U.S. officials say uranium retrieval a high priority

WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-Russian effort that whisked a cache of weapons-grade uranium out of Yugoslavia this week is part of a larger nuclear materials security program given new urgency after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Experts worry that terrorists or hostile nations may get their hands on enough uranium or plutonium to build a nuclear bomb from one of hundreds of research reactors around the world.

The United States is focusing on 24 reactors in 16 countries that, like the site in Yugoslavia, were built and fueled with help from the former Soviet Union, State Department officials said Friday.

"We want to get at all of them. Some of them are more pernicious than others," said a top State Department official involved in the program, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We have plans to address every single one of these facilities."

The reactors are designed to use highly enriched uranium -- which can also be used to make nuclear bombs -- to create nuclear isotopes used for medical treatments and other peaceful purposes. Now, given advances in technology and increased worries about terrorism, there's no need for those reactors to use bomb-grade uranium, U.S. officials say.

'Single sleepy watchman'

The research reactors are a big worry because they would offer a ready source of precisely the material needed to create a nuclear bomb -- and security at some of them is frighteningly lax.

"In some cases security is provided by a single sleepy watchman and a chain link fence," said a report released in May by Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom.

The U.S. government is constantly tracking reports and rumors that terrorists and hostile nations are looking for enriched uranium and plutonium. Iraq, for example, had ties with former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, though there's no evidence Milosevic ever gave any nuclear material to Iraq.

The United States is working with Uzbekistan to get rid of the highly enriched uranium stockpile at a research reactor in the former Soviet republic, which borders Afghanistan.

U.S. officials declined to name other specific sites for fear of giving terrorists "a grocery list" of places to seek nuclear materials.

$15 million fund

It's unclear how long it will take to secure all the weapons material at the two dozen sites, since that depends on diplomacy and funding. The State Department's nonproliferation program fund has only about $15 million, for example, and the operation in Yugoslavia cost the U.S. government about $2.5 million.

Last year, the Bush administration had proposed cutting $100 million from the government's $874 million nuclear nonproliferation budget, but Congress restored most of those cuts and added $226 million after the Sept. 11 attacks.

This year's budget proposal calls for spending nearly $1.2 billion, which includes $3.1 million to upgrade the safety and security of research reactors and other civilian nuclear sites.