Nuclear good news

Bston Glob ^ | 7/3/05 | Graham Allison

[bitt]

ON THE SIDELINE of this week's G8 Summit at Gleneagles, US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet one on one. Atop their agenda will be commitments they made four months ago in Bratislava to address an issue even more important to the well-being of Russian and American citizens than African aid and climate change, the issues that will headline the G8.

Recall the first televised presidential debate last fall when the moderator asked both President Bush and Senator John Kerry: ''What is the single most serious threat to American national security?" Both answered: nuclear terrorism. President Bush said: ''I agree with my opponent that the biggest threat facing this country today is weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist network."

Last February's Bratislava summit put nuclear security at the top of the agenda. For the first time, Bush and Putin accepted personal responsibility for addressing the issue and assuring that their governments act urgently. Recognizing that at the sluggish pace of the last several years, Russian nuclear facilities would not be adequately secured until 2020, they established a target of 2008 for completion. They agreed to share ''best practices" for improving nuclear security and to focus increased attention on the security culture in both countries. They promised to develop new emergency response procedures for missing nuclear materials or dirty bombs. They pledged to convert all US and Russian research reactors that have been provided to developing and transitional countries from weapons-usable high-enriched uranium to harmless low-enriched uranium fuel.

[adam_az]

Russia - Iran - Nukes - blah blah blah.