Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?
II, John B. Roberts
will Terrorists G ne year after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a Dodge B-3oo series passenger van was parked on the sandy fiats of the White Sands Missile Range test site in New Mexico....
...We now know," she added, "that terrorists are willing to use large explosive devices, and devices that disperse chemical agents, without warning...
...We describe ourselves as passionate...
...After Russian officials complained these operations were entrapping desperate Russian citizens lured by...
...Former Energy Secretary John Herrington agrees...
...A of Angels In his long career, MIT nuclear engineer Shelby Brewer has overseen the construction and management of nuclear reactor plants worldwide...
...What has happened is one of the most egregious cases of mismanagement of a national program I have seen...
...In the end," the Wild Atom report notes, "nothing was decided or even suggested that would have prevented a nondescript freighter with a crude nuclear device in its hold from arriving in Baltimore harbor in two days time...
...The U.S...
...By imposing standards so stringent that they cannot be met, the extremists plan to make shipment of nuclear waste impossible...
...In 1996, FBI Director Louis Freeh testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations that U.S...
...NEST duty rosters include some of the country's top scientists, bomb experts, and nuclear weapons designers...
...Ramzi Yousef, says one intelligence source, intended the World Trade Center bomb to be a "radiological dispersal device...
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...John Weidner, NEST's program manager, confirms that at least nine of those instances have involved serious threats, including a 1979 theft of uranium from a plant in Wilmington, North Carolina...
...The '82 plan was doable," Dr...
...According to policy makers, security analysts, and nuclear industry officials interviewed for this article, terrorist use of radioactive waste is a much more likely threat than terrorist use of actual nuclear weapons...
...Sensitive monitoring devices measured the dispersal and trajectory of bomb fragments from the blast's epicenter, which the bombers called "ground zero...
...He and New Mexico colleague Pete Domenici joined forces to pass legislation for the training of emergency medical teams in cities across the U.S...
...District Judge Kevin T. Du~' revealed that the bomb which exploded in the Trade Center's parking garage was packed with sodium cyanide...
...Sodium cyanide was not the bombers' first choice...
...A radiological dispersal bomb, like a nuclear weapon, spreads deadly radiation...
...National seeuri~ experts theorize that a comparable number ofnuclear smuggling attempts to those detected in Germany should have been detected across the frontiers of southern Europe and Turke> The fact that no similar surge in smuggling ~ ~ attempts has been reported in these regions is cause for alarm-a sign nuclear smuggling attempts have succeeded...
...abandoned the sting tactics...
...It bent, but it didn't break...
...In order to make both safe to handle and transport, the nuclear material is shielded...
...I believe the people working in the nuclear waste program are doing a fine job" Herrington notes...
...i The Peacemaker has a happy ending, but the q ~ i/ high-level Wild Atom exercise on which it was based was characterized by internal turf battles between competing agencies and confusion over how to respond to these new threats...
...Is there missing Russian inventory...
...To test its durability, one cask type was dropped 2,ooo feet from an airplane traveling at ~35 mph...
...Become part of the only group left standing to fight government corruption...
...In April, Clinton vetoed the Murkowski legislation...
...Weidner maintains that NEST can also deploy surreptitiously, to gain an element of surprise that would be crucial in a counter-terrorist operation...
...Call 1-888-JW-Ethic or visit www.JudicialWatch.org...
...The radioactive contents of spent nuclear fuel rods typically contain about 25 pounds of uranium 235, a ton of uranium 238 , and about 15 pounds of plutonium 239...
...In order to restore ethics and integrity in our government, we need your help...
...But until a993, there was never a World Trade Center bombing either...
...They said security was so loose...
...9 rorist use of radio- Nuclear Waste, Nucl,,:,,~ Shutdown Jch more likely MIT's Shelby Brewer says the former Soviet Union is not alone in poor ~rJst use of accounting for nuclear materials...
...Nonetheless, the design of the Harvey's Casino bomb was so sophisticated that seventeen years later it was invoked by the director of the Energy Department's office that oversees NEST in her testimony to Congress about nuclear terrorism...
...The better the shielding, the fewer sub-atomic particles can be detected...
...One famous incident where NEST's teams did not succeed occurred in 198o...
...501 Schoo I Street, S.W...
...Judicial Watch, I nc...
...I've seen more lack of good management and safeb' at the national laboratories," Brewer says...
...People are not defenseless," Lugar says...
...While conventional bombs designed to disperse nuclear material may sound easier to dispose of than nuclear warheads, recent experience shows otherwise...
...In i980, the Nuclear 1~ R e g u l a t o r . v Comission, which 'tv ~ ~ J l l l l ~ oversees file security requirements for the storage and transportation of civilian nuclear reactor fuel, drafted an environmental assessment entitled "The Transportation of Radionuelides in Urban Environs...
...But at one location it's more efficient...
...The left-over materials and metal in a spent fuel assembly contain deadly levels of uranium, plutonium, cesium, and other radioactive elements...
...Wild Atom" may indicate otherwise...
...devices-nuclear warheads and spent nuclear fuel in a dispersal bomb-would be virtually undetectable...
...Now...
...There are lost inventoclear terrorism is ries and lost finished weapons in the former Soviet Union," he says...
...Enclosed is my tax-deductible contribution of: [~ $10,000 O $5,000 O $1,000 ~1 $500 [~ $250 El $100 D $50 CJ other I Name: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [ I Add . . . . . . . . I I City: I I Stat...
...The worst offenders are the national laboratories, where there are significant quantities of unaccounted-for nuclear materials...
...The realistic game scenario involved former heads of the CIA, FBI, and Energy Deparbnent, and top Pentagon officials in a joint response to a nuclear terrorist threat...
...Needless to say, he adds, "our chances for success are much improved if we have good intelligence...
...Cesium 137 and Strontium 9 ~ are also present...
...With precision timing, the car bomb exploded in a blast that blew outward in a broad circular pattem at the base and rose upward in a smaller, oval-shaped, intensely violent flash...
...experts found large-scale vehicle bombs with sophisticat38 July/August 20 o o _9 The American Spectator They Know We're Out There...
...Pne simulation featured an improvised nuclear weapon made by Moslem radical terrorists being smuggled by ship...
...How much time you can spend in the area, how close you can get to the source, and whether there's any intervening shielding material...
...In 1994, six pounds of highly enriched uranium were recto ered in Prague...
...Over time, the industry will literally become buried in its own waste...
...By imposing such s,ringem stm dards, the extremists p[m make shipment of nuclear wns|e impossible...
...It called for banking the money until the early nineties and then starting construction...
...But this state-of-the-art security system doesn't yet exist...
...But the casks are not tamper-proof...
...order to make h0th safe to handle and Others may be very hard to find...
...In one of the plots, 43 tons of radioactive zirconium metal were seized in Cyprus as they were being prepared for smuggling into the United States...
...Signed into law in 1983 , it became the nation's blueprint for disposal of radioactive waste...
...Legislation passed in 1983 required the federal government to take over nuclear waste storage and nranagement by February 1, 1998...
...Ten plants have already run out of room to store wastes inside the reactor complex and now use dry storage warehouses...
...Senator Lugar isn't waiting...
...The CIA reports galvanized Washington into efforts to prevent any of some zS,ooo nuclear weapons from the arsenals of the former Soviet Union from falling into the wrong hands...
...Senate attempts to override the veto fell short by three votes...
...Email Address: Larry, keep up the good work...
...In Germany alo~qe, police sting operations netted 404 crcdibIe nuclear smuggling cases between 1992 and 1994...
...NEST's ability to detect radioactive material is legendary...
...efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, scientific expertise, The CIi and atomic materials beyond the crumbling Soviet military complex...
...In Nevada you can't get elected to office if you have any sort of reasonable policy with regard to nuclear power or waste shipment...
...But even NEST faces limits...
...The bomb exploded when experts tried to defuse it...
...For clandestine operations, NEST members carry sensors concealed in ordinary attach4 cases, enabling them to walk undetected in crowds and wait for a signal to wireless earpieces to alert them to the presence of a radiation source...
...The plan was for the deadly chemical agent to disperse when the truck exploded...
...Zirconium is a key part of nuclear fuel assemblies...
...In these experts' view, it is already too late to prevent the leakage of nuclear material from Russia...
...By zorn, 78 plants will have run out of storage space...
...Over the }ears Lugar's thinking has cvolx cd from preventing nucIear terrorism to preparing state and local governments for a nuclear terrorist emergent...
...nuclear industry are middle-aged, their careers are in ruins and going nowhere...
...At ]cast taro cases, including the theft of nuclcar fuel rods front a Russian naval base, invoh,ed miIitarv installations...
...Veapons-grade plutonium and uranium have been seized in Germany, cesium has made its way to Lithuania, and there is an unconfirmed report of plutonium seized in \.'erona, Italv...
...At the t994 sentencing of four of the six bombers indicted in the plot, U.S...
...Ironically, the most dangerous transport, the nuclear material is shielded...
...Brewer says...
...In the sixties and seventies, he notes, the U.S...
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...Horrific as the bombing was--six people were killed and more than 1,ooo injured--it could have been far worse...
...While this particular device was not nuclear," Lisa Cordon-Hagerty said, "it offered many of the problems that our scientists and analysts feared could be encountered in a nuclear device...
...A conventional explosion spreads the radioactive debris, causing widespread destruction, contamination, and death...
...725 and receive 2 FREE llewsleUersl Washington, D.C...
...In the eight years since the CIA warn~ ~ , , lngs, there has yet to be a single documented case of an attempt to steal or smuggle a nuclear warhead...
...There are hundreds of individuals trained and designated to assist NEST...
...Nuclear fuel rods remain highly radioactive long after their useful life...
...The disintegrating Dodge van was among the first of many car and truck explosions ordered by Clinton's National Security Council at'White Sands between 1994 and 1997 for a highpriority government research project called Dipole Might...
...They have solved the technical problem' "What you see now are the politicaI impediments...
...It's been stored safely for thirty years," says Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Steve Ungelsby...
...In 1992, a series of still-classified National Intelligence Estimates from the Central Intelligence Agency concluded that such nuclear terrorism is now highly likely...
...In an era Maen the military and top scientists go unpaid,'" Lugar says about Russia's nuclear materials, "this is the coin of the reahn...
...Casks can withstand fires up to 1,475 degrees Fahrenheit...
...It is one of the most politicized programs of the entire U.S...
...Test bombs ranged in size from 5 ~ to 1,ooo pounds of explosives, inside vehicles varying from a Chevrolet Caprice four-door _9 ~_ -Jimlm sedan to a 6o,ooo-pound ~ s ~ ~ tractor-trailer truck...
...The legislation provides funding for training exercises in 12o cities in order to create coordination among federal and local officials in the event of a chemical, biological, or nuclear attack...
...We must therefore assume that nuclear terrorist devices could be placed and detonated without warning...
...Cesium-t37 has a half-life of thirty years on the ground and emits lethal radiation in the form of hard gamma rays...
...The "radioactive inventory" of a typical fuel-rod assembly roughly equals the Hiroshima bomb...
...Nuclear power plants are running out of room to store radioactive waste...
...lti-nuclear activists have been appointed to top levels in the Energy Department and EPA under Clinton...
...One expert says a cask can be structurally weakened by drilling or removal of lugs fastening the cask's lid...
...9 _9 _9 With the death of the Independent Counsel law and a Justice Department too dishonest to police its own misconduct, there is only one group left to fight government corruption...
...As he put it, "It's possible for us to go in discreetly...
...But that deadline has come and gone, and individuaI nuclear power plants are still responsible for storing their own wastes...
...Armed with ~ l l ~ / ~ data from ~ ~ ' ~ . , , ~ ] P , ~ the o Nuclear...
...The cask used for rail transportation of nuclear waste is made of ~z inches of steal covering 8 inches of lead, and weighs loo tons unloaded...
...Standby teams are based in Nevada, but its human assets are spread around the country...
...Worry about the security of U.S...
...experts think terrorists are nrorc likely to use bombs containing nuclear waste than atomic warheads...
...Weidner says up to 80o people can be mobilized to meet multiple threats at any [he most dangerous given time...
...Vans disguised to look like ordinary passenger or commercial vehicles stand ready for search use in larger zones, and NEST has its own search aircraft and helicopters to cover large areas of territory...
...A Center for Strategic and International Studies research project on the nuclear black market chaired by fornrer CIA Director William \Vebstcr reports that Russian Interior Ministry officials acknowledge 54 cases of nucIear materials thefts in just tu o ?ears...
...During the Reagan years, he ran America's nuclear power program at the Energy Department...
...If there were such a threat involving nuclear materials, the U.S...
...false talk of a thrMng nuclear black market, Germany in 1995 o~ciall...
...The dry casks that contain this nuclear inventor}, are designed to withstand severe stresses...
...Once NEST finds a warhead or a radiological dispersal bomb, the next challenge is to successfully neutralize it before it explodes...
...Alone against the backdrop of low-lying hills, the Dodge van looked strangely out of place...
...Most have other full-time jobs...
...40 Ju ly/Augu s t ~ o o o _9 The American Spectator During 30 of operations, including some 2,400 shipments of nuclear fuel since the 196o's, the material has been handled safely...
...Nuclear _9 waste has f already been , ~m-~l~,~i~" ~ used : ~ _9 in taining dynamite and the deadly radioactive element Cesium-137, a waste by-product of nuclear filel, in a Moscow park...
...The EPA agenda is simple...
...The military weapons labs are well-managed...
...Brewer now estimates that a radiological dispersal bomb made from fuel assemblies of JOHN B. ROBERTS II is a television producer and free-lance journalist...
...Many employees in the U.S...
...I I Zip...
...nuclear materials is compounded by delays in implementing a long-term storage plan for the nation's atomic waste...
...iN The American Spectator _9 July~August 2000 41...
...As the wastes pile up at nuclear power plants, the industry will have to choose between shutting down power plants or expanding external storage facilities- provided state legislatures will authoAn .i-nuclear a:livists ]rove been appointed to fop levels in the Energy Deparlmen and EPA trader (hnlon...
...It warheads and spent nuclear fuel in a disper- depends on how much ground we can cover in the amount of time," Weidner says...
...NEST's radiation sensors are far more sophisticated than the rudimentary Geiger counters of the early atomic era...
...Lugar, x~ ho sits on the Senate Select Committee on hrtelligence, says U.S...
...Joint intelligence and policc sting operations have caught nuclear smugglers in tire act...
...Fortunately, the nuclear threat was a hoax...
...Radiation sources can be detected because they emit sub-atomic particles...
...His bill directed the Energy Department to begin shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the site proposed for permanent nuclear ~ waste storage...
...But insiders acknowledge that it is more complex to secure scores of sites, and that overflow waste storage facilities outside the main reactor complex compound security risks...
...sal bomb- =are virtually undetectable...
...Fortunately, the bomb explosion vaporized the chemical, preventing it from contaminating a wide area and probably killing hundreds of people...
...Brewer cites several worrisome trends...
...Its name is: By some, we have been described as bull dogs...
...When and if NEST needs to dispose of a conventional bomb containing nuclear materials, it may encounter a highl~ sophisticated device...
...Using a worst-case scenario involving an explosion of a cask of spent nuclear fuel at noontime in Manhattan, the NRC estimated 2,492 deaths caused by immediate and latent radiation exposure, and up to $3 billion in property damage...
...To counter this vulnerability, the Energy Department recently issued a request for bids specifying even more stringent standards for the next generation of dry casks...
...Most invol~ e insider access at MINATO.',I, Russia's nuclear facilities...
...The bill also prevented the Environ- [ mental Protection Agency from writing tee regulations ,L for nuclear waste shipments, a move the Clinton White House opposes...
...ts;~t(e ; 2~ legb 2 CmYbPs/achn retr Se v?Uladt ~; nmzU~ateslhae d f~en~l: 1;faltartghe tl...
...These plants generate enough electricity to power 65 million homes...
...I " My check is enclosed I~1 Visa [~ Mastercard ~1 Amex ~1 Discover | i Exp...
...ed improvised devices unlike any ever seen before...
...Their location will be monitored by devices welded to them that transmit signals to a satellite, which are then retransmitted to a centralized monitoring facility so that the precise coordinates of each cask are known at one-minute intervals...
...Weidevices--nuclear dner acknowledges that some nuclear threats are difficult to neutralize...
...J The Lugar Project Over the past decade, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind...
...To rectify the storage problem, Senator Frank Mnrkowski (R-Alaska) recently sponsored the Nuclear Policy Waste &nendmenls Act...
...The civilian labs are the problem...
...qeap0ns, also had inventory losses...
...New specifications call for casks that can withstand armor-piercing ammunition and small artillery rounds as well as high-explosives...
...When public officials betray the trust of the people, we stand up and take them to task...
...Our own people tell us they don't know," ~ , , ~ ~ lgar says...
...There are variables," Weidner says in describing NEST's limitations...
...The same claim cannot be made for the simpler, yet deadly, radiological dispersal device...
...Instead, it combines conventional explosives (such as the C- 4 and ammonium nitrate used in the Dipole Might test bombs) with radioactive materials such as spent nuclear fuel...
...Lugar says, "that ~ ou could put a tactical nuclear weapon oll a flatbed truck and just drive it offto Iran...
...3 7 thc kind intercepted in Cyprus would kill thousands if detonated in an urban area...
...Conventional explosives like those tested in Dipole Might would then rupture the casks, dispersing their deadly contents over a wide area...
...Energy Department's Nuclear Emergency Search Team, known as NEST, would have to find and defuse the bomb...
...has been tee drix'ing force in U.S...
...Since its creation in the seventies, NEST teams have been scrambled for dozens of operations involving nuclear threats...
...government," Herrington says...
...When asked what it will take before nuclear waste is permanently secured, Herrington replies: "There will be a triggering event...
...for radiological dispersal bomb attacks...
...Its detection gear can be carried in search helicopters, or by hand in small units...
...intelligence had foiled two conspiracies to import radioactive material into the country...
...When a crashing Soviet satellite spread radioactive debris over Canada during its descent, NEST teams searched an area 600 miles wide and 600 miles long and successfully detected radioactive material as small as a grain of salt...
...What happens if some insiders become antigovernment...
...ver, according to "But don't quote me...
...The average p]ant also generates z8 tons of nuclear waste a year...
...In 1982 , he put together a long-term plan for the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel...
...A senior FBI source confirms that the bombers' initial plan was to irradiate the World Trade Center...
...Although he is bearish about the long-term prospects for nuclear power in the United States, Brewer sees the industry as undergoing a mid-life crisis that makes it vulnerable to seeuri~ breaches...
...Most efforts to contain nuclear smuggling focus on tire former Soviet Union...
...rize the new waste sites...
...Concealed inside were hundreds of pounds of C- 4 military-style plastic explosives, rigged ,._ A to detonate by remote control...
...The project was part of an effort by the Defense Special ' Weapons Agency (formerly the Defense Nuclear Agency) to create a sophisticated computer program for field use by counterterrorism forces...
...NEST is not a large standing organization...
...The Chechens did not detonate their bomb, but they did manage to highlight Moscow's vulnerability--not to mention the limitations of Russia's crack Alpha Force, the paramilitary emergency response team charged with locating and recovering lost or stolen nuclear materials...
...In recent cases in Peru, U.S...
...Another nuclear insider with extensive experience in Russia is less circumspect...
...What really worries the experts is the lethal combination of radioactive waste and conventional explosives...
...High speed film and video surveillance captured the spread of explosive debris...
...Judicial Watch focuses on one mission, and that's to end government corruption...
...Wild Atom became the basis for the hit movie The Peacemaker, in which George Clooney and Nicole Kidman forge an ~ unlikely collaboration and prevent a stolen Russian i warhead from exploding in ) Manhattan...
...In the fall of 1991, shortly after the collapse of the So~ Jet Union, Lugar met with Red .~-mv officers who convinced him of the urgent need to secure the Soviet nuclear arsenal...
...Depending on the event, we may want to stay very low-visibility...
...In "Based on the kind of object we're looking for, some might be very easy to detect...
...96, rc h ebc~-leb: e bIel s spread of lethal chemicals or radioactive material, placed a small bomb ( The NSC's urgent interest in dispersal bombs begins at the World Trade Center...
...Security experts and industry spokesmen are quick to point out that there has never been a theft of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S...
...has lO 5 operating nuclear plants at 74 different locations spread across every region...
...date A . . . . . t#: i | Signature: _ | 7 www.J udicialWatch.org I OR CALL I 888-JW-ETHIC I FOR MORE INFORMATION I Larry Klayman Chairman & General Counsel Judicial Watch~ Because no one is above the law...
...Harvey's Casino at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, was threatened with nuclear extortion...
...The World Trade Center bombing is not the only time terrorists have targeted the U.S...
...But unlike a nuclear warhead, it does not split atoms to produce an explosion...
...NEST's search equipment is on standby at Nellis AFB, just outside Las Vegas, ready to be loaded onto a commercial or military aircraft for rapid deployment...
...The nuclear industry is dormant, downsizing, similar to the Soviet Union," Brewer says...
...That is the name of a simulation conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies...
Vol. 33 • July 2000 • No. 6
