David Albright

All too often, emotions and political agendas get in the way of sober, informed decision making, a dangerous combination when the stakes involve war, peace and nuclear weapons. How close is Iran to developing a nuclear weapon? Exactly what was that building in the Syrian desert destroyed by Israeli jets?  Is India illegally acquiring materials for its nuclear weapons program?

Physicist David Albright and his team at the Institute for Science and International Security aim to answer those questions, separating fact from hyperbole, by analyzing hard evidence  found in  satellite imagery, intelligence reports and technical data supplied by their colleagues around the world.  Albright He was instrumental in the debate over the justification for the war in Iraq, providing scientific evidence debunking the Bush Administration’s claims that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program. Albright advised the UN action team inspecting Iraqi nuclear facilities from 1992 until 1997, and was the first non-governmental inspector of the Iraqi nuclear program.  In the mid-1980s he worked with fellow physicists in Brazil and Argentina to expose their governments’ secret nuclear weapons programs.  His work strongly influenced decisions by both countries to renounce their pursuit of nuclear weapons. 

His dogged pursuit of evidence of A. Q. Khan's nuclear smuggling ring pressured the U.S. and Pakistan to face the truth and in the sixteen years Ploughshares Fund has supported ISIS, Albright’s influence and reputation as a straight shooter have grown.  Today, with so many proliferation challenges facing the world, from Iran and North Korea to South Asia and terrorist threats, Albright and his team are needed more than ever.  What is his agenda?  “We simply want to prevent the misuse of science to justify war,” he says.