Chapter Three
Nuclear and Radiological Attacks

In discussions of homeland security, the term weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is used to encompass chemical, biological, nuclear, and radiological weapons, and to differentiate between these types of weapons and conventional weapons such as guns and bombs. There are two main reasons that homeland security experts are so concerned about the possibility of WMD terrorist attacks. First, as the term suggests, WMD are potentially much more dangerous than conventional arms. Second, the threat of a WMD attack requires very different preparations than those being made for conventional attacks (and the different types of WMD attacks each require different preparations). These two considerations underlie the U.S. homeland security strategy surrounding WMD threats.

Low Probability, High Consequence

Many homeland security experts believe that the likelihood of a WMD terrorist attack is very low—or at least much lower than the likelihood of a conventional attack. This is because WMD are harder to obtain or build than conventional firearms and explosives. "There are a limited number of terrorist movements in the world, only a few of which have the ability and desire to acquire and use [weapons of mass destruction],"⁴⁹ states a report from the ESDP. Similarly no terrorist group is believed to have the materials necessary to build nuclear weapons.

To help put the risks in perspective, consider that, worldwide, there has never been a terrorist incident involving nuclear or radiological weapons—in contrast to scores of bombings, aircraft hijackings, and hostage takings since the 1970s. As Harvey Kushner, an expert on terrorism at Long Island University, puts it: "Terrorists have killed many people with conventional weaponry—not some James Bond–type device."⁵⁰

While the likelihood of a severe WMD terrorist incident is very low, nuclear and radiological weapons are nevertheless major homeland security concerns. The reason for this, explains the ESDP report, is based on simple prudence:

It is an issue the government cannot ignore. The consequences of a successful [WMD] attack would be severe. Advances in [technology] raise the destructive potential of a single terrorist act. Therefore, even a small WMD incident should be treated extremely seriously…. Terrorism with weapons of mass destruction should therefore be seen as a low-probability but high-consequence threat.⁵¹

While a bombing or other type of conventional terrorist attack is considered much more likely, the enormous dangers of a major WMD attack are a driving force in U.S. preparedness efforts.

Assessing the Nuclear Threat

Nuclear bombs are the most destructive weapons known and are therefore appealing to terrorist groups, whose goal is to spread fear and panic through destruction. As WMD researchers Graham Allison and Andrei Kokoshin report: "There is no doubt that Osama bin Laden and his associates have serious nuclear ambitions. For almost a decade they have been actively seeking nuclear weapons, and, as President Bush has noted, they would use such weapons against the United States or its allies 'in a heartbeat.'"⁵² The prospect of terrorists actually acquiring nuclear weapons is a nightmarish, but unlikely, scenario. There are three ways that terrorists might acquire nuclear weapons: stealing them, illegally buying them, or building them.

Only eight countries are known to have nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, Israel, India, and Pakistan. Iran and North Korea are also believed to have active nuclear weapons development programs. The weapons arsenals of Britain, China, France, Israel, and the

United States are considered to be well protected. India's and Pakistan's nuclear arsenals are thought to be less secure, in part because the nuclear weapons programs in those countries are relatively new, and the security measures surrounding them are not as well developed.

The security surrounding nuclear weapons and material in Russia and other former Soviet republics is of greatest concern. Prior to its collapse in 1991, the Soviet Union possessed a nuclear arsenal that rivaled that of the United States. Since 1991, however, Russia and many other former Soviet republics have experienced economic turmoil, crime, and government corruption. Although there is no evidence of missing nuclear weapons, some of the Soviet military's armaments have been, and continue to be, sold on the black market. There have also been several attempted thefts of the materials needed to power a nuclear explosion in the former Soviet Union. In December 1998 Russian authorities announced they had foiled a plot to steal forty-one pounds of such material at a weapons plant about one thousand miles east of Moscow, and in August 2002 U.S., Russian, and Serbian forces raided a site in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, and seized over 100 pounds of uranium.

Theft of nuclear devices from India, Pakistan, and Russia is a significant threat that the international community is working to reduce. In addition the concern that foreign governments

hostile to the United States or its allies might develop nuclear weapons and supply or sell them to terrorists has become a major foreign policy issue. (The belief that Iraq was engaged in the development of nuclear weapons was one of the reasons behind the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003.)

Terrorists seeking to build a nuclear bomb would need to procure weapons-grade uranium or plutonium—the materials that fuel the bomb's explosive nuclear reaction. In general, the more uranium or plutonium, the more destructive the bomb. These fissile materials, while still relatively difficult to obtain, are more widely available than nuclear weapons themselves. Both uranium and plutonium are used as fuel in nuclear reactors around the world. Bob Port of the New York Daily News reports that: "More than 22 tons of highly enriched uranium are controlled by civilians in some 245 aging nuclear power plants and research reactors in as many as 58 countries."⁵³ Japan, Russia, India, and several European states also reprocess spent reactor fuel, extracting bomb-grade plutonium in the process. Securing the fissile material at these sites is one of the top priorities in the international effort to prevent nuclear terrorism. Despite the security challenges, says Matthew Bunn, a researcher for Harvard's Managing the Atom project, "We have no evidence that any nuclear materials are yet in the hands of terrorists."⁵⁴

Horrific Consequences

If terrorists procure the necessary fissile material, they might be able to build a crude nuclear device. The basic technical information needed to construct such a device is widely available, as is the necessary equipment. Smuggling such a weapon into the United States would be difficult but far from impossible, and once inside the country, detecting the weapon would be a challenge. In many cities sensors are being deployed that can detect radioactive emissions, but the sensors have limited range and lead shields can hide a bomb's emissions. The Department of Energy (DOE) also maintains Nuclear Emergency Search Teams whose purpose is to locate radioactive weapons or materials should they enter the United States. Operating in secret in America's major cities, these teams act largely on leads from federal intelligence agencies.

If terrorists were able to launch a successful nuclear attack, the devastation could be almost inconceivable. Within the first few seconds of a nuclear blast, the explosion emits an intense burst of light and heat that will blind, burn, and set fire to anyone or anything in the blast radius. The burst of energy also results in an air-pressure shockwave that moves outward from the blast site at supersonic speeds, sending people and objects flying. The explosion produces initially high levels of ionizing radiation that cause death within a few weeks to those exposed.

In Hiroshima, one of the Japanese cities on which the United States used nuclear bombs at the end of World War II, the fires from the blast coalesced into a firestorm. The oxygen rushing into the many building fires fed the flames until everything in the area had been consumed. In the weeks and years after the explosion, residual radioactivity in the form of fallout caused cancer, birth defects, and other maladies in those exposed to it. An estimated one hundred thousand deaths at Hiroshima resulted from radiation sickness—far more than the roughly forty-five thousand who were killed in the initial blast.

The exact effect of a nuclear blast on an American city would depend on a number of factors, including the power of the blast, the population density, the local terrain, and the prevailing weather conditions.

The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that a relatively small nuclear blast in midtown Manhattan would kill more than two hundred thousand people, and radioactive fallout that would follow could kill half the exposed population as far as three miles away within a few weeks. A larger blast could kill millions.

A Focus on Prevention

It is difficult to imagine the effects that this type of devastation would have on the United States. The potential damage that nuclear weapons could cause is so great that, more so than for any other type of terrorist threat, the homeland security strategy regarding nuclear weapons is one of attack prevention rather than attack response. Allison and Kokoshin write:

Nuclear terrorism is largely a preventable disaster. The good news about nuclear terrorism can be summarized in one line: no highly enriched uranium or plutonium, no nuclear explosion, no nuclear terrorism. Though the world's stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials are vast, they are finite…. While challenging, a specific program of actions to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of the most dangerous groups is not beyond reach.⁵⁵

The United States has spearheaded several nuclear security initiatives, working closely with Russia in agreeing to cut nuclear deployments and providing funding to help improve security at nuclear sites. In 1992 the United States also began paying Russia to dilute its uranium to less than 20 percent enrichment, which is less than weapons grade but still enough for use as fuel in nuclear reactors. At the June 2002 G8 summit—a meeting of the world's eight most economically influential nations—the United States, along with Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom, pledged $20 billion to secure Russian nuclear materials. At the June 2003 G8 summit, those nations issued a joint declaration denouncing the nuclear weapons programs of North Korea and Iran.

Although they are grim, homeland security officials have considered nuclear attack–response scenarios. In terms of evacuation, fires, destroyed buildings, and massive casualties,

the response to a nuclear attack might be similar to that of a very large scale conventional attack. Hundreds of thousands of people might require urgent medical care; in the longer term, tens of thousands would need shelter. The key distinction between a nuclear attack and a large-scale conventional bombing would be the effects of radiation. Radiation would also be the key element in two other types of threats: attacks using radiological bombs and attacks on nuclear facilities.

Radiation as a Weapon

Nuclear bombs cause devastation through both the initial high-energy explosion and the ionizing radiation—known as fallout—that lingers after the blast. However, because the fissile materials required to build a nuclear bomb are difficult to acquire, terrorists are thought to be more likely to attack with a radiological dispersion device (RDD). An RDD is a combination of conventional explosives and radioactive material designed to scatter radioactive materials throughout an area.

Radiation is a form of energy generated by atoms as they undergo internal changes. Ionizing radiation is a high-energy form of radiation that can be harmful to humans because it causes charged particles to form in the cells it encounters. Ionizing radiation can strip electrons from the living tissue in human bodies. At low levels this may cause the development of cancer in those tissues. Moderately high levels of radiation (four hundred to one thousand times those that people are exposed to each year) may cause radiation sickness, a condition marked by nausea, vomiting, hair loss, and serious blood disorders. Very high levels of radiation, such as those produced by a nuclear explosion, are extremely lethal.

RDDs, also known as dirty bombs, would be much easier for terrorists to build than nuclear devices. Assembling a dirty bomb would not be much harder than assembling a conventional bomb, since the simplest dirty bombs are just conventional explosives laced with radioactive material. And RDDs do not require the special fissile materials used in nuclear bombs—any harmful radioactive material might be used, in amounts as small as half a cup. "Two of the most common radiological sources that might be used in such a bomb are cobalt 60 and cesium 137," Bill Nichols, Mimi Hall, and Peter Eisner report in USA Today. "Both are used in medical equipment, such as X-ray machines, and food-irradiation plants."⁵⁶

Attacks on Nuclear Facilities

In addition to the threat of radiological bombs, terrorists might try to attack one of America's 103 nuclear power plants with conventional explosives, hoping to disperse lethal radiation into the surrounding area. This would be a type of radiological attack, one that uses radiation from the reactor as a weapon. Reactors are not particularly vulnerable targets. With sixteen-foot-thick concrete walls, barbed wire, surveillance cameras, motion sensors, and armed response teams, they are designed to be durable and disaster proof. But neither are they completely invulnerable. As David Kyd of the International Atomic Energy Agency notes, reactors "are built to withstand impacts, but not that of a wide-bodied passenger jet full of fuel. A deliberate hit of that sort is something that was never in any scenario at the design stage…. The consequences of a direct hit could be catastrophic."⁵⁷

Aside from the reactor itself, terrorists might also try to explode the spent radioactive fuel that some plants store outside their containment buildings. "A lot of the spent nuclear fuel casks can be hit with a shoulder-fired missile by someone standing outside the fence,"⁵⁸ says Dave Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Terrorists could also target nuclear waste material as it is transported by rail and truck.

Security measures at nuclear sites have certainly improved in the wake of September 11. For example one of the first steps the Nuclear Regulatory Commission took was to double, from five to ten, the number of security guards that are required to be on duty at each reactor. The DOE also decided to move part of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which performs research on nuclear energy and nuclear safeguards, from New Mexico to a remote area of the Nevada desert. However, as with other potential terrorist targets, it may be impossible to make America's nuclear facilities completely safe from terrorism.

Responding to Radiological Attacks

Decontamination—removing contaminated clothes and washing the skin and hair—would be the first step in treating victims of radiation exposure. Potassium iodide, a type of salt, can help reduce the risk of development of thyroid cancer as a result of radiation exposure. After September 11 some hospitals began stockpiling the substance, and the government distributed potassium iodide pills to residents living within ten miles of a nuclear reactor. However there is no cure for radiation exposure. Physicians can only treat the symptoms. In fact relatively little is known about radiation sickness, and most of the data on the condition comes from survivors of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Low levels of radiation, such as those likely to be produced by a dirty bomb, would have little immediate effect and are mostly dangerous in the long term. Increased risk of cancer would be the main consequence for those exposed. Educating the public about the relative dangers presented by different levels of radiation—either as a preparedness measure or as part of the response to an attack—is vital to reducing the panic that could accompany a radiological attack.

"The truth is, you have to start out with a boatload of radioactive material in a dirty bomb for the health risk to the population to be significant," says Jonathan Links of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "The real threat of a dirty bomb is psychological."⁵⁹

Depending on the amount and type of radioactive material used, radioactive fallout from a nuclear or radiological attack could linger in an area for weeks, years, or even decades, potentially rendering large urban areas uninhabitable. In addition Federation of American Scientists president, Henry Kelly, notes that: "There are often no effective ways to decontaminate buildings that have been exposed at these levels."⁶⁰ Recovery from a nuclear or radiological attack could, therefore, include demolition of important commercial and government centers or even historic landmarks. Kelly has testified before Congress that a dirty bomb attack in New York City "would result in losses of potentially trillions of dollars."⁶¹

Evacuation and Sheltering

In the event of a radiological attack, or in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, protecting the public from radioactive fallout will be a primary concern. Officials would likely implement evacuation plans, especially if the radioactive fallout is confined to a small area. To aid in evacuation first responders can call on the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which operates the Hazard Prediction Assessment Capability (HPAC) computer program. HPAC is capable of predicting where radioactive fallout will move. DTRA spokesperson, Robert Bennett, says the program "considers weather conditions along with radiological factors. It can show you what will happen in twenty minutes, then forty minutes, and so on."⁶² HPAC was used to track the asbestos particles released from the structures destroyed on September 11.

Emergency workers may also direct people to designated fallout shelters. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the United

States was bracing for a possible nuclear attack from the Soviet Union, many cities and towns designated the basements of some public and private buildings as fallout shelters. However, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an effective fallout shelter "can be any protected space, provided that the walls and roof are thick enough to absorb the radiation given off by fallout particles."⁶³

There are three factors that increase a fallout shelter's effectiveness. The first is shielding. According to the DHS, "the more heavy, dense, materials—thick walls, concrete, bricks, books and earth—between you and the fallout particles, the better."⁶⁴ The second is distance. The farther the shelter is from the fallout particles, the better. The third is time. Fallout shelters should be able to support their inhabitants for up to two weeks, after which the radiation will have dramatically decreased.

Preventing Worst-Case Scenarios

A terrorist attack with nuclear or radiological weapons, however unlikely, would no doubt be the most devastating event that the United States has ever faced. Such weapons truly present homeland security officials with some of the worst-case attack scenarios imaginable. Prudence requires that the United States consider the possibility of such attacks and plan responses accordingly. However, the best defense against nuclear and radiological terrorism is keeping fissile and radioactive materials out of the hands of terrorists. As Allison puts it:

Is it conceivable that we would secure [all the fissile] material that could make possible nuclear terrorism?… Well, why not? The technologies for locking up things that are super dangerous or super valuable are pretty well developed. This is quite feasible if we said this is priority one, two, and three.⁶⁵