April 13, 2010
USA Today

President Obama plans to open his global security summit today by reminding delegates of the supreme irony of the post-Cold War world: "The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up."

Photo: U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, April 12, 2010. (Reuters)

The difference: Terrorists trying to build a nuclear bomb.

"Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations," Obama plans to say, according to excerpts released by the White House. "Just the smallest amount of plutonium -- about the size of an apple -- could kill and injure hundreds of thousands of innocent people."

Here are other excerpts from a speech Obama plans to deliver this morning:

Terrorist networks such as al Qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon, and if they ever succeed, they would surely use it. Were they to do so, it would be a catastrophe for the world -- causing extraordinary loss of life, and striking a major blow at global peace and stability.

In short, it is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security -- to our collective security.

So today is an opportunity -- not simply to talk, but to act. Not simply to make pledges, but to make real progress for the security of our people. All this, in turn, requires something else, something more fundamental. It requires a new mindset -- that we summon the will, as nations, as partners, to do what this moment in history demands.

I believe strongly that the problems of the 21st century cannot be solved by nations acting in isolation -- they must be solved by all of us coming together.