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Washington-The United States, in close cooperation with Russia, is spending billions of dollars to account for and secure Russian nuclear materials to keep the world safe from acts of nuclear terrorism.During the Cold War, it would have been difficult to imagine two nuclear superpowers cooperating on such a sensitive issue.But Russia and the United States have been working together since 1998 to put radiation sensors at key transit points-Russian ports, boarder crossings, international airports and key train and road intersections.During a June trip to Kazakhstan, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Rood said trafficking in nuclear materials remains a global problem.“We continue to see nuclear smuggling incidents occur with some regularity,” he said. “While most involved material that would not be useable for a nuclear weapon, some are particularly concerning.”“We live in a dangerous and unpredictable world,” William Tobey, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, said.“Prevention plays an important role in our nonproliferation strategy.”Tobey, who works for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, said the United States has had “a long track record of successful cooperation” with Russia and former Soviet bloc nations.His agency has worked closely with Russia to account for and secure its nuclear materials.Tobey said these activities are on track, and, in some cases, well ahead of schedule. But the issue remains of what to do about nuclear material that might be undocumented and untracked from the time before those efforts got under way; a legitimate concern given the size of the former Soviet Union’s weapons arsenal.By the end of 2007, the two nations will have deployed nearly 200 fixed-portal radiation monitors and hand-held wands.The NNSA and Russia’s Federal Custom Service have galvanized the effort.The strategy is to detect what illicit material might be outgoing, but also what might be brought into Russia as a transit point to another destination.
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