Dick Lugar: “when Chechen rebels placed a 30-pound package of radioactive material in a Moscow park last November, it marked the…”

“when Chechen rebels placed a 30-pound package of radioactive material in a Moscow park last November, it marked the first act of nuclear terrorism in the post-cold-war era. Although the container was not equipped with the explosives needed to disperse the cesium, the Chechens demonstrated a credible terrorist threat to employ nuclear material attached to explosives as radiological dispersion devices in Russia. The act crossed a new threshold in terrorism. Demonstrating on Russian television the ability to penetrate Moscow's increased security, Chechen rebels were now in a position to panic the Russian public by issuing similar threats of radiological contaminants. Terrorism was alive and well in another part of the world at roughly the same time. The worldwide activities of the Japanese Dooms-Day Cult, the Aum Shrinkiyo were not on the radar screen of United States law enforcement and intelligence agencies before the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway last March. This is alarming, considering the cult accumulated over $1 billion in assets and established offices in six countries on four continents. Cult members actively recruited scientists and technical experts in Japan, Russia, and elsewhere in order to develop weapons of mass destruction.”