Nuclear security

Republicans say White House dangerously unfocused on true nuclear threat

The Obama administration has failed to combat worrisome nuclear proliferation, especially in Russia, North Korea, Iran and Pakistan, Republican senators said Thursday, countering State Department officials who contended the bigger and more immediate threat is nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists.

In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the administration’s nuclear policies, Rose E. Gottemoeller, undersecretary for arms control and international security at the State Department, and Thomas M. Countryman, assistant secretary for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, focused on the threat of nuclear terrorism rather than the state of arms control.