On August 21, the Libyan opposition forces stormed the capital, Tripoli, and took control of President Ghaddafi’s compound.  The war is not over, as Ghaddafi loyalists continue to battle the rebels, and the Transitional National Council (the organization formed to represent the opposition) will need to begin work to fill the power vacuum. The council has a huge task ahead of it to restore order, rebuild the country, create legitimate national institutions and cobble its different factions into some sort of working government.  More immediately, the opposition and NATO have to secure Ghaddafi’s chemical weapons and low-enriched uranium stockpiles.

In addition to Ghaddafi’s arsenals of conventional weapons, he is rumored to have stockpiled chemical weapons agents.  NATO has pledged to secure the chemical weapons so that Ghaddafi forces cannot use them against the opposition and civilians, but the opposition will also need to be involved.  James Corbett, a member of the Center for Research on Globalization, doesn’t believe the Ghaddafi regime would use these weapons in a last ditch effort to hold on to power, since it hasn’t used them yet.  However, the greater risk is that, amidst the chaos of Ghaddafi’s overthrow, these stockpiles could be susceptible to theft by smugglers or terrorists.  Terrorist organizations, such as Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, have successfully used chemical weapons against civilians in the past.  

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Libya, nuclear security, terrorism, Security Matters (all tags)

A 2009 photo of Russian army check point at the road between Moldova and Transnistra. Photo Credit:Samuel Aranda / Corbis

On June 29, six men were arrested in Moldova for attempting to sell uranium to an undercover security agent, who was posing as a North African buyer. On July 15, the House of Representatives passed the FY 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations bill (H.R. 2354).  Though they occurred on different continents, the two events are closely connected.

The House bill cut funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Second Line of Defense program by over $75 million below the FY 2012 request.  The program installs radiation detection equipment to interdict nuclear trafficking at borders, airports and strategic ports in Russia, other former Soviet Union states and further afield.

The bill also cut the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) by $85 million below the FY 2012 request.  The cut would have been more draconian but for an amendment offered by Reps. Fortenberry (R-NE) and Sanchez (D-CA) to add $35 million to the program.  

GTRI is the key U.S. program in the global cooperative effort to secure and eliminate nuclear materials, including highly enriched uranium, at an accelerated rate.  
The Moldovan incident is a warning, as are all nuclear smuggling incidents, that the threat of the theft or sale of dangerous nuclear materials is real.  Securing and interdicting these materials is an urgent national security priority, and funding for the programs that support these efforts (such as GTRI) must reflect the urgency of the threat.  Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor, the director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Technology, Security and Policy, argues that, “the odds of terrorists successfully acquiring nuclear material have increased in their favor.”

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trafficking, terrorism, GTRI, Nuclear Prevention Trafficking Act (all tags)

Posted today on the "mothership", to quote Kingston, is an article about the threat of terrorist reprisal for the death of Osama bin Laden.  Lt. General (Ret) Robert Gard, Chairman and Senior Military Fellow at the Center was quoted extensively, nay, was the focus of the article from the Monterey County Herald.  In the article, he explained the probability of a future attack and spoke of Al-Qaeda's threats to use nuclear weapons.  

To read the full article on our website click here .

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General Gard, Security Matters, Terrorism, Al-Qaeda (all tags)