Georgia chaos halts nuclear security effort

The Boston Globe ^ | August 19, 2008 | Bryan Bender

[Schnucki]

WASHINGTON - The chaos in Georgia has forced the United States to halt a high-priority program that was helping the former Soviet republic to identify possible smugglers of nuclear bomb components across its borders, long considered a transit point for terrorists seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to US officials.

A team from the US Nuclear Security Administration was providing Georgian authorities with radiation equipment and training at key border crossings and the Batumi airport on the country's Black Sea coast when Russia invaded two weeks ago. The advisers were forced to flee the country within days, according to a spokesman from the Department of Energy.

The program is part of a series of US-led international "threat reduction" projects in Georgia - totaling nearly $50 million - to improve the security of nuclear research facilities and prevent the spread of radioactive materials that terrorists could use to build a crude nuclear weapon or a so-called "dirty bomb" designed to spread radiation over a wide area.

With the effort now on hold, and a general breakdown in order throughout the republic, American officials fear would-be nuclear traffickers could take advantage of the situation.

"Georgia has been a hotbed of nuclear smuggling," said Gene Aloise, a senior analyst at the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which has conducted several studies on nuclear security in Georgia. "Because of these past incidents, one as recently as 2006, any type of disruption - like tanks rolling in from Russia - is a cause for concern."

Twice in the last five years Georgian authorities have thwarted attempts to smuggle quantities of highly enriched uranium - dangerous, weapons-grade nuclear material. Over the past decade other radioactive materials, including plutonium, have also been intercepted on the black market.

Last week, at previously scheduled