Nobel Laureates Urge Congress to Keep ABM Treaty

On September 11, strategic security transformed from a subject of esoteric debate into a matter of urgent everyday concern for all Americans _ and for all of civilization.

For many years, debate has raged over whether the most probable delivery system for a powerful terrorist weapon would be a ballistic missile or clandestine use of a commercial transport vehicle.

September 11 injected reality into that debate.

We take no joy in the fact that thousands of innocent civilians of tens of nationalities were sent to horrible deaths by clandestine delivery as we predicted. But it has happened. It can happen again.

It is also fact that, had the terrorists used a nuclear or contagious biological weapon instead of jet fuel, casualties would have been two or three orders of magnitude greater. Whether this can happen depends in part on the priorities the United States government sets.

As Frank von Hippel points out, safeguarding and elimination of Russian fissile material is underfunded by more than 90%. Yet National Missile Defense (NMD) is funded at three times the total requirement for protecting Russian fissile material from possible terrorist acquisition.

While the September 11 attack caused NMD to be the target of much sarcastic negative comment in the news media, it also caused an immense boost in President Bush's approval ratings. An Administration riding so high feels no need to re-examine what would otherwise be controversial policies.

Since September 11 the American people and the media have, rightly, viewed elimination of terrorist organizations as the highest-profile national security issue.

On November 12, FAS and Nobel physicist Steven Weinberg held a national press conference releasing a letter from 50 American Nobel laureates to Congress.