CHICAGO, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A proliferation of potential nuclear weapons materials in the hands of would-be terrorists and a lack of confidence in the way President Bush is handling the issue prompted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to adjust its famed "Doomsday Clock," symbolically moving the world 2 minutes closer to nuclear disaster.
The bulletin's board of directors Wednesday set the clock at 7 minutes to midnight. It was the 17th time the clock had been re-set since its creation in 1947 as a sign of how close to disaster the world is.
The clock was last adjusted in 1998, when tensions between India and Pakistan and the fear they would use their nuclear weapons on each other produced a shift from 14 to 9 minutes to midnight.
Officials with the bulletin, published at the University of Chicago, said that since then, there has been too little progress toward global nuclear disarmament.
They also cited concerns about the security of nuclear weapons materials, and a "continuing U.S. preference for unilateral action rather than cooperative international diplomacy."
The group also noted the United States has abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and interfered with the enactment of international deals that would restrict nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
"Despite a campaign promise to rethink nuclear policy, the Bush administration has taken no steps to significantly alter nuclear targeting doctrine or reduce the day-to-day alert status of U.S. nuclear forces," the bulletin said.
Scientists also note weapons laboratories, with Congressional support, are trying to refine existing nuclear warheads and also designing new weapons that could destroy underground targets, rather than trying to work for peace and disarmament.
Bush and his aides have justified their actions by saying they were looking out for the best interests of the United States, adding they think there were significant flaws in the various agreements referred to by the bulletin.
That logic did not sway Stephen Schwartz, the bulletin's publisher.
"Focusing on making the U.S. more secure doesn't necessarily make the world more secure," he said.
The bulletin indicated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, along with subsequent attempts to use the mail to deliver anthrax spores, should have been taken as a warning of potential nuclear dangers.
Instead, the bulletin said, "The international community has hit the 'snooze' button, rather than respond to the alarm."
The two-minute adjustment could have been greater.
Bulletin officials admit that some positive actions caused them to limit their gesture.
Those include the 187 governments that have agreed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the dismantling by France of its Pacific nuclear test site and military reprocessing facilities, and Britain's research program to re-verify multilateral reductions in nuclear weapons.
"If only in a world of negative aspects, yes, we could be at 5 or 4 minutes (to nuclear disaster)," Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science Chairman George Lopez said. "But we are not only in a negative world."
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded by scientists involved with the Manhattan Project that resulted in the development of the atomic bomb.
Over the years, the clock has shown the world to be as close as two minutes to midnight in 1953, following tests of thermonuclear devices by the United States and Soviet Union within nine months of each other.
They also have been as far apart as 17 minutes, in 1991, following the signing by the United States and Russia of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
"It is a simple but eloquent symbol of nuclear dangers," Schwartz said.
