Prominent experts addressed international and local stability at the Coalition for Peace Action's 25th anniversary dinner on Friday.
"The most dangerous threat is terrorists plus nuclear weapons plus any state arsenal, including ours," nonproliferation scholar Joseph Cirincione said at the meeting.
Cirincione, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recently returned from a five-day tour of nuclear facilities in Iran. He attacked the Bush administration's claim that "Axis of Evil" regimes could provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.
"If you're Osama bin Laden and you want a nuclear weapon, where are you going?" Cirincione said. "You're not going to Iraq, they don't have nuclear weapons. You're not going to Iran, they don't have nuclear weapons. You're not even going to North Korea. Even if they had them, are they going to give them up?"
Al Qaeda will attempt to obtain nuclear weapons from a "weak link," which is likely to be in the former Soviet Union, he added.
"Where is Osama bin Laden going to go? He's going to go to where the weapons are. To the Soviet Union, where there are 17,000. Where there's enough highly enriched uranium and fissile material for 40,000 more . . . protected by a padlock and a guard that works during the day," Cirincione said.
Cirincione argued that bin Laden does not care about the "political orientation" of a state with nuclear materials, but rather about that state's security. While Cirincione criticized the Bush administration's approach to nuclear nonproliferation, he emphasized that the threat of nuclear attack was very real.
"[Terrorists] are interested in having a nuclear weapon that can destroy a city," he said. "If one of these groups — al Qaeda or the like — get it, they will use it. I am convinced of this."
The Coalition also honored former Governor James Florio for his successful campaign to enact a strict assault weapons ban in the state.
"We engaged the people of the state behind the common sense proposition that the interest of the state was not advanced by providing more access to Uzis or AK-47s," Florio said.
Florio praised the Coalition for its quarter century of work toward peace, yet reminded the activists that they have a duty to engage in constructive dialogue with the opposition. The former governor, a Democrat, also delivered a succession of partisan blows against the Bush administration and its policies.
"I can remember when preemptive war used to be described of as a war of aggression. We fought two world wars against nations that initiated wars of aggression. And here it is we've gone to war [in Iraq] for reasons that don't exist," Florio said.
Florio concluded his speech by asserting that America's soft power exceeds its military might in some respects. The former governor urged those in the audience to spread American ideals at home and abroad.
"Democracy is not a spectator sport. It's time for all of us to get off the bench and into the game," Florio said.
U.S. Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), whose congressional district includes the University, also attended the Coalition for Peace Action dinner.
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