Talk is cheap

"On a scale of 10...the G-8 should be given a 10 for rhetoric, seven for pledges and a two for progress addressing the most urgent issues", so says Sam Nunn, former Senator and now co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. At the 2002 G-8 meeting $20 billion was pledged to secure nuclear materials and weapons from terrorists' hands. Thus far only $3 billion has been collected, little of which has been used to protect enriched uranium, without which there is no nuclear weapon.

What's happened without the redemption of pledges?

• A foreman in a Russian nuclear plant was arrested in April for trying to sell 22 kilograms of uranium.
• Less than half of Russia's nuclear cache has been secured, although the material is mainly in just a few places.
• Nothing is being done to destroy Russia's tactical nukes. We don't even know how many exist.
• Russia has 39,000 tons of chemical weapons.
• Thirty tons of enriched uranium are being converted to lower-enriched uranium each year in Russia. Russia admits to having 500 tons.
• Some reactors are guarded by a night watchman and a chain link fence.

A closing word from Sam Nunn, "Acquiring weapons and materials is the hardest step for terrorists to take but the easiest step for us to stop."

Terrorists are becoming more sophisticated. When will they fire their first nuclear weapon?