By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

President-elect Barack Obama has an historic opportunity to drastically reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism and should appoint a senior White House official to pursue it, The Associated Press’ Barry Schweid cites from a new academic study. We verge on “an age of more nuclear weapons states, more nuclear materials, and more nuclear facilities that are poorly secured — making the job of terrorists seeking the bomb easier,” a brace of Obamaadvisers further alert in Foreign Affairs. “In its eight years in office, the Bush administration neglected doing anything serious about these matters,” Stephen Schlesinger critiques in a Century Foundation Taking Note essay.

Feds: Challenging the Bush administration’s detention policies, a federal judge ruled yesterday that five Guantanamo detainees are being unlawfully held, The New York Times’ William Glaberson relates. Ex-top dip George Shultz tells The Washington Times’ Donald Lambro that Obama should practice the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive defense against terrorism — while IPT News reports a Senate GOP report urging Justice to cut off outreach efforts with organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist groups. The plan to build an HQ for DHS on the grounds of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was approved yesterday, The Washington Business Journal’s Jonathan O’Connell relates. DHS has done a poor job overseeing the purchase of billions of dollars of equipment and technology, USA Today’s Thomas Frank quotes from a GAO report.

In transition: “A top to bottom analysis of DHS should determine a new strategic plan to bind” its many law enforcement agencies together, Tickle the Wire advises the homeland transition team. While attention focuses on identifying the next secretary of state, “maybe even more important in these times, is Obama’s choice to head this country’s anti-terrorism efforts,” The Lawrence Journal-World comments. If Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano does become DHS secretary, it would hand the governor’s office to Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer, AP’s Paul Davenport spotlights — and see Seyward Darby in The New Republic.

State and local: Missouri’s public safety chief worries the state could be wrongly targeted because of confusion over where the sheikh behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing is being held, AP reports. Texas Gov. Rick Perry yesterday lashed out at FEMA, calling its efforts to help Texas recover from Hurricane Ike “underwhelming” and “irritating,” AP also relates. Raleigh County (W.Va.) will use a $600,000 DHS grant to buy equipment in case a disaster in the nation’s capital forces people to evacuate to southern West Virginia, the BeckleyRegister-Herald notes. In its final report this week, an Iowa commission says the state should invest in and better coordinate local and regional emergency management agencies, Radio Iowa relates.

The Invisible Hand: “In a free society like our own, the starting point for risk management, is with the individual and with the private sector. People routinely balance risk and reward. It is the essence of what freedom is,” Knowledge @ Wharton quotes DHS’s Mike Chertoff. Obama needs to take a new approach to cybersecurity, with government providing incentives for private businesses to adopt security measures, IDG News Service cites a cybersecurity group. “I am certain the private sector will continue to play a prominent role with DHS, particularly in the development of new technologies,” ex-DHS chief security officer Dwight Williams assures CSO Magazine.

Chasing the dime: A CounterPunch contributor draws attention to the role of likely Obama A.G. Eric Holder’s role in defending Chiquita on charges of funneling money to a terror-listed Colombian paramilitary group. “The dreaded Abu Sayyaf bandit group has now ventured into ‘narco-terrorism’ to raise money for their activities,” the Philippines’ GMA News is told. “The outgoing administration, with little fanfare and less notice, has obligingly opened yet another avenue for the Islamists to pursue their ultimate objective of imposing barbaric sharia law in America,” a Human Events op-ed objects. Defective flash-bang grenades the military had used were allegedly relabeled and then sold to the FBI and local law agencies, CNN notes.

Bugs ‘n bombs: Most of the nation’s 101 most dangerous chemical facilities “could become less attractive terrorist targets by converting to alternative chemicals or processes,” The Gannett News Service cites from a new think tank study. A $190,000 DHS bequest will enable the Flathead County (Mont.) Sheriff’s Office to establish security around Hungry Horse Dam, The Daily Inter Lake informs. A pending National Intelligence Council snapshot of the world in 2025 forecasts a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, The Washington Times tells. Terrorist attacks will likely decline in number by 2025 but will be deadlier, AP has the estimate also deciding. Iran has produced enough nuclear material for a single atom bomb, but may not have the know-how to build it, The New York Times tells. The Syrian facility bombed by Israel last year bore multiple hallmarks of a nuclear reactor, and the ruined site was contaminated with uranium, the Post has U.N. inspectors more or less confirming.

Coming and going: “This holiday season, it’s still shoes off and liquids out at airport security, but changes may be on the way to part of this routine,” while more behavior detection officers will be put on the line, CNN updates. The Bremerton-Seattle ferry run returned to service Tuesday afternoon after a reported threat forced traffic to be rerouted to Bainbridge Island, The Seattle Times tells. More than 3,100 defendants in seven North Carolina counties were placed in deportation proceedings this year as a result of a program that allows sheriffs to enforce federal immigration laws, The Raleigh News & Observer notes.

Courts and Rights: The informant in the Fort Dix terror trial said he thought the plan was “crazy . . . foolishness,” but refused to accept a defense attorney’s argument that the plot was a “fantasy,” The Philadelphia Inquirer informs. There is not a “shred of evidence” that a Pakistani woman accused of terrorist intentions in Afghanistan was abducted or tortured in the five years before her arrest, AP quotes a federal prosecutor — while The Associated Press of Pakistan has Islamabad seeking her repatriation. A Syrian-born arms dealer has been convicted in federal court on terror charges for conspiring to sell weapons to Colombian narco-rebels, BBC News notes.

Guantanamo Bay Watch: For the first time, defense lawyers have been allowed to see a section of Guantanamo so restricted even its location is a secret, AP reports. As have others, the Post notes that the “single biggest potential difficulty” in shuttering Guantanamo is a “group of Yemeni prisoners, who make up fully 40 percent of the detainees still held there” — while Los Angeles Times and USA Today point-counterpoint features see-saw on the consequences of closing Gitmo down. The Australian Federal Police will not be seeking another control order on ex-Gitmoite and convicted terror supporter David Hicks, The Australian Broadcast Corporation reports.

Over there: Kenyan men recently released from an Ethiopian jail say U.S. intel officials interrogated them there, Newsweek notes. Al Qaeda is struggling to boost its appeal in Pakistan following President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation, Reuters has a U.S. terror expert concluding. Not only is the Bush administration unlikely to scale back its missile attacks on Pakistan-based extremists, “from all indications, they are increasing dramatically,” another Newsweek report says. “The crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan are beyond the point where more troops will help. U.S. strategy must be to seek compromise with insurgents,” a Foreign Affairs essay says.

Kulture Kanyon: “From earth-shattering fusion reactors to catastrophic earthquake machines to planet-destroying space stations, here’s a list of some of our favorite extinction-bringing devices from film, television and videogames,” a Wired gallery offers. The So So Glos debut album, “Tourism/Terrorism” (Green Owl Records) “features nine songs that rush by in a heady 27 minutes and say just about everything the band needs to say, at least for now,” Street’s George Varga reviews. “I wrestled with the thought of taking the word terrorist completely out of this book, but that was a term that was so prominently used at that time,” Dennis Lehane tells Miami New Times’ Tim Elfrink in re: “The Given Day” (HarperCollins), a novel about the Boston Police Strike of 1919. Check Miscellanea for a printable security poster reading: “Warning! In Case of Terrorist Attack: Keep Your Wits, Do NOT Discard Your Brain.”

The Silver Scream: “We all abhor terrorism so much that we hardly need say so, don’t we? Of course not. We love it. And why not? Nothing else offers such a heady cocktail of sanctimony, cruelty and glamour,” David Cox’s Guardianreview of “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Constantin) leads. “We now tend to think of the conflation of terror and art as a post-9/11 phenomenon. The phrase ‘terror chic’ became popular in the summer of 2002 . . . Yet of course this symbiosis between fiction and politics was fully alive in the late 1960s,” The Guardian’s Philip Oltermann muses in reference to the same film. “The Losing Bet,” a new film financed by the government of Yemen, aims to educate a terror-scarred nation about the consequences of jihad, McClatchy Newspapers’ Shashank Bengali spotlights.