Freedom to DISAGREE

[thepennyking]

DR. DAVID KAY is the former head of the evaluation section of the International Atomic Energy Agency. After the Persian Gulf War, he served as the deputy leader of the Iraqi Action Team of the IAEA which investigated Saddam Hussein's secret nuclear weapon program. He led three inspection missions to Iraq and located the major Iraqi center for nuclear weapons assembly. Dr. Kay has testified before Congress on what the lessons of Iraq can teach about current proliferation threats.

This interview was conducted in 1996.



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Q: A question that I have been asked repeatedly from people who I would say are characterized mostly as indifferent is, why should Americans care about this? Okay, the Russians have a problem, but why should we be concerned at all?

MR. KAY: I think there are two answers to that. We're like tarantulas in a bottle in one sense. What happens in the boundaries of Russia, the former Soviet Union as a larger whole really does affect us and can affect us.

We're talking about the ability to smuggle something that is not that huge. If you look at how much comes across our border, both legally and illegally in terms of drugs, you'd have to be, I think, extremely foolish to say it could never happen here.

Q: If something does get smuggled out, what are the chances that we could detect it at our borders?

MR. KAY: I think you have to say--it's a two-part answer. If you have no clue that it's missing, that is, the Russians don't pick it up, someone in the group involved doesn't talk and it just simple comes in blindly, there's almost a zero chance that you will pick it up.

If on the other hand, the Russians know so you have a long lead time to set up your guard, to try to look, pick up patterns of movement, then there's a greater chance. But it's still, in my view, right now a very low chance. That's something we ought to be working at seriously.

The rest of the story...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nukes/interviews/kay.html