For years President’s in the United States have promised to secure nuclear stockpiles, however a recent report has found that the Federal government currently has no way to track nearly 5,900 pounds of “weapons usable” nuclear material that has been sold to foreign government over the years.
The report, commissioned by the Government Accountability Office was revealed last week by Wired and shows that instead of tracking the material the US government is relying on “assurances” that the material they sold is being kept secure.
One source close to the program says:
“We’re not, to coin a phrase, trusting but verifying.”
Thankfully the material was sold to allies of the United States which in turn makes the situation a little less grave, however that doesn’t mean the tracking program isn’t without issues. From 1994 through 2010 55 sites were visited by UN security officials and 21 of those sites were not up to proper code.
In seven more cases UN investigators couldn’t access records or had lost records all together for seven other facilities. Regardless of their ability to actually find or access those reports and facilities the Energy Department says all nuclear material is accounted for, even if they can’t find it at the present moment.
Do you believe the U.S. should have done a better job of securing weapons grade nuclear material since the very start of the program? I personally think selling those materials, even to our allies, never should have occurred in the first place due to the dangerous weapon making substances that were involved in those transactions.
