Citizens to Stop Nuclear Terrorism

> A 10-kiloton bomb, smaller than the one that obliterated Hiroshima, could kill half a million people and cause $1 trillion in economic damage if detonated in midtown Manhattan on a typical workday.

> Terrorists could detonate a nuclear bomb like the one that obliterated Hiroshima with about 50 kilograms of highly enriched uranium.

> “The essential ingredients of a nuclear bomb can fit easily into a briefcase, and the weak radiation these materials emit can be made quite difficult to detect with the use of modest amounts of shielding…,” two Harvard University scholars concluded in a report, “Securing the Bomb 2006.”

> The 9/11 Commission warned that terrorists “could fashion a nuclear device that would fit in a van like the one Ramzi Yousef parked in the garage of the World Trade Center in 1993.” The 1,500 pound bomb killed six people and wounded another 1,042.

> The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that “fabrication of at least a ‘crude’ nuclear device was within al-Qaida’s capabilities, if it could obtain fissile material.”

> “Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims.” —Osama bin Laden

> The International Atomic Energy Agency has documented 18 cases of theft involving weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium.

> The U.S. Department of Energy says that there are dozens of nuclear research reactors around the world, each with 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium or more.

> President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed in February 2005 to launch the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, accelerating nuclear security. But the U.S. government still has no comprehensive plan to ensure that all nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials worldwide are secure.

> Although progress has been made in locking down nuclear weapons-grade materials, the will and the technology is there to make a bomb. More needs to be done as quickly as possible to ensure public safety.