U.S. creates nuclear forensics center: report

The United States has launched a government-wide effort to build a comprehensive forensic database of nuclear and radiological materials from all over the world to help U.S. officials quickly identify and act against those who help build "dirty bombs," a news report said Monday.

The ability to determine who supplied the nuclear materials used in a bomb was critical to U.S. efforts to shape a new policy aimed at deterring such proliferation, according to the report published in Monday's edition of Defense News.

The "capability requires nuclear forensics - because we have to persuade (potential proliferators) we have the capability that we' ll find the source," said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, and a former Clinton administration defense official.

U.S. officials wanted to identify the nuclear culprit within hours - but recent experience with Libya showed that the process could take years, the report said.

The effort to assemble the database would be led by the new National Technical Nuclear Forensic Center, which was part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The center would seek the cooperation of the world's nuclear powers in gathering information and materials, and might get help from covert U.S. agents in recalcitrant nations, it said.

"We are trying to create the DNA and fingerprints for radiological and nuclear materials" from all over the world, Vayl Oxford, the director of the nuclear-detection office, was quoted as saying.

The center would have a limited budget, acting as a planning cell and coordination center for the various U.S. government agencies that would help, including the departments of Defense, Energy and State; the Attorney General's office; U.S. intelligence agencies; and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The effort, launched Oct. 1, would catalog isotopic ratios, chemical compositions and physical structures of radiological materials, creating an analog to FBI databases that allowed suspects fingerprints to be matched against those of known criminals.

Source: Xinhua