'US must do more to secure radioactive material'

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The Energy Department has not done enough in Russia and in developing countries to secure radioactive material that could be used to make a so-called dirty bomb, congressional investigators said Tuesday. A report by the Congressional Accountability Office said that over the past four years security has been improved at hundreds of sites containing radioactive material in 40 countries but "many of the highest-risk and most dangerous sources still remained unsecured." The GAO, Congress' investigative arm, said the government has spent $108 million (€81.7 million) since 2002 on securing such material - some of it abandoned, lost or in poorly guarded waste sites. But there has been "limited progress securing many of the most dangerous sources," especially in Russia where radioactive material is used to power hundreds of small generators in remote sites, the report said.