Perry Warns Against Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear terrorism is the major threat facing the United States, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry said at the John F. Kennedy, Jr., Forum last night.

Perry, who led the Department of Defense from 1994 to 1997 under former President Bill Clinton, said that a nightmare scenario in which terrorists could gain access to nuclear weapons and use them against an American city was “all too real.”

“If they get them, they will use them and the results would be devastating,” he said to a crowd of about 200.

Perry, who is now a professor at Stanford University, compared the U.S.’ policy of deterrence during the Cold War with its current policy of preemptive attacks.

He concluded that the best lesson that could be drawn from the Cold War was that patience was necessary in order to deal with the threat of nuclear weapons.

Perry criticized some aspects of America’s current foreign policy.

During the question-and-answer period that followed the one-hour talk, an audience member asked why, given the U.S.’ vulnerability to a nuclear attack, the nation hadn’t taken more concrete steps to combat the threat.

“I don’t think we get it, and I think it will take many years,” Perry said.

He said he supported the invasion of Afghanistan but does not support the Iraq War, since Iraq did not have a nuclear program and was not hosting Al Qaeda.

Perry also said he supports peace and stability in the Middle East, but that these ends should not be pursued through a war.

Perry also criticized the Alaska-based National Missile Defense System as “simply irrelevant,” explaining that “a terrorist group would not use an Intercontinental ballistic missile to attack.”

Today, he said, a bomb with the effects that devastated Hiroshima is about the size of a grapefruit.

But Perry said that the task of building a nuclear bomb from scratch could not be accomplished by a single terrorist group without the aid of a nation state.

What this means, he said, is that the U.S. should use diplomacy to ensure that nations dismantle or protect their nuclear weapon stockpiles.

In order to deal with new nuclear states like North Korea and Iran, Perry said, “tenacious diplomacy” will be needed.

“Reducing the risk of annihilating humanity must have priority,” he said. “That’s how it was during the Cold War, and so it should be today.”