Forget iraq. Forget Afghanistan.
The most pressing issue in international affairs is
nuclear proliferation.
That was the message in separate talks on campus recently
by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and director-general
of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei.
In appearances a week apart sponsored by the Center
for International Security and Cooperation, both men
warned that more nations, not to mention terrorists,
are closer than ever to having the capacity to produce
and deliver a nuclear weapon. They blamed a leaky system
of controls on materials needed to produce a bomb, and
a lack of focus on the issue because of events in Iraq
and elsewhere.
“The most disturbing insight to emerge from our
work in Iran and Libya has been the revelation of an
extensive illicit market for the supply of nuclear items,”
ElBaradei said, referring to IAEA efforts to enforce
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Mohamed ElBaradei
Linda A. Cicero
McNamara painted a stark image of the potential for
damage if even one small nuclear weapon were in the
hands of terrorists. “If the airplane that hit
the Twin Towers had been equipped with a 10-kiloton
bomb, 100,000 people would have died,” he said.
He pressed for incremental cutbacks, stricter controls
and the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons.
“Events will always slip out of our control when
nuclear weapons are involved,” said McNamara,
recalling the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis
when he advised President John Kennedy. “We must
move promptly toward the elimination of nuclear weapons.”
