Read the full text of the Fissile Materials Working Group’s policy recommendations to secure vulnerable fissile materials in four years or see the letter sent to President Obama signed by 20-plus experts.

In April this year in Prague, President Obama stated that terrorists are “determined to buy, build, or steal” a nuclear weapon and that, to prevent this outcome, the United States will lead an international effort to “secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years.”

Because of the vital importance of this nuclear security objective, the nongovernmental expert community in the United States, including the Stanley Foundation, joined together to create a Fissile Materials Working Group. This working group believes in the administration’s four-year policy objective and will work to see that it is achieved in the United States and internationally. To this end the working group is recommending to the administration that it implement five high priority policies, summarized here:

• Launch a new “Next-Generation Nuclear Security Initiative” at or before the global nuclear summit that includes a new global nuclear material security roadmap, a plan for broader international scientific cooperation to prevent nuclear theft and terrorism, and a political and technical action plan to achieve the four-year goal.
• Accelerate efforts to secure and eliminate global highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, and nuclear weapon stockpiles, including in the United States, with an immediate focus on minimizing the number of locations at which fissile materials are stored.
• Implement the policy of minimizing HEU use by including in the policy HEU use in all of its manifestations and create a timetable for a ban on the civil use of HEU.
• Request and aggressively pursue sufficient domestic and international funding for removing and securing all vulnerable nuclear materials in four years.
• Extend and expand the G-8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction for another 10 years, reconfiguring it to have a global focus.