'Last Best Chance' To Save World
It all seems so Hollywood.
Central character: the President of the United States, a role very much in vogue these days, portrayed by a familiar actor, a one-time real-life senator, Fred Thompson.
Movie: someone is trying to acquire Russian tactical weapons.
The plot of "Last Best Chance" is chilling: al Qaeda terrorists steal nuclear material to make bombs more destructive than the one which destroyed Hiroshima, CBS News correspondent Thalia Assuras reports.
"Well, this isn't Hollywood. This is a movie made totally from the facts," says former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean. A Republican, Kean co-chaired the 9-11 commission and sees "Last Best Chance" as a wake-up call.
"This to me is the number one scary scenario facing the country," Kean says of the film's plot. "There is nothing in my mind more worrisome than a terrorist with a nuclear device getting across the border of the United States."
It's a fear shared by the man behind the movie. Former Sen. Sam Nunn. The four-term Georgia Democrat thinks the world is taking too long to "lock down" nuclear material vulnerable to theft.
"Yes this is a race and we're not running. We've got to greatly accelerate the pace," Nunn says. "We have just returned from a trip to the four republics that still have nuclear weapons."
Nunn fought nuclear proliferation for years in the Senate.
"We need to begin to delegitimize highly-enriched uranium all over the globe," Nunn explains.
He now heads the nonpartisan Nuclear Threat Initiative. The organization works with governments around the world to control dangerous weapons material and thwart terrorist ambitions.
"We don't have to inevitably face a nuclear disaster. We can keep weapons grade material out of the hands of terrorists," Nunn says.
Nunn's group produced "Last Best Chance" to dramatize what it believes are scary, but plausible scenarios:
"Most of those research reactors literally don't have more than a chain-link fence and a night watchman as their security," warns Matthew Bunn, who studies nuclear proliferation at Harvard University.
Bunn served as a technical advisor for "Last Best Chance." Bunn says he believes the film accurately portrays just how easily terrorists could get their hands on nuclear material.
In the movie, the terrorists take stolen highly-enriched uranium and turn it into a bomb.
"We know about more than 18 cases, really highly-enriched uranium or plutonium has gotten stolen and then seized. What we don't know is of what iceberg are we seeing the tip," Bunn says.
"The CIA has officially assessed, that's CIA-speak for guessed, that thefts have occurred that we haven't detected," Bunn says.
"Last Best Chance" also shows just how easily nuclear bombs can be moved once they're assembled, and how very difficult the weapons are to detect; which is why it's so important for terrorists to be stopped from getting the material in the first place.
Bunn says, "We know how to secure valuable and important things. Human beings have been doing that for thousands of years. We never lose anything from Fort Knox. The Russians never lose anything from the Kremlin armory."
In the last presidential debates, both candidates agreed on the nation's top security concern. But Nunn believes rhetoric is not enough.
"I think the political will has not been as strong. We have had some actions. We have had the right words. But converting words to deeds is enormously important," Nunn says.
In the movie, the American and Russian presidents work well together. And, at a summit earlier this year, the real presidents Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin did make some progress.
"We agreed to accelerate our work to protect nuclear weapons and material in our two nations and around the world and I want to thank you for that," Mr. Bush said to his Russian counterpart.
Nunn says that only about half of the nuclear sites in Russia and other former Soviet states meet U.S. security standards. He blames bureaucracy, tight money and a general lack of urgency.
"It ought to be on the front burner every day with President Bush. It ought to be on the front burner with President Putin. So is it on the agenda? Yes. But is it on the front burner? In my opinion it has not been and it must be," Nunn says.
Asked if the film was a way to pressure the leaders into action, Nunn laughed and said, "That's right."
It cost a $1 million to make "Last Best Chance." The movie has been screened more than 20 times, in Washington, Moscow and elsewhere around the world. The Nuclear Threat Initiative offers free DVD copies on its Web site. So far, more than 50,000 have gone out and Monday night, the movie airs on HBO.
The hope is that appealing directly to the public will force politicians to act.
"When you can get the public involved, the public officials move faster," Kean believes.
Nunn, who came up with the title "Last Best Chance," believes terrorists would probably have used a bomb if they already had one.
"The reality is we don't know what the odds are, but we do know we can make the world a lot safer. And we do know we can reduce towards zero the risk that any nuclear weapon would be used by anyone at anytime.
"Are we there yet? No we have a long way to go," Nunn says. "Will it ever be zero? Probably not. But we can dramatically reduce the risk. We do have a last best chance."