Secret mission marks Obama nuclear strategy

[TomCADem]

Source: Associated Press

President Barack Obama's major shift in U.S. nuclear strategy puts a new emphasis on securing this kind of weapons-grade nuclear material, recognizing that terrorists and rogue states pose a much more immediate threat than the old fears of a communist nation provoking nuclear Armageddon by attacking the U.S. or its allies.

"For the first time, preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism is now at the top of America's nuclear agenda," Obama said before signing a new START treaty with Russia to sharply reduce the number of warheads each country has ready to fire.

* * *

Chile was among the first to agree to surrender its last HEU, 18 kilograms (40 pounds) it got from Britain and France for its two research reactors. A team of Americans finally shipped it out last month just after the country's massive earthquake, weaving a convoy of trucks around shattered highways in the middle of the night to reach a functioning port.

The Associated Press documented the transfer, agreeing to keep the details secret until the material arrived safely in the United States.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36394416/ns/us_news-security/

[eleny]

1. I couldn't find the article at that url but found it here

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/11/1870315/chile-gives-its-last-weapons-grade.html

Amazing how "vulnerable" the uranium is.

"Deep inside the containment building of a nuclear reactor that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet built for his army, an aging engineer in a white lab coat struggled with a common house key to unlock a closet door.

Opening a dusty wooden box he pulled from a shelf, he revealed an array of thin aluminum-coated plates, and lifted one out with his bare hands.

"This is it," said Hugo Torres, the reactor's operations manager.

"It" is highly enriched uranium 235, HEU for short. It's the material that most worries anti-terrorism experts. Just 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of it in a nuclear bomb could devastate an entire city, in the same way the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II."

[frazzled]

2. They got it out days before the earthquake

Remarkable, interesting story.

[boppers]

6. After the earthquake, according to the story.

"A team of Americans finally shipped it out last month just after the country's massive earthquake, weaving a convoy of trucks around shattered highways in the middle of the night to reach a functioning port."

[MadMaddie]

3. Things are going on behind the scenes and this is good.

This should have been one of the Previous admins highest priorities instead they cut funding to help countries secure these elements.

[mucifer]

4. When he was in the senate, Obama was working on this with senator Lugar.

[Grand Taurean]

5. Obama said he would make it a priority to secure

all nuclear materials.

[Cha]

7. KR