- Enough weapons-grade plutonium to make more than 15,000
nuclear bombs will be vulnerable to hijack by terrorists and rogue states
as the result of a disarmament initiative.
-
- An unprecedented shipment of 300lb of the material from
the United States was last night heading towards the French port of Cherbourg
on two British ships. The shipment is the first instalment of 68 tons of
plutonium from US and Russian weapons stockpiles to be put on to the world's
roads and seas at a time when terrorists are actively seeking the material.
-
- The move severely undermines the war on terror and casts
further doubt on the rationale advanced for the Iraq war by Tony Blair
at last week's Labour conference - keeping weapons of mass destruction
out of terrorist hands.
-
- The Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted that al-Qa'ida
and other terrorist groups will make nuclear bombs and explode them in
Western cities if they can get hold of the material for them.
-
- Last night, the Greenpeace boat Esperanza was stalking
the shipment from the US nuclear weapons establishment at Los Alamos, the
birthplace of the atomic bomb. Described as "the biggest ever shipment
of weapons-grade plutonium" by the independent nuclear consultant
John Large, it is being carried on the Pacific Teal and Pacific Pintail,
owned by a company whose largest shareholder is British Nuclear Fuels.
-
- BNFL refuses to disclose details of the security arrangements,
but the two ships are believed to have crossed the Atlantic each armed
only with a 30mm machine gun and guarded by 13 special atomic energy policemen.
There were reports last night a French warship came out to escort them
as they approached Cherbourg. The US governmentsaid it escorted them to
the limit of its territorial waters with "a combination of Coast Guard
cutters, boats, aircraft and other local law enforcement and naval assets".
After the plutonium has landed, it will be taken 500 miles by road to Cadarache
in Provence, to be made into nuclear fuel.
-
- A series of studies by Mr Large, presented to the US
authorities, have demonstrated gaping holes in the security arrangements.
Early next year, the fuel - only slightly less vulnerable to hijack - will
be transported back across the Atlantic to the Catawaba nuclear power plant
in Charlotte, South Carolina.
-
- US officials say the transatlantic trip is a "one-off",
because there are plans to make the fuel in a new plant at home. But nuclear
experts point out that - though this precise journey is unlikely to be
repeated - it will just be the start. In September 2000, the US and Russia
each agreed to eliminate 34 ton of weapons-grade plutonium and turn it
into nuclear fuel. At least two tons will be taken from stockpiles each
year, transported to fuel fabrication plants, turned into fuel and transported
again to reactors.
-
- Security experts are particularly worried about Russia,
where plutonium is to be taken on journeys of up to 1,200 miles in its
raw form, and up to 4,300 miles as fuel.
-
- Last night, Dr Frank Barnaby, a former Aldermaston nuclear
weapons specialist who became director of the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute, called the plans "an invitation to terrorists
to go nuclear".
-
- He says a group could easily make an atomic bomb from
just four-and a-half pounds of the plutonium.
-
- ©2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd. All rights reserved
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=568403
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