this status is aggravated by the fact that the Russian warning system has deteriorated since the ending of the Cold War." After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, Russia has heavily depended on its radars located abroad, particularly the Daryal facility in Azerbaijan and two Dnepr stations in Ukraine, near Sebastopol and Mukachevo. Some reports said the outdated radar facilities that Moscow is renting on the territories of former Soviet republics were in poor conditions, and Russia had developed "holes" in its early-warning missile threat coverage. In the same testimony, Perry blasted the Bush administration for concentrating its efforts on building defenses to protect the U.S. from a potential ballistic missile threat, while downplaying the danger of nuclear terrorism. "The centerpiece of our government's strategy for dealing with a nuclear attack is the National Missile Defense system now being installed in Alaska," he said. "But the greatest danger today is that a terror group will detonate a nuclear bomb in one of our cities," the expert said. "Terrorists would not use a ballistic missile to deliver their bomb, they would use a truck or a freighter," Perry said, adding that a missile shield alone would not reduce the nuclear threat to the country. |
| Posted by:Delphi |
| #3 It also seems terrorists have been successful in obtaining some of them, as quite a few are reportedly unaccounted for. The foregoing beggars an important question: Suppose a nuclear explosion or radiological bomb is detonated in an American city and the isotopic signature points to Russian fissile material? What retaliation would Russian experience? Also—if no one took credit for it—given that our only trackback would be to Russia, how would we direct an appropriate response to whatever terrorist group was most likely responsible for the attack? I'm confident that this sort of scenario keeps our strategists laying awake during the long winter nights. I sure hope that we've managed to "acquire" and refurbish a few of those nuclear devices that the USSR secreted over here during the Cold War. It would be more than fitting to have a couple of "work accidents" happen in Russia if their nuclear material ever fell into terrorist hands for use against America. Moreover, this also points towards the importance of putting the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) on notice that a single such event will result in identical events occurring in the capital of every MME country. The MME must be made to realize they are skating over thin ice on a hot day. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-07-19 17:46 |
| #2 He has a point but the danger is more from rogue capitalistic amoral Russians, imo. The tactical nukes made for the KGB and not in the official arsenal with the ballistic missiles were stored in key locations, including the US, during the Cold War and only certain key KGB officers are even aware of their old contingency plans for sleepers living here. It also seems terrorists have been successful in obtaining some of them, as quite a few are reportedly unaccounted for. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2007-07-19 16:00 |
| #1 What's his angle? Where is he trying to steer funds? |
| Posted by: gromky 2007-07-19 15:42 |