Police say seized radioactive material was weapons-grade

Two Hungarians and a Ukrainian arrested in an attempted sale of uranium were peddling material believed to be from the former Soviet Union, police said Thursday. Officials claimed it was weapons-grade uranium, but outside experts questioned that assessment and suggested it might be far \nless lethal.\nThe three men, who were arrested Wednesday in eastern Slovakia and Hungary, were trying to sell about a pound of uranium in powder form, said First Police Vice President Michal Kopcik.\n“It was possible to use it in various ways for terrorist attacks,” Kopcik said.\nKopcik said investigators believed the uranium was suitable for a radiological “dirty bomb.” He said the uranium had been stashed in unspecified containers, and that investigators determined it contained 98.6 percent uranium-235. Uranium is considered weapons-grade if it contains at least 85 percent uranium-235.\nBut nuclear experts who were shown police photographs of radioactivity readings contended the material was probably not as dangerous as authorities believe.\nExperts suggested the police confused a scientific reading of the material as dealing with its “concentration” of uranium-235, when in fact it was just a “confidence” level of the machine to give an \naccurate reading.\n“Uranium is not very radiotoxic,” said David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.\n“The net effect of dispersing half a kilo (about a pound) of uranium – who cares? Each person would get so little it would have no effect,” \nAlbright said.\nAlexander Glaser, a researcher at Princeton University’s Program in Science and Global Security, said any discussion of dirty bombs in this case was “off topic.”\n“Even naturally occurring uranium would be more effective than this in making a dirty bomb,” he said. \nInvestigators were still working to determine who ultimately was trying to buy the uranium, which the three allegedly were selling for \n$1 million.\nKopcik said police had intelligence suggesting that the suspects – whose names were not released but were all men aged 40, 49 and 51 – originally had planned to close the deal sometime between Sunday and Wednesday. Police moved in when the sale did not occur as expected, he said.\nOne of the Hungarians had been living in Ukraine.\nKopcik said three other suspects – including a Slovak national identified only as Eugen K. – were detained in the neighboring Czech Republic in mid-October for allegedly trying to sell fake radioactive materials. It was unclear to what degree, if any, they played a role in the thwarted uranium sale.\nThe arrests heightened long-standing concerns that Eastern Europe is serving as a source of radioactive material for \nterrorist weapons.\nExperts say roughly 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium or plutonium is needed in most instances to fashion a crude nuclear device. But they say a tiny fraction of that is enough for a dirty bomb – a weapon whose main purpose would be to create fear and chaos, not \nhuman casualties.\nVitaly Fedchenko, a researcher with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said people should not get the idea that the world is awash in easily obtainable bomb components.\n“The danger is definitely there. But there’s no reason to panic,” he said. “Most of the ‘buyers’ out there are law enforcement agents. And not all of the materials out there are weapons grade.”