John Deutch

About the author: John Deutch is director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.

Nuclear materials and technology are today more available to terrorist groups and rogue nations—countries such as Iraq that do not obey international law—due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Thieves and terrorists are obtaining nuclear materials because many nuclear sites located in the former Soviet Union are now unguarded—or guarded by poorly paid Russian workers who illegally sell the materials in order to make money. Well-established illegal trade routes and trade networks maintained by organized crime syndicates across Europe make it difficult to stop the diversion of nuclear materials into the hands of power-seeking governments and terrorist groups.

How serious a threat is the potential acquisition of...