Major U. S. City Likely Target For “Germ” Or Nuclear Attack by 2013.

America’s margin of safety is shrinking, not growing

The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism draft report leaked Tuesday to the Washington Post says “In our judgment, America’s margin of safety is shrinking, not growing.”

The Commission took six-months to research and prepare the report ordered by Congress and specifically urges the incoming administration take “decisive action” to reduce the likelihood of a devastating nuclear or biological attack on a major U. S. city. The study warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of atomic know-how in the developing world.

The document singles out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its terrorist networks, history of instability and arsenal of several dozen nuclear warheads tiptoeing a bit underlining Pakistan is an ally. The Washington Post article did not mention that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal uses sophisticated U. S. provided internal encryption and physical security systems locking out detonation without extraordinary steps to release it.

The cork in the nuclear bottle has been obtaining fissile material since the mechanics and electronics to make a serviceable nuclear weapon are fairly widely known.

The report concludes that terrorists are more likely to obtain materials for a biological attack than to buy or steal nuclear weapons. But it says the nuclear threat is growing rapidly, in part because of the increasing global supply of nuclear material and technology.

According to excerpts published Sunday in the Washington Post “Without greater urgency and decisive action by the world community, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.”

The bi-partisan commission interviewed 260 experts in the field in reaching its conclusions that included: nuclear terrorism is still a preventable catastrophe,” the report says. It calls for aggressive steps to secure unguarded stockpiles of nuclear weapons material such as uranium and plutonium, as well as coordinated international efforts to discover and disrupt smuggling rings that traffic in atomic technology.

Mimicking general concerns about president-elect Barrack Obama’s accommodating statements toward Iran, North Korea and others, Commission members urged Barack Obama to take a tough line with both Iran and North Korea. If the president-elect seeks to engage the two countries diplomatically, they said, he should do so “from a position of strength, emphasizing both the benefits of them abandoning their nuclear programs and the enormous costs of failing to do so.”

Nuclear weapons in the hands of either regime not only pose a threat in their own right but also increase the chances of a destabilizing arms race, the report says.