Tuesday, December 21, 1999 Finding Russia's lost radioactive luggage
Suitcase nukes may be in the hands of America's enemies
Deroy Murdock
National Post
RADIOACTIVE LUGGAGE: Eighty-four Soviet-era 10-kiloton nuclear weapons transported in suitcases have disappeared, and the U.S. doesn't seem to care.
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What could be more devastating than two jars of nitroglycerine and more than 100 pounds of other explosives smuggled across the Canada-U.S. border by a suspected Algerian terrorist? Try a suitcase-sized atomic bomb. Better yet, try 84 of them.
According to Curt Weldon, a Republican congressman, the former Soviet Union produced 132 10-kiloton suitcase nukes. Today, Russia can account for only 48. Where are the other 84? The Clinton-Gore administration doesn't know and, outrageously, doesn't seem to care.
Many hawks correctly advocate a ballistic missile defence system to protect the United States from incoming nuclear rockets. These could be launched deliberately or accidentally by Russia, China, Pakistan or by smaller renegade nations such as North Korea, Iraq or, someday, maybe even Iran. If an ICBM hurtled toward San Diego, Denver or Washington, for instance, Americans could do little more than click on the carnage on CNN.
Equally unacceptable, though likely tougher to combat, would be an atomic device as nondescript as a Samsonite valise. It could be carried down the street, then nonchalantly deposited at the Plaza Hotel's coat check in Manhattan or nestled in the basement of Chicago's Sears Tower. A few hours later, the Big Apple or the Windy City would resemble Hiroshima or Nagasaki in 1945.
This radioactive luggage already could be in the possession of people hostile to the United States. Even more worrisome, these atomic bags apparently are on U.S. soil today.
The files of Vassiliy Mitrokhin, the KGB's former chief archivist, offers compelling evidence that this lethal luggage has already arrived. For more than two decades, Mr. Mitrokhin hand-copied top-secret Soviet documents at the espionage agency's Moscow headquarters and smuggled his notes out under his clothing after work. He regularly hid these papers beneath his dacha's floorboards. In 1992, he defected to Britain with this intelligence bonanza.
Mr. Mitrokhin's records indicated that Soviet operatives buried weapons in booby-trapped sites in Switzerland and Belgium in case of conflict. As Mr. Weldon explained on the House floor this fall: "The Swiss government and the Belgian government dug up these sites, and exactly where the Mitrokhin files said they would be, they found the military hardware that the Soviet Union had placed there without those countries having any idea of what the Soviets had done."
Mr. Mitrokhin has corroborated previous claims by Russian General Alexander Lebed, the KGB's one-time top man in London, Oleg Gordievsky, and former high-level military spy Stanislav Lunev. They said that to prepare for possible hostilities with the United States, the KGB pre-deployed nuclear suitcases somewhere near Brainerd, Minnesota, in Montana, beside a Texas oil pipeline and adjacent to harbours in California and New York City. Alas, Mr. Mitrokhin was unable to capture more specific data.
Has the U.S. administration queried Moscow for the locations of these weapons since they came to light around 1992?
"No, we have not," according to Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral Craig Quigley. After speaking with three FBI officials, Mr. Weldon said, "their answer was that our government has not yet asked the Russian government to give us the exact locations of these sites." Mr. Weldon and Democratic congressman James Oberstar jointly wrote Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Oct. 22 "to inquire whether the United States government has ever asked the Russian government to provide detailed site information on pre-deployed weapons." The congressmen still are waiting for Ms. Albright's answer.
"I am outraged that we have not asked that question," Mr. Weldon said. "This administration perhaps fears that when we start to dig up all over America locations of equipment that we know have been there for three or perhaps seven years, there are going to be a lot of people in this country who are going to start to ask some very difficult questions of their elected leaders."
The Clinton administration commits gross negligence every day it fails even to attempt to reduce or eliminate the risks posed by these mini-weapons of mass destruction. White House and State Department officials must get with it and press the Kremlin to identify any suitcase nukes or related instruments stashed in U.S. hideaways. Additionally, any such weapons wandering around Russia should be found and, if necessary, purchased from Moscow and dismantled under international inspection. In terms of non-bang for the buck, this would be a higher-yield investment than next year's entire defence budget.
If the ever-accommodating Bill Clinton and Al Gore do not consider this a grave national security matter, perhaps they would find it motivating to think of nuclear suitcases as a clear and present danger to dozens, even hundreds, of electoral votes.
RELATED SITES:
(Each link opens a new window)
Government of Russia
Russia's official voice to the world is but a whisper if you don't read Cyrillic.
Russia Today
A broad English-language Russia news source. Lacks a bit in original content.
St. Petersburg Times
An Internet newspaper that appears twice weekly.
CIA World Factbook: Russia
What the CIA wants you to know about Russia. Probably the best snapshot available online.
Deroy Murdock is an MSNBC columnist and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in Fairfax, Va.
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