DIRTY BOMBS AND BASEMENT NUKES: THE TERRORIST NUCLEAR THREAT
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DIRTY BOMBS AND BASEMENT NUKES: THE TERRORIST NUCLEAR THREAT
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 6, 2002
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware, Chairman
PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland JESSE HELMS, North Carolina
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon
PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota BILL FRIST, Tennessee
BARBARA BOXER, California LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia
BILL NELSON, Florida SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming
Virginia
Edwin K. Hall, Staff Director
Patricia A. McNerney, Republican Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, prepared
statement...................................................... 5
Cobb, Dr. Donald D., Associate Laboratory Director for Threat
Reduction, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM...... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 14
Helms, Hon. Jesse, U.S. Senator from North Carolina, prepared
statement...................................................... 6
Kelly, Dr. Henry C., President, Federation of American Scientist,
Washington, DC................................................. 30
Prepared statement........................................... 37
Koonin, Dr. Steven E., Provost, California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, CA....................................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 19
Meserve, Dr. Richard A., Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC................................................. 8
Vantine, Dr. Harry C., Division Leader, Counter-terrorism and
Incident Response, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
Livermore, CA.................................................. 48
Prepared statement........................................... 53
(iii)
DIRTY BOMBS AND BASEMENT NUKES: THE TERRORIST NUCLEAR THREAT
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room
SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R. Biden,
Jr. (chairman of the committee), presiding.
Present: Senators Biden and Nelson.
The Chairman. The hearing will please come to order. Good
morning, gentlemen. Thank you so much for being here. Let me
explain, I have already explained to three of our five
witnesses today the scheduling dilemma, and I want to explain
to the public and the press that is here our circumstances. We
have a number of things going on today, not the least of which
is, Senator Helms and I, along with our counterparts in the
House, have been asked to meet with the President at 10:30, and
the President is fulfilling his commitment of briefing us on
some detail on foreign policy matters.
As you know, there is a little bit of, as they say, a dust-
up in the press as to whether we are being informed. We are
being informed, and part of that is meeting with the President
today, but as we all know, President's schedules are busier
than Senators' schedules, which is fully understandable, and we
were unaware of this meeting until yesterday.
In addition to that, Senator Lugar and Senator Hagel, both
are keenly interested in this subject and are involved in a
hearing, and Senator Lugar will not be able to be here until
this afternoon. As ranking member of Agriculture he is deeply
involved in that matter, and there is some real sort of
dilemmas on the floor of the Senate right now that are, as they
say, seizing the body in a way that has made this an uncertain
start. This hearing was supposed to start at 10 a.m. We moved
it up to 9:30 in order to get in, to accommodate, or to
accommodate us.
Two of our witnesses, Dr. Meserve and Dr. Cobb, are unable
to be here this afternoon. There is no reason why they should
have been able to. They were told this was going to be in the
morning in the first place, and Dr. Koonin, the Provost at
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena is here. He was
kind enough to be here this morning, and indicated he would be
here this afternoon, and we will hear from Drs. Kelly, who is
the president of the Federation of American Scientists, and Dr.
Vantine, who is division leader of the Counter-terrorism and
Incident Response at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
Livermore, California, this afternoon.
I should state to the press that we had a closed hearing
yesterday in S-407, a secure room, because quite frankly we are
sort of--improvising is the wrong word, but deciding as we go
that fine line between the public's right to know and need to
know, and us not providing, as one person said, a cookbook for
some screwball who, seeing this televised on national
television, would be able to--or would think he or she would be
able to cause some havoc.
I personally--and I have consulted with my colleagues,
particularly Senator Lugar, on this--have little doubt that the
terrorists we are most concerned about have knowledge of what
we spoke about yesterday, but it still is a close call. I
instructed the witnesses--that is the wrong word. I have
suggested to the witnesses, I have instructed no one, that if
any question that I ask this morning or this afternoon they
believe would border on releasing information, although may be
in the public domain but not so easy to access, that they think
would be detrimental if broadcast, they should just indicate
they would rather discuss that in a closed session.
Now, the second point I would make is, Senator Helms is
unable to be here this morning. He is at the White House now,
if I am not mistaken, I think on another matter unrelated to
this, but hopefully will be here this afternoon.
I have a prepared statement that I am going to enter in the
record to save time. I will just suggest the following, that I
have long believed and felt, and on three occasions attempted
to raise the concern, and I would suggest some degree of alarm,
about the possibility of terrorists, and we have learned very
clearly that terrorists are fully prepared, some to give their
lives, in an effort to undertake their terrorist activity. That
being the case, it raises the ante when we are talking about
potentially more dangerous avenues of attack.
In particular, it means our assumption about radiological
and nuclear weapons in the hands of al-Qaeda and other fanatic
groups must be revisited and revised, and that we had thought
that extremely radioactive sources were self-protecting in that
they were difficult to handle, and people would be unwilling to
handle them. We had thought that no terrorist would use them
because his own death was guaranteed by exposure, from the
radiation emitted.
We now know that is not true. Today there is a new reality.
Today there is a new reality. Today we know that radiological
and nuclear attacks in the United States are not only possible,
but there are enough screwballs out there who are willing to
risk their lives or give their lives in order to use them or
other potential weapons against the United States. Today, we
know such attacks would be terribly devastating.
We have come to realize that there are those who would
literally die to use them. If a dirty bomb were to be detonated
in the center of Washington, or if a highly radioactive can of
powder were emptied from a rooftop, it could kill dozens. It
would not be the catastrophic event that many think, but it
would have a catastrophic psychological impact on the Nation
and, even worse, it would contaminate a city that would
probably result in evacuations and great difficulty in
convincing the American public that it could be reinhabited,
even though the increased cause or risk of cancer and/or other
negative health effects would be relatively minimal.
The economic impact that could result from such an attack
could be devastating. We all know what the economic impact was
when the World Trade Towers came down, beyond the impact of the
loss of the towers, as well as the loss of the personnel and
the businesses that were contained in the towers. It went
beyond that, and quite frankly, I have tried, along with others
on at least three occasions in the last year to raise the alarm
bell about this.
I must be straightforward with you. This is not what the
scientists are here to discuss, but I want to straightforwardly
state what my purpose is as chairman of this committee in
trying to highlight this danger again, and this will not be the
last hearing I will have on this. I am going to do this until
the policymakers in the Congress and in the White House and in
every unit of government begin to make a decision about
priorities in this country.
One of the things we have to look at as policymakers is
what is the most likely devastation that could be rained upon
the United States if we are willing, and I am not opposed to it
in principle, if we are willing to commit to spend $100
billion--depending upon whether we have a layered national
missile defense system or a single system that is limited, we
are talking about spending, committing over the next 10 years
somewhere between $100 billion to $1 trillion on national
missile defense.
And I would love to have a national missile defense that
was redundant, but the Pentagon, as well as many others,
believe that is the least likely threat we face, is from an
ICBM hurtling across the skies, crashing into the United States
of America. It is a real threat. It is a possibility, but it is
not the most likely possibility, and I would argue, and have
argued for a long time, that even before the so-called Baker-
Cutler report was issued, that the single most urgent threat we
face is the access potential terrorists have to fissile
material, and knowledge and access to scientific capability
that resides in what I refer to as the candy store of all candy
stores for terrorists, and that is Russia.
The good news is, Russia wants to cooperate. Russia needs
help. Russia wants to inventory and wants us to help account
for and destroy, or at least secure nuclear weapons and fissile
material. The Baker report indicated that it was the most
urgent national threat we faced, and that it would cost $30
billion over the next 5 to 8 years to begin to corral it, so I
just want us to be facing head on and look realistically into
the eye of the threat and make some realistic decisions based
on priorities and limited resources after we have heard all the
evidence, the point being, we have to wonder if terrorists
could take advantage of a situation--for example, the curie
conventional measure of a radioactive source, a tenth of a
curie can kill people within a few weeks. A single curie is a
very strong source and, if left unshielded in an office, could
kill the inhabitants in days.
A cesium source found in North Carolina in a steel mill was
only 2 curies in strength, but far more intense sources of
radiation have turned up in some strange places lately. Last
December, in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, three
hunters gathering firewood stumbled upon two abandoned
canisters, incredibly lethal material, which the canister
contained 40,000 curies of material. By the way, all three
hunters were critically injured, but since they did not break
open the canisters, there was no environmental contamination.
Let me just say, even though a team from the Government of
Georgia and the International Atomic Energy Agency recovered
the containers, several more Soviet sources are unaccounted
for. It is certainly not comforting to think the former Soviet
Union made hundreds of similar devices.
These hearings are intended to let us know exactly what is
out there and how close the threat of terrorists getting their
hands on such material really is. We need to know what is
possible, and how readily terrorists could make a dirty bomb.
We also need to consider how terrorists might turn uranium or
plutonium into a true nuclear explosive.
We need to know how, with or without explosive devices,
nuclear materials might be dispersed and dispensed, and the
kind of damage that could be done. We need to know what has to
be done to ensure that the threat remains exactly that, a
threat and nothing more. We once thought it would be virtually
impossible for anyone to have the money, the means, the motive
to build its own nuclear explosive device and the will to use
it, but just last month, according to press reports, our
Special Forces found pamphlets and manuals on nuclear weapons
in al-Qaeda safe houses.
We learned of al-Qaeda's dealing on the black market for
nuclear materials. Whether they have been successful is
doubtful, but Time Magazine this week reported an alleged plot
to bring a nuclear device to New York. September 11 vividly
shows us the kind of hatred we face, the kind of people who,
were they to get their hands on such weapons, would have no
hesitation to kill Americans.
We have a new perspective, in many ways a more realistic
perspective. We see the clear and present danger. We understand
the threats that exist. We also understand that we must address
these threats. Before we can be successful in protecting
against them, we have to have a complete understanding of them.
We have to know exactly what the terrorists can do with nuclear
materials, from the simplest application to the most
sophisticated, and there are important steps we can take to
stop them, from improving nuclear security in the former Soviet
Union to thinking carefully about our response here at home, to
combating the threat of nuclear terrorism, and make it much
less destructive if it were to occur.
Are there international conventions and codes of conduct
which could restrict access to fissile material? Can the IAEA
help? How can we allocate resources to combat radiological or
nuclear terrorist attack? What priority should this have in the
larger context of defending the United States, as compared, for
example, to other defensive systems or buildings? What is
required to protect against radioactive and nuclear terrorism,
as compared to protecting against biological agents or chemical
weapons in the hands of rogue states?
The bottom line, the choice would be made based upon what
we know and what we think is most likely.
[The prepared statement of Senator Biden follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
I have long believed and felt--and have attempted to raise the
alarm--about the risk of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction.
September 11 introduced the possibility of terrorists prepared to give
their lives in undertaking their activities. The ante is raised by
that; we now face potentially more dangerous avenues of attack, such as
the use of radiological weapons.
We had thought that extremely radioactive sources were ``self-
protecting.'' We had thought that no terrorist would use them because
his own death was guaranteed by exposure to the radiation they emit.
We now know that's not true. Today there's a new reality. Today we
know that radiological and nuclear attacks on the United States are not
only possible, but there are enough screwballs out there willing to
risk or even give their lives to use them against the United States.
We know such attacks would be terribly devastating. And today we
realize that there are those who would literally die to use them.
If a dirty bomb were to be detonated in the center of Washington,
or if a can of highly radioactive powder were emptied from a rooftop,
it could kill dozens--it would not be the catastrophic event that many
might think it would be, but it would have a catastrophic psychological
effect on the United States. Even worse, it would so contaminate part
of the city that we'd have to evacuate and perhaps demolish a number of
buildings. The economic impact could be devastating.
One of the things we have to look at as policy makers is what is
the most likely devastation that could be rained on the United States.
Should we spend up to a hundred billion dollars to a quarter trillion
dollars for a national missile defense system while the Pentagon, as
well as many others, believes the least likely threat we face is from
an ICBM missile? It is a real threat, it is a possibility, but it is
not the most likely possibility.
I have argued for a long time that the single most urgent threat we
face is the access that potential terrorists have to fissile material
and knowledge and scientific capability that resides in what I refer to
as the candy store for terrorists, and that is Russia.
The good news is Russia wants to cooperate, it wants to inventory
and wants us to help account for and secure nuclear weapons and fissile
material. I just want us to look realistically at the threat and to
make some realistic decisions based on priorities and limited resources
after we have heard all the evidence.
The curie is the conventional measure of the intensity of a
radioactive source. A tenth of a curie can kill people in a few weeks;
a single curie is a very strong source, and if left unshielded in an
office could kill the inhabitants in days. The cesium source found
recently in some scrap metal in a North Carolina steel mill was only
two curies in strength. But far more intense sources of radiation have
turned up in some strange places recently.
Last December, in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, three
hunters gathering firewood stumbled onto two abandoned canisters of an
incredibly lethal material. Each of those canisters contained 40,000
curies of material.
By the way, all three hunters were critically injured, but, since
they didn't break open the containers, there was no environmental
contamination.
Let me just say, even though a team from the government of Georgia
and the International Atomic Energy Agency recovered the containers,
several more former-Soviet sources are apparently unaccounted for.
It is certainly not comforting to think that the former Soviet
Union made hundreds of similar devices.
These hearings are intended to let us know what exactly is out
there and how close the threat of terrorists getting their hands on
such materials really is.
We need to know what's possible, how readily terrorists could make
a dirty bomb. We also need to consider how terrorists might turn
uranium or plutonium into a true nuclear explosive.
We need to know how, with or without explosive devices, nuclear
materials might be dispersed and the kind of damage that could do.
We need to know what has to be done to ensure that the threat
remains exactly that--a threat--and nothing more.
We once thought it would be virtually impossible for anyone to have
the money, the means, and the motive to build his own nuclear explosive
device, and the will to use it. But just last month, according to press
reports, our Special Forces found pamphlets and manuals on nuclear
weapons in al-Qaeda safe houses.
We've learned of al-Qaeda's dealings on the black market for
nuclear materials.
Whether they've been successful is doubtful, but Time Magazine,
this week, reported an alleged plot to bring a nuclear device into New
York.
September 11 vividly showed us the kind of hatred we face, the kind
of people who--were they to get their hands on such weapons--would have
no hesitation to kill Americans.
We have a new perspective--in many ways, a more realistic
perspective.
We see the clear and present danger and we understand the threats
that exist. We also understand that we must address these threats.
Before we can successfully protect against them, we have to have a
complete understanding of them. We have to know exactly what a
terrorists can do with nuclear materials, from the simplest application
to the most sophisticated.
There are important steps we can take to stop them--from improving
nuclear security in the former Soviet Union to thinking carefully about
our response here at home--to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism or
make it less destructive if it were to occur. Some questions to
consider:
Are there international conventions and codes of conduct which
could restrict access to fissile materials? Can the IAEA help? How
should we allocate resources to combat a radiological or nuclear
terrorist attack? What priority should this have in the larger context
of defending the United States--as compared, for example, to other
defensive systems we're building?
What is required to protect against radioactive and nuclear
terrorism, as compared to protecting against biological agents, or
chemical weapons, in the hands of rogue states or terrorists? The
bottom line: What choices should we be making based on what we know and
what is most likely?
Our first witness is Dr. Richard A. Meserve, Chairman of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He's a man with an unusual background: a
Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University, and a J.D. from
Harvard Law School. Chairman Meserve has focused on an enormous range
of issues that arise at the intersection of law with science and
technology, including environmental law, nuclear licensing, and nuclear
non-proliferation.
Then we will hear from Dr. Donald D. Cobb, Associate Laboratory
Director for Threat Reduction at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In his
thirty-year career, Dr. Cobb has managed major programs in arms
control, the detection of nuclear explosions, and the developments of
safeguard systems.
Later, we will speak with Dr. Steven E. Koonin, who is a specialist
in theoretical nuclear physics, Provost of the California Institute of
Technology and chair of JASON, the group of top scientists who have
advised the government on issues including nuclear weapons, arms
control, and intelligence for almost four decades. In 1999 he was the
recipient of the Department of Energy's prestigious E.O. Lawrence
award.
He has studied possible radiological and nuclear terrorist devices,
and, not surprisingly, found their potential extraordinarily alarming.
The Federation of American Scientists has long been an important
voice to educate the nation about nuclear issues. We are pleased to
have its president, Dr. Henry Kelly, here to discuss the recent FAS
study of the effects of a dirty radiological bomb. Dr. Kelly spent over
seven years as Assistant Director for Technology in the White House's
Office of Science and Technology.
And finally, we will hear from Dr. Harry Vantine, Division Leader
of the Counterterrorism and Incident Response Division at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory.
[The prepared statement of Senator Helms follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Jesse Helms
radiological dispersal devices: threat and response
Mr. Chairman, thank you for scheduling this hearing today.
As we have all learned so tragically, terrorist organizations
present a very real threat to America and are capable of the most
vicious and barbaric acts.
The increasing capabilities of terrorist groups and the malevolent
intentions of those nations that support them combine to threaten us in
ways not previously imagined.
Because these threats are only limited by a terrorist's ingenuity
and capabilities, we must defend the American people against all
potential threats.
Today we will hear testimony on Radiological Dispersal Devices, one
of those threats known to only a few, but which could cause harm to
many. These ``dirty bombs,'' as they are more commonly known, combine
conventional explosives with radioactive material.
These devices are often simple to build--if you have the necessary
materials--but will likely produce more fear and terror in a civilian
population than actual damage. That is why the potential threat must
not be exaggerated.
To begin, the radioactive material needed to build these bombs is
difficult to acquire, and even more difficult to handle or transport.
Additionally, in contradiction to published news reports, these
devices are not likely to kill thousands of people, or to leave large
swaths of land uninhabitable for decades.
Rather, scenarios envisioned by the intelligence community indicate
that more people would be harmed by the bomb blast than from the
radiation itself, which would most likely be less than what the average
person receives in a year from the sun.
But while the physical destructive power of a radiological
dispersal device may be very limited, its psychological impact on our
economy and sense of security could be enormous.
In light of this potential catastrophe, the administration is
sensibly advancing efforts to secure our borders, tighten our customs
procedures, and strengthen export control laws. The administration is
also bolstering multilateral export control regimes and the national
initiatives abroad that support them.
Another integral aspect of our defense against this threat is our
set of programs that account for and secure Russian nuclear material
and prevent their potential theft or illicit transfer.
Such programs are undermined, however, when Moscow squanders U.S.
assistance, fails to tighten its own export control and border security
procedures, and continues its dangerous nuclear cooperation with Iran.
That is why my ``debt for non-proliferation'' legislation, which
passed unanimously through this Committee last year, conditioned any
debt relief for Russia on Moscow ending its illicit relationship with
Tehran.
Russian nuclear proliferation to Iran is a clear threat to the
United States, and its interests and allies in the Persian Gulf region,
and must be stopped.
How the United States prepares to deal with the consequences of an
attack employing a nuclear weapon or radiological device is an
essential government responsibility; however, I would much prefer first
to prevent and defend against the clear threat--Russian proliferation
to Iran--rather than deal with the terrible consequences that could
follow.
This is why, given Russia's equally nefarious proliferation of
missile technology to Iran, I applaud the President's decision to
withdraw from the outdated ABM Treaty and to build robust missile
defenses.
In short, when it comes to America's security, we must be prepared
to deal with threats.
I am grateful to our witnesses for being here today, and look
forward to their testimony.
The Chairman. Our first witnesses this morning are going to
be--and I am going to have to go a little out of order here,
since we changed it--Dr. Donald D. Cobb, associate laboratory
director for Threat Reduction at Los Alamos National
Laboratory. In his 30-year career, Dr. Cobb has managed major
programs and arms control, the detonation of nuclear
explosions, and the development of safeguard systems.
We also are going to hear this morning from Dr. Richard A.
Meserve, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC].
He is a man with an unusual background, a Ph.D. in applied
physics from Stanford University, a J.D. from Harvard Law
School. Chairman Meserve has focused on the enormous range of
issues that arise at the intersection of law and science and
technology, including environmental law and nuclear licensing
and nuclear nonproliferation.
We are also going to hear, time permitting--and he has been
wonderful in accommodating us--Dr. Steven E. Koonin, who is a
specialist in theoretical nuclear physics, the Provost at
California Institute of Technology, in care of JASON, a group
of top scientists who have advised our Government on issues
including nuclear weapons, arms control and intelligence for
almost four decades.
In 1999, he was the recipient of the Department of Energy's
prestigious E.O. Lawrence Award. He has studied possible
radiological and nuclear terrorist devices and, not
surprisingly, found the potential extremely alarming.
We also will hear later from Drs. Kelly, representing the
Federation of American Scientists, and also from--I apologize
for skipping around, but we have changed the order here. We are
going to hear from Dr. Harry Vantine, division leader of the
Counter-terrorism and Incident Response Division at Lawrence
Livermore Laboratory.
Gentlemen, do you have a suggested way in which it is most
orderly to proceed this morning? Should you begin, Dr. Meserve?
Dr. Meserve. I would be happy to.
The Chairman. If you would proceed, and I thank you again
for accommodating our hectic schedule.
STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD A. MESERVE, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Meserve. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to have the
opportunity to meet with you today to discuss a very important
subject. As you indicated, I am the Chairman of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. Most of our attention, or a large part
of our attention since September 11, as you will appreciate,
has been focused on nuclear power plants and the hazards that
might be associated with a terrorist attack on such a facility.
The NRC also regulates radioactive materials, and they also
have not lacked attention since the September 11 events.
What I would like to do this morning is to briefly cover
three subjects. First, our assessment of radiological
dispersion devices, which I will come back and define in a
moment. Second, I would like to discuss some of the NRC actions
to deal with the threats associated with such devices, and then
finally I would like to briefly discuss materials associated
with nuclear weapons themselves.
Let me first describe what I mean by a radiological
dispersion device. This is a terminology that is used to
describe any device that would serve to disperse radioactive
material in a public area. For example, one might imagine that
one could take some conventional explosive and to combine it
with radioactive material and use the explosive as the vehicle
to disperse the radioactive material in a public area. This, of
course, has to be sharply distinguished from a nuclear weapon,
which itself relies upon the nuclear material to cause the
propulsive force. A nuclear weapon, of course, as you all know,
would have devastating effects. This is in contrast with a
radiological dispersion device. Our evaluation, consistent with
the statement you made at the beginning, Mr. Chairman, is that
such devices are really not very effective as a means for
causing fatalities. We have looked at a range of scenarios in
which they might be used, and they could cause, certainly could
cause death, but we are talking deaths on the order of tens of
people in most scenarios, rather than hundreds or thousands, or
tens of thousands.
The reason for this is that the very large sources, some of
which are in use to irradiate the mail that you are receiving,
tend to be self-protecting in the sense that these very large
sources would be very difficult to handle without elaborate
equipment. An individual has to be shielded in order to avoid
health effects.
The Chairman. Can you explain what you mean by shielded,
doctor?
Dr. Meserve. By shielded we mean some material, for
example, lead, which serves to attenuate or stop the radiation
that is emitted from the device. If there is shielding between
you and the device, then you do not get the radiation exposure.
The Chairman. Is it appropriate for those who are listening
to think in terms of a shield like when you go in and have an x
ray, and you have that big leaded apron put on you, that it
prevents the radiation from penetrating that, and only goes to
the area where it is intended?
Dr. Meserve. That is exactly right. That is exactly what I
mean.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Meserve. These devices, very large sources, tend to be
self-protecting, in that someone handling such a device,
without handling them in an appropriate way, could get a lethal
dose of radiation very quickly, in a matter of a few minutes or
so, and would rapidly become very disorganized and unable to
function, and would die soon.
The second reason why these sources tend not to have large
health effects is that the dispersal of the radioactive
material tends to reduce the risk, in that intensity of the
source is reduced by spreading it over a larger area. Of
course, if you have an explosive event, people are aware that
something has happened, and they can be evacuated from the
area, so you do not have an extended duration of exposure. The
intensity of the radiation times the time in which you are
exposed is what determines the risk.
So we do not see that radiological dispersion devices
themselves, because of their radiological properties, have very
significant health risk associated with them and, of course,
that is the reason why no country of which I am aware includes
such devices in its armories. Although there are countries that
have contemplated biological or chemical or nuclear weapons,
radiological dispersion devices are not included, and that is
because they are not very effective as weapons.
This is not to deny the fact that they could have a very
severe psychological effect, and that there is a fear of
radiation, a fear of health effects. Of course the terrorists'
greatest weapon is fear, and I think that one of the beneficial
things that I hope will come out of this hearing is a process
of educating the American public, as a part of our self-
defense, that such devices are likely to have limited direct
health effects.
Of course, a second consequence, as you noted in your
opening statement, is the problem that these devices could
spread contamination over an area that might not result in
serious health consequences, but would have to be cleaned up.
There would be the effect of people's concerns about that area
in the future and cleanup costs would be expensive. The
deflection of people from their normal activities until the
area has been cleaned up is going to create costs. So I do not
mean to minimize consequences of such an event, although the
health effects are not particularly significant. In light of
the consequences, however, it is important that we have tight
regulatory controls on these materials.
Let me say that nuclear materials are in widespread use in
our economy, and the uses range from radiopharmaceuticals, to
the radiography of welds in construction sites, to instruments
that are commonly used in production processes in plants to
measure the flow of materials, the level of materials in tanks
and the like. Many of these materials that are in common use
would not be attractive for a radiological dispersion device in
any event, because they could only be available in small
quantities and have a very short half-life.
Most radiopharmaceuticals, for example, have only a short
half-life, so they would not be particularly useful for
terrorist purposes. But nonetheless there are some of these
materials that are of concern.
The NRC before September 11 had a comprehensive set of
licensing requirements to ensure that radioactive materials are
used, stored, and transported in a safe fashion. The focus of
the regulatory requirements was on safe use. September 11 has
awakened us to the concerns about possible malevolent use of
these materials in a way that we had perhaps not appreciated as
fully as we might have. The actions we have taken since then
include the issuance of a series of advisories to our
licensees.
Let me say many of these materials are regulated by the
states, and so we work cooperatively with the states in this
area. We issued advisories to our licensees and the states have
issued parallel advisories to their licensees to basically
bring these materials under tighter controls. This is not the
forum in which to go into the details of all of these
requirements, but they basically involve increased attention to
unusual activities that might be associated with these
materials, tighter security controls, increased protection of
the materials, making sure, if there are unusual activities,
that there are reports to the police and to us about these
events so they could be evaluated for intelligence purposes,
and increased scrutiny of who is purchasing materials.
We are also undertaking a comprehensive examination of our
regulatory system. We work in this area with the Office of
Homeland Security, the FBI, the Department of Energy and the
Department of Transportation, Customs Service, and with the
states, as I have indicated. All of us have some piece of this
puzzle, and we are working this issue. As a result of the
comprehensive review I expect there will be some tightened,
more permanent regulatory changes that we will be making.
I would like to close by saying just a few words about
special nuclear material. These are the materials that are the
essential ingredients in building a nuclear weapon. As I have
indicated, such weapons should be sharply distinguished from
radiological dispersion devices because of the consequences
that would be associated with their use. An essential
ingredient in a nuclear weapon is special nuclear material--
that is, highly enriched uranium or plutonium.
We have extensive safeguards in this country on such
material, and have had for 50 years, in recognition of its
importance. Such materials are very heavily guarded at all
times, with extensive monitoring devices and other aids to
assure that this material does not escape from control.
As you indicated in your opening statement, the crucial
issue with regard to these materials is the possibility they
might be diverted from a foreign source. There are huge
quantities of such material in Russia under limited control.
There have been extensive programs that have been undertaken by
the Department of Energy in particular to try to bring these
materials under control, but there is still a lot of work that
will have to be undertaken.
I share your view that this is an important challenge in
which the United States should be engaged in order to assure
the protection of such materials at the source, because if they
were to be lost from their source, they would be very hard to
detect. I think this is a national priority to build on the
programs, that incidentally have had bipartisan support over
the years, to assure that these materials are safeguarded
adequately.
That concludes my statement. I would be very happy to
respond to questions.
The Chairman. Thank you, doctor. I think what we should do
is hear from all the witnesses, if we could, and Dr. Cobb, we
welcome you, and again thank you not only for this morning, but
for yesterday. My colleagues and I found your briefing thorough
and interesting and chilling, and somewhat hopeful.
STATEMENT OF DR. DONALD D. COBB, ASSOCIATE LABORATORY DIRECTOR
FOR THREAT REDUCTION, LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY, LOS
ALAMOS, NM
Dr. Cobb. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to
discuss this important topic of potential terrorist attacks not
only using radiological dispersal devices, but the entire
spectrum of potential nuclear terrorism threats that we face.
You mentioned, as the Associate Director for Threat Reduction,
I have been working some of these issues for 30 years. I have a
written statement that I have submitted. I would like to just
make a few points.
The Chairman. Your entire statement will be placed in the
record.
Dr. Cobb. Thank you, sir.
Briefly, let me start by saying--and I think you pointed
this out in your opening remarks--that we cannot just focus on
part of the problem. It is not just radiological dispersal
devices. The entire spectrum, from that perhaps being the low
end of terrorism, to now concerns about nuclear ability to
acquire the materials and create a nuclear explosive device. I
think we need to consider all of these in the context of the
concerns we have today.
Let me just say for the past 30 years we have been looking
for evidence of not only countries acquiring nuclear materials,
but other groups that might be supported to acquire those, so
it is not a new thing we are worried about the threat, but
since September 11, clearly it has brought home the desire to
create and inflict the maximum amount of damage by the
terrorists to our country, so I think that did change on
September 11, as has changed our viewpoint.
The Chairman. And if I might interject, I do not know if
this is true, but I think since the Wall came down and the
Soviet Union broke up, we have a very different view of, at
least in my recollection, dealing with this subject for years
and years, particularly on the strategic doctrine side of the
equation was that we did not worry very much about the lack of
control of this material in weapons by the former Soviet Union.
We, as a matter of fact, ascribed to them a capability and a
security apparatus that was tighter than it really was, but
after the wall came down and the Soviet Union broke up, I would
suggest that put a slightly new slant on our concern.
Dr. Cobb. That is exactly right, sir, and in fact as you
know, prior to the fall of the former Soviet Union, the KGB and
tight security enforcement in Russia and control of the people
were the methods to control these, and it made us less
concerned, but since that time, of course, opening up the
Soviet Union has made a difference, and let me say some more
words about that as we go through, because I think that is an
essential point.
One of the principles in relating to nuclear materials and
the nuclear threat that goes back to Manhattan Project, and I
think Dr. Meserve mentioned this, is to control the materials,
keep the sources of these materials out of the hands of the bad
guys.
The Chairman. For the public, would you explain the
materials you are referring to?
Dr. Cobb. The materials are nuclear materials that are
source materials that could be used, for example, in nuclear
weapons. For nuclear weapons it is enriched uranium and
plutonium, and so for 50 years the focus has been to keep the
use of those types of nuclear materials rigidly controlled so
that they do not get diverted and get distributed. I think we
can extend some of that principle to radiological materials,
and I think Dr. Meserve talked about a change in emphasis
toward helping to control the materials.
Let me talk to you about a couple of the programs that I
think are important that we can draw on, because I think some
of the things that we have done over the last 10 years since
the fall of the Soviet Union can apply here. One of them is,
and again the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear
Security Administration has been working the materials
protection, control, and accounting, and what that is basically
is to work with colleagues in Russia at sites, and there are
over 100 of them, to try to secure the nuclear materials that
they have, the materials that are weapons-usable materials, and
that is what we call kind of the first line of defense,
securing the materials in place where they are so they cannot
get out.
Once they get out, they are much more difficult to find and
track, so that is one. If you worry about, and you do, if you
worry about the materials that could be smuggled across
borders, at transit points, overseas, out of Russia, maybe
through intermediaries in Europe and other countries, then
getting into the United States, you need border protection, so
securing--and let me say today we do not have the security at
the borders we would like to have, but the ability to develop
detection capabilities to look for nuclear materials.
If I talk about weapons-usable materials--let me be clear,
if I am talking about enriched uranium or plutonium, those are
very challenging things to detect at those points, so that is a
focus for us to develop that capability, and has been. If you
think about these radiological materials, particularly if you
are talking about large sources of the type that you mentioned
in your opening statement that might be used overseas, those
also generate a lot of radiation that is detectable by the
sensors, and so in some sense for free we get some capability
if we just deploy the systems we are talking about today at
these borders and choke points, looking for all of the
materials, including radiological, so that is a second one.
A third one that I would cite is, we have international
agreements. We have the International Atomic Energy Agency
[IAEA], which has the safeguards program. We have a Nuclear
Suppliers Group, which looks at export controls. What that
means is that we actually share information with over 30 other
countries about nuclear-related exports, technologies,
materials, whatever it might be. It seems to me reasonable to
just kind of expand that even on an informal basis to share
information about radiological materials as well as nuclear
weapons-related technologies and materials.
So there are a number of things that are already available,
kind of institutionalized, that we can draw on to extend to the
radiological problem, and I personally believe that we should,
and I would say for the National Nuclear Security
Administration [NNSA], the Department of Energy, they are
talking--you mentioned the Russians are being cooperative.
Well, I know the people in DOE are talking to their Russian
counterparts about extending some of these programs.
Let me go on to say that there is a difference, though,
between the radiological sources, the sources of mass
disruption, as people have called them, versus nuclear weapons-
capable materials, and I think Dr. Meserve did a good job of
talking about them. They are distributed widely. There is a
problem that the materials that could be radiological sources
could be susceptible to theft or diversion, even locally in the
United States, be closer at hand so there is a possibility that
they could be stolen. Clearly, that is a licensing and control
issue that needs work, and Dr. Meserve I think addressed that
very well.
Let me talk about one point that is related to what
happens, what are we going to do about it if something does
occur? Clearly, the state and local first responders, the state
and local agencies are going to be faced with this, and so
today the Federal Government, the Department of Energy, we are
working with state and local responders, we are doing exercises
and training, and I think we need to do more of those kinds of
activities.
If the worst does occur, it is a nuclear emergency support
team, the Federal-level Department of Energy people that will
be the Federal help in response to such an activity to actually
understand what the extent of the damage is, what kind of
responses would be most effective to preserve human life,
protect the health of the public, and protect the environment.
The nuclear emergency support team is mostly configured
with people from the national laboratories who are experts in
radiation and detection, and all of these various technologies,
and they are volunteers, and I just wanted to say we are very
proud of them, because these people, they give up nights,
weekends, they are called out at any time of the day or night.
They go off on short notice to help with this, and so we are
proud of that capability, but it needs to be expanded. It needs
to be extended in terms of its capabilities to support the
state and local authorities, particularly in consequence
management.
What I mean by that, if there is a radiological dispersal,
how do we deal with the cleanup problem? How do we protect the
environment and the public? That is still a challenge, still
something we need to work on with more training, more
technology.
The final point that I want to make, our military is the
best in the world, because we have our entire Nation's science
and tech base supporting it. We need to apply that same kind of
process for science and technology support to homeland
security. I think we are starting in that direction. Since
September 11 we are doing more, but that is the direction we
need to do. We need better technology. We need better
engagement of the science and technology providers to address
these problems.
So again, thank you for inviting me.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Cobb follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Donald D. Cobb, Associate Director for Threat
Reduction, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Thank you Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations for inviting me here today to discuss
the very important problem of potential terrorist attacks using
radiological dispersal devices (RDDs), so-called ``dirty bombs.''
I am Don Cobb, Associate Director for Threat Reduction at Los
Alamos National Laboratory. I am responsible for all programs at Los
Alamos directed at reducing threats posed by weapons of mass
destruction--nuclear, chemical, biological. I personally have more than
30 years experience working to reduce these threats.
Let me begin by saying that one needs to consider the RDD threat in
the broader context of threats posed by nuclear terrorism and, in turn,
in the even broader context of all types of potential terrorism against
the United States and our allies. The events of September 11 show
clearly that terrorists want to inflict as much damage as possible on
our institutions and thereby strike at our core values.
The spectrum of nuclear terrorist threats--starting with RDDs at
the low end of the spectrum of violence and moving up through
improvised nuclear explosives or stolen nuclear weapons is a fearsome
challenge. We must consider these together in the context of the
terrorist's intention to inflict maximum damage.
Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet that will protect us from
these threats. Rather we must have a systematic approach that provides
us with defense in depth. The good news is that a systematic approach
is possible against the spectrum of nuclear terrorist threats, but it
will take much hard work and continued investments to achieve. And of
course there is ultimately no foolproof system against all possible
threats. But the beginnings of such a system against the most
pernicious threats is starting to emerge after a decade of effort
starting with the Nunn-Lugar program.
Allow me to illustrate what I mean by a few examples. We have been
working with the Russians for several years now to secure nuclear
weapons and materials through the National Nuclear Security
Administration's Materials Protection, Control, and Accounting Program.
Experts generally believe that the nuclear weapons in Russia are more
secure than the nuclear materials. In any case there are hundreds of
tons more weapons-usable materials scattered at sites across the former
Soviet Union not in weapons than there are materials in weapons. Of
course we can't ignore the security of the weapons, but the materials
are perhaps the greater danger. The Baker-Cutler report calls this,
``the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United
States.''
It seems logical to ask, can we extend the MPC&A program to cover
radiological sources as well as weapon-usable materials? It is these
sources that are least well protected, and have a special concern for
RDDs. The answer appears to be yes. At least the NNSA officials
responsible for the MPC&A program are working with their Russian
counterparts to move in this direction.
Another NNSA program, called the Second Line of Defense (MPC&A
being the first line), is working to establish detection systems at
borders and transit points in Russia and the former Soviet countries to
detect smuggled nuclear material. While the focus is on weapon-usable
materials, these same systems with some modest modifications would also
be effective against smuggled radiological sources, since the radiation
signatures from such sources is generally much stronger than from
uranium and plutonium.
There are some major differences however. Nuclear weapons and
weapon-usable materials tend to be focused in military applications
under tight government oversight. There are international agreements
and arrangements governing the authorized export and use of such
materials. Radiological sources are more wide spread and have fewer
controls. For example, there is not an export control regime for such
sources comparable to the Nuclear Suppliers' Group for weapon-usable
materials. It seems logical to use and extend these existing
arrangements to at least the notification of intent to export large
radiological sources.
What is in effect the third line of defense consists of efforts to
detect and intercept smuggled nuclear materials at U.S. borders and
entry points. Most U.S. customs agents and emergency response teams in
large cities have hand-held radiation sensors that can detect large
radiological sources generally more easily than weapon-usable
materials. But better technology is needed to detect and intercept
nuclear materials, including radiological sources, concealed in
luggage, packages, or shipping containers.
Perhaps the biggest difference between nuclear weapons and weapon-
usable materials and radiological sources is the possibility of a
terrorist obtaining radiological sources ``at hand'', rather than
having to smuggle them into the United States. In the U.S., nuclear
weapons and weapon-usable nuclear materials are under extremely tight
security. Radiological sources, on the other hand, are more susceptible
to theft or diversion, possibly by insiders.
If the worst occurs, whether it is a terrorist attack involving an
improvised nuclear explosive device using weapon material or an RDD
using radiological material, it will be up to the emergency response
forces to deal with the consequences. In the U.S. the NNSA's Nuclear
Emergency Search Team (NEST) is the group that would be called upon in
case of a nuclear-related terrorist attack. NEST actually consists of
multiple capabilities ranging from searching for a nuclear device to
protection of people and the environment from radiological harm whether
the cause is accidental or deliberate. The men and women of NEST
largely consist of volunteer experts from the national labs. We're
proud of them.
But more capability is needed considering the urgency of the threat
post-September 11. We need more practice and training against realistic
terrorist scenarios including RDDs. Clean up and wide-area radiological
decontamination represent a huge challenge. We need to make investments
in related science and technology now. We also need to upgrade our
existing forensics and attribution capabilities against a heightened
threat of nuclear terrorism.
The Defense Science Board studies of 1997 and 2000 made similar
recommendations regarding state-sponsored or trans-national nuclear
terrorism. Since September 11 some of these recommendations have begun
to be implemented. But the pace remains slow and the scope of the
effort is not yet broad enough to cover the spectrum of nuclear
threats, including RDDs. This work needs to be expanded and accelerated
now.
Finally I would like to point out that implementing these response
measures just in the U.S. is not enough. We need to work to make sure
that other countries have them as well, and Russia should be at the top
of the list. The ability to locate and recover stolen nuclear
materials, including weapon-usable or radiological sources, before they
get out of the country should be a top priority. Notification that such
a theft has occurred should also be a first priority. A Russia ``NEST
program'' would be in our mutual interest. We should work to add this
to the current list of successful cooperative programs, while we
examine all of these programs from the perspective of their ability to
counter the RDD threat.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you. Actually, Dr. Koonin, maybe in
light of the fact that you are fortunately here, and I may call
on you again if I may, but maybe you should go forward with
your presentation as well.
STATEMENT OF DR. STEVEN E. KOONIN, PROVOST, CALIFORNIA
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, PASADENA, CA
Dr. Koonin. Mr. Chairman, my name is Steven E. Koonin, and
today I want to discuss with you the threat of radiological
terrorism. Before I do so, however, I would like to place my
remarks in a broader context. The events of last fall have
induced all of us to pay greater attention to the safety and
defense of the civilian population in this country.
Unfortunately, this is a very difficult problem, because the
number of targets that a terrorist might go after is virtually
unlimited, and the resources that we have available to defend
them are finite. We are going to have to be making hard choices
about what, and what not, to protect, and about what to protect
against.
Of course, not all threats are equal. The variables include
the direct and indirect consequences of an attack, the
likelihood of an attack, the vulnerability of the target,
intelligence and warnings that we may have about the
capabilities and intentions of an attacker, and the
availability of plausible countermeasures.
I applaud the initiative of you and this committee in
defining and addressing these very important issues. In that
context, I want to call your attention to one type of terrorist
attack that I believe is a very serious threat, the deliberate
dispersal of radioactive materials. These materials might be
the weapons-grade materials that Dr. Meserve and Dr. Cobb have
talked about--the uranium and plutonium that make up a nuclear
weapon--or they might be ordinary radioactive sources, cobalt,
cesium, iridium, and so on, that find many uses in society.
The methods of dispersal could be explosive. We could be
talking about the fallout from a successful or fizzled nuclear
device, or they could be conventional, the so-called dirty
bomb, in which conventional explosives are laced with
radioactive material, or the dispersal could be covert, in
which the radioactive material is contained in particles,
aerosols, or perhaps in contaminated materials such as food.
The intent of the terrorists may be severalfold. They might
be intent on inducing casualties, perhaps immediately as the
result of radiation sickness, or longer term, as the result of
cancers that might be induced by radiation exposure. But more
likely they are going to be after the psychosocial reactions
that are associated with radiation. These are certainly likely
to be far more widespread and significant than immediate or
long-term casualties.
In any case, a large-scale release of radioactive material
could well entail significant costs, both directly in terms of
cleanup expenses, and indirectly in terms of the economic
disruption it induces.
What I am going to describe for you in the next few minutes
are the potential threat, as I see it, and some of the possible
steps that could be taken to reduce it. You have already
discussed my credentials. I think I will just skip over that,
other than to say that I have been involved in national
security matters for more than 15 years. My expertise is in
nuclear physics, and more recently I have been involved in
counterterrorism studies, both biological and chemical, as well
as thinking about nuclear-related matters.
It is true that radioactive materials find many uses in
society, and so are quite common. They are indispensable for
certain medical diagnostics and therapies. Perhaps less well-
known is that intense radioactive sources are used to sterilize
food and medical instruments. Sources are also used in
industrial radiography: to image equipment, and also, as Dr.
Meserve mentioned, in the logging of oil wells. In addition,
far less potent amounts of radioactivity are present in smoke
detectors, antistatic devices, and exit signs. Many of these
sources are harmless, and have no potential for terrorist
misuse. There is also, of course, a significant amount of
radioactivity contained in the spent fuel of the cooling ponds
of the nuclear reactors that are about in our country.
I have some images here that illustrate, for example, a
radiography, a bone scan that was taken using a technetium
source, and one can see in the pictures the infected area in
this particular patient. Also shown in the upper right is an
antistatic brush with a polonium source that is used in
darkrooms, and in the lower right is one of the cooling ponds
around a reactor.
Even small amounts of radioactive material can be very
disruptive. The sources of concern of long-lived isotopes range
from 1 curie up to thousands of curies. If one were to take
just 3 curies of an appropriate isotope, which is an amount
that is a fraction of a gram, and disperse that over a square
mile----
The Chairman. Would you give me an idea what that is? Is
that as big as the head of a needle, or this pen?
Dr. Koonin. A gram is about a thirtieth of an ounce, so it
is perhaps the size of a ball on a ballpoint pen or something
like that.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Koonin. That amount of material would have to be
diluted, of course. If it were spread over a square mile, that
would make the area uninhabitable, according to the maximum
dose currently recommended for the general population.
It is important to note, however, that the health effects
of such contamination would be minimal. For every 100,000
people exposed to that level of radiation, four lifetime
cancers would be induced, which would take place on top of the
20,000 cancers already expected to arise from other causes.
The Chairman. It is important that that gets straightened
out. Without exposure to this 1 curie you just referenced,
20,000 people out of 100,000 today, without any additional
exposure, are likely to get cancer. This would increase that by
four?
Dr. Koonin. That is correct, four out of 20,000.
The Chairman. So that is what you mean by the health
effects would not be--it would be consequential for those four
people, but it is not consequential in broad terms.
Dr. Koonin. Of course. Of course, higher levels of
contamination would----
The Chairman. The higher level of contamination, I
understand your point. I just wanted to make sure everybody
gets this.
Dr. Koonin. However, the psychosocial effects of such
contamination would be maximal, as we know from Three Mile
Island, Chernobyl, and other incidents. Radiation taps into a
very deep fear and concern that people have. There are tens of
thousands of significant sources of this size in the United
States, and many more abroad. Here is a picture of one, to just
give you a sense of the size. This is a 150-curie source that
is used in industrial applications, and it weighs 53 pounds.
All of that weight is shielding. It is a compact 6 inches by 6
inches by 15 inches.
The Chairman. And that is a device legally used?
Dr. Koonin. That is correct.
The Chairman. By shielding, you mean the lead that keeps
this radioactive material from emanating from anywhere, other
than when it is aimed and used for its purpose?
Dr. Koonin. When the source is exposed, there is a
mechanism in the box for exposing the source and, of course
covering it up again.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Koonin. In my view, radiological terrorism is a very
plausible threat. Here are some facts that summarize the
situation for me. Gram-for-gram, radioactive material can be as
disruptive as weaponized anthrax, not necessarily as dangerous,
but as disruptive. Furthermore, this material circulates
broadly through society. We produce it. It can be purchased
with appropriate licenses, at low levels without a license. We
ship it, we store it, we have mechanisms for disposing of it,
and so on. So it is out there.
Moreover, the expertise for handling it is widely known and
readily acquired. In fact, you can take radiation safety
courses from any number of commercial or nonprofit providers
that teach you how to handle radioactive material safely.
As Dr. Meserve emphasized, the safety and security of
radioactive material depends upon the good faith and good sense
of licensed end users. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does
the licensing. Inspections of the sources onsite are sporadic,
in my understanding. This system was developed at a time when
we were facing a cooperative or nonhostile environment. The
situation post 9/11 has changed significantly. This array of
facts does not leave me with a great deal of comfort.
To make the threat a little more tangible, it is
interesting to outline what a radiological attack might look
like. You can imagine that a several-curie source was stolen,
and that the source is dispersed covertly one night throughout
the business district of a major city. There is then an
anonymous tip the next morning, and officials detect widespread
contamination at roughly three times the natural background
level, which is well above the legal limit protecting the
general population. They find this contamination over some 100
blocks of the business district. The area would be evacuated
immediately and sealed off, and we could expect that hundreds
of thousands of people would be showing up at hospitals
demanding to be screened for contamination.
There would be, at this level of exposure, no fatalities
from the radiation at all. However, the decontamination would
take months. It is possible that buildings could not be
economically decontaminated, and so dozens of them would have
to be razed. In any event, there would be billions of dollars
of economic damage.
In thinking through this sort of scenario, it is
interesting that dose limits play a major role. Currently,
there is a very low legal dose limit that properly protects the
general public in ordinary circumstances, but in some ways this
dose limit works against us in this situation. It makes it
possible to do great damage, both psychosocial and economic,
with very small amounts of contamination.
Further, the question of ``how clean, at what cost, and
when?'' will inevitably have to be answered after any release.
Given the discomfort that is evident in many public discussions
of radiation, this is going to be a very difficult discussion.
So what should be done? Let me offer a few high-level
suggestions. One is to encourage alternative sources of
radiation that can be turned off. There are accelerators,
electrically driven neutron generators under development, and
other devices that can substitute for radioactive materials in
some circumstances, and there are regulatory, economic, and
technological ways in which one might encourage those
substitutions.
Second, as has already been mentioned, it is very important
that we strengthen controls on radioactive materials. Some
infrastructure is already in place domestically in terms of the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and internationally in terms of
the IAEA.
It is also very important for us to establish pathways that
allow the retrieval, storage, and disposal of unwanted
material. Currently, users have a very difficult time disposing
of radioactive material.
I believe it is also important that we think about tracking
personnel with radiation expertise. These people would provide
a pool of expertise in the event of a response, and a database
of people who understand how to handle radiation may help
provide indicators of terrorist preparations.
Going further, we can think about the widespread deployment
of radiation monitoring for the transport of large sources.
Points of entry, choke points, luggage, and mail are all
streams of material that should be routinely scanned for
radiation sources.
It is also possible to think about distributed sensor
arrays. The technology to detect radiation is well-known,
unlike that for biological or chemical agents. It is robust,
relatively inexpensive, and one could well imagine deploying
sensors more broadly throughout society than we do currently.
Whatever sensor systems are put into place, it is very
important that they be significantly tested and ``red-teamed''
if they are to continue to be effective.
It is also, finally, important to educate and prepare the
first responders and the public for the possibility of a
radiological event. Again, this will likely not be simple,
given the difficulty we have in talking about radiation.
Let me, then, summarize. The dispersal of radioactive
materials is, in my opinion, a plausible and significant
threat. However, it is overwhelmingly likely that the effects
of a terrorist attack using radioactive materials will be
psychosocial and economic, not entailing a large number of
deaths or illnesses, and there are steps that can be taken to
prevent such acts.
The first line of defense, as has already been mentioned,
is the control of radioactive materials.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Koonin follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Steven E. Koonin, Provost, California
Institute of Technology
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Steven E.
Koonin and today I want to discuss with you the threat of radiological
terrorism.
Before I do so, however, I'd like to place my remarks in a broader
context. The events of last fall have induced us all to give greater
attention to the safety and defense of the civilian population.
Unfortunately, this is a very difficult problem. Because the number of
targets is virtually unlimited and the resources available to protect
them are necessarily finite, hard choices have to be made about what,
and what not, to protect, as well as what to protect against.
Of course, not all threats are equal. In allocating defensive
resources, the factors to consider include the direct and indirect
consequences of a successful attack, the likelihood of an attack, the
vulnerability of the target, intelligence and warnings of potential
attacks, and the availability of effective defense measures. I applaud
the initiative of this Committee in defining and addressing these very
important issues.
In that context, I want to call to your attention one type of
terrorist attack that I believe to be a very serious threat: the
deliberate dispersal of radioactive materials. These materials might be
the weapons-grade metals used in nuclear weapons or the more common
materials contained in radiation sources. The dispersal can be
accomplished either through an explosive release (a nuclear device
producing ``fallout'' or a conventional explosive that has been laced
with nuclear material) or through a covert, and perhaps gradual,
release of particulates, aerosols, or contaminated materials such as
food. While the intent of the perpetrators might be to induce immediate
or long-term casualties, far more widespread will be the intense
psychosocial reactions associated with radiation. In any case, a large-
scale release of radioactive material could well entail significant
costs through both direct clean-up expenses and the economic disruption
induced. My goal here is to describe for you the potential threat that
I see and offer some possible steps that could be taken to reduce it.
My scientific credentials for this task are as follows. I am
Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of
Technology, as well as that institute's Provost. For more than 30
years, the focus of my teaching and research has been in nuclear
physics and I am the author of some 200 referred scientific
publications in that field. I have also served as the Chair of the
Division of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society. Beyond my
academic credentials, I have been involved in National Security matters
for more than 15 years. I currently chair the JASON group of academic
scientists and engineers, which has a 40-year record of unbiased
technical advice to the government on national security matters. I have
also served on both the Pentagon's Defense Science Board and the Navy's
CNO Executive Panel, and also chair the University of California's
committee overseeing the national security aspects of the Los Alamos
and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. More specifically related
to counter-terrorism, I led a DARPA-chartered JASON study of Civilian
Biodefense issues in 1999, and served this Fall on Defense Science
Board panel looking broadly at terrorism vulnerabilities. While my
testimony is informed by these experiences, particularly discussions
with my JASON colleagues, the words and opinions expressed are my own.
Radioactive materials are common in society. Their importance in
medical diagnostic and therapeutic procedures is well-known. Less well
known, but equally important, is the use of intense radioactive sources
to sterilize food and medical instruments and to image industrial
equipment (including the logging of oil wells). Far less potent amounts
of radioactive materials are used in smoke detectors, anti-static
devices, and self-illuminating exit signs. Many of these sources are
harmless and have no potential for terrorist misuse. There is also a
very large amount of radioactivity contained in the spent fuel in the
cooling ponds at nuclear power reactors.
Sources ranging from a few to thousands of curies could be employed
for terrorist purposes. If just three curies (a fraction of a gram) of
an appropriate isotope were spread over a square mile, the area would
be uninhabitable according to the recommended exposure limits
protecting the general population. While direct health effects would be
minimal (for each 100,000 people exposed, some 4 cancer deaths would
eventually be added to the 20,000 lifetime cancers that would have
occurred otherwise) the psychosocial effects would be enormous.
I believe that radiological terrorism is a plausible threat. Gram
for gram, radioactive material can be at least as disruptive as
weaponized anthrax. Further, the material circulates broadly through
society. There are tens of thousands of significant, long-lived sources
in the U.S. and many more abroad; they are produced, purchased, stored,
and transported through ordinary channels. The expertise to handle them
is widespread and/or readily acquired (radiation safety courses are
offered regularly; you can sign up on the web), And the safety and
security of these materials relies on the good faith and good sense of
the end-users, who are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
This array of facts does not leave me with a great deal of comfort.
One scenario of how a terrorist attack using radioactive material
might play out is as follows. A several-curie source of a long-lived
isotope is stolen and covertly released one evening throughout the
business district of a major city. Acting on an anonymous tip the next
morning, officials verify widespread contamination over a 100 block
area at roughly three times the natural background level, well above
the legal exposure limit protecting the general population. That area
is immediately evacuated and sealed off as hundreds of thousands of
people rush to hospitals demanding to be screened. Businesses in the
area are shutdown during the many months of decontamination that
follow; dozens of buildings are razed. Economic damage runs into the
billions of dollars, but there are no direct fatalities.
Most important in thinking through the situation are the widespread
fear of radiation and the low legal dose limits protecting the general
population. These latter make the terrorists' task easier in at least
two respects. First, even very low levels of contamination, comparable
to the natural background level in many locales, will be very
disruptive. Second, in decontaminating any site, the question of ``How
clean, at what cost, and in what time?'' will eventually have to be
answered; that will not be easy.
There are several kinds of measures that can be taken to prevent
terrorist attacks using radioactive materials, or at least make them
more difficult to carry out. Through various economic, regulatory, and
technological mechanisms, one can encourage migration of legitimate
users from radioactive sources to radiation sources that can be turned
off, such as accelerators and electrically-driven neutron generators.
However, this will not be possible for all applications. Strengthened
controls on radioactive materials are therefore an important step;
fortunately, some of the infrastructure is already in place through the
NRC and the IAEA. Also important would be the establishment of pathways
to retrieve, store, and dispose of unwanted radioactive materials. The
tracking of personnel with radiation expertise also seems a good idea,
as this would provide both a registry of trained responders in the
event of an incident, as well as be of assistance in detecting
terrorist preparations.
Widespread radiation monitoring to detect large sources as they are
moved about would be very useful. One would start with ports of entry,
transportation chokepoints, rail, plane, and ship cargo, and mail.
Going further, it is not difficult to imagine widely deployed radiation
detectors (``one on every lamp post''). In contrast to detectors for
biological and chemical agents, the monitoring technology is well-
established, the power and maintenance requirements are likely to be
minimal, and the specificity and robustness will be high. Whatever the
character and extent of radiation monitoring, it will be important to
significantly test and ``red-team'' the system.
Before an incident occurs, it is important to educate the first
responders and the public as to the nature of this threat, the probable
consequences an incident (i.e., few casualties, maximal disruption),
and how they can be managed. This will likely not be simple given the
unease evident in many public discussions of radiation.
In summary, I believe that the deliberate dispersal of radioactive
materials is a significant and plausible threat. However, it is very
likely that the predominant effects will not be casualties, but rather
psychosocial consequences and economic disruption. Fortunately, there
are a number of steps that can be taken to reduce the likelihood and
impact of such an attack, beginning with the strengthening of controls
on radioactive materials.
The Chairman. Thank you very much. I have a number of
questions, and with your permission I may ask that we not
overburden you, that we may be able to submit some questions in
writing to you if that is appropriate. That is, if you agree.
Let me begin with you, Dr. Cobb, and you have all made--and
it is important, I guess, I continue to make the distinction
between a radiological device dispensing radioactive material
in one form or another, and an improvised nuclear device.
People talk about a bomb. The way it is thought about in the
popular culture in the last couple of months is that there is a
conventional explosive, radioactive material around that, the
bomb goes off, the curies are dispersed throughout an area,
depending upon how much radioactive material there is. There is
a relationship between the intensity, the amount of the
radiation that someone is exposed to and the duration of the
radiation, is that correct?
Dr. Cobb. That is correct.
The Chairman. And there is a second device, and the second
device is an actual nuclear explosion, where you have weapons-
grade material, plutonium-enriched uranium, and either through
a gun mechanism or some other mechanism they are at high speed
pushed together, they cause a reaction, that reaction is
explosive, that reaction has three features to it. One, there
is a big blast, depending on the size of that weapon, a single
kiloton or megaton--I mean, it depends upon the size, and that
relates to the amount of material, correct?
Dr. Cobb. That is correct.
The Chairman. And it has three effects. One, there is a
blast. For example, we discussed yesterday if the similar
amount of energy--we will have this testimony this afternoon.
If a similar amount of energy that was released when the World
Trade Towers came down as a consequence of the explosion that
took place because of the jet fuel, if a similar amount were to
take place with a nuclear device, instead of that building
taking sometime to come down, it would be down in a matter of--
--
Dr. Cobb. Virtually instantaneously. We are talking about
140 tons of high explosive equivalent being released in one
moment.
The Chairman. So it would come down immediately?
Dr. Cobb. Very quickly.
The Chairman. A second effect is, there is actual radiation
released.
Dr. Cobb. Right.
The Chairman. That is in relatively high doses, in high
doses that if people are in that area they have ill effects,
and the third is fire. There is a high intensity heat, and so
you have buildings burning. You have fire, in layman's terms,
is that correct?
Dr. Cobb. That is correct.
The Chairman. Now, there is a phrase that--I thought I knew
a fair amount about this, all the years doing arms control
issues and the like. I had not until recently heard the
abbreviation. All of the national security kinds of issues all
have acronyms, and I had not heard of, I think you referred to
it as an improvised nuclear device, an IND. Is that what you
refer to it as?
Dr. Cobb. That is correct.
The Chairman. So people are going to begin to hear about
IND's, improvised nuclear devices.
Now, Dr. Harold Agnew, the former director of Los Alamos
Laboratory said, ``for those who say that building a nuclear
weapon is easy, they are very wrong, but those who say that
building a crude device is very difficult are even more
wrong.'' Now, I am quoting him. Recent reports about a possible
10 kiloton nuclear weapon being smuggled into Manhattan last
fall thankfully proved to be false, but I do not think anyone
would suggest we should be complacent. As President Bush
reportedly declared, nuclear terrorism in fact is the most
serious danger to the U.S. national security today, and so what
I would like to discuss for just a moment, what are the primary
barriers facing an outfit like al-Qaeda, or other terrorist
groups in seeking to acquire or construct an improvised nuclear
device?
Dr. Cobb. The answer is clearly controlling the nuclear
weapon-capable materials, the highly enriched uranium and
plutonium. These are very specialized materials. Generally,
because they are specialized materials, they are under
government control.
We mentioned earlier in the discussion that certainly in
Russia, Russia pops up to the top of the list because there is
hundreds of tons of these materials at various sites, and it is
a good thing that over the past 10 years we could work with the
Russians to help increase the security, because they are
concerned about these issues as well, but the first and last
answer to that question always comes around to controlling
materials.
Once the materials get out, the nuclear weapons-capable
materials, the ability to fashion, construct, even the
intention to do so in some strange way, you might say, somebody
could be lucky if they have the materials. If their intention
is to make it go off, they might be able to do it. That is the
concern. So it is controlling the materials, keeping them out
of the wrong hands.
The Chairman. Now, when we talk about materials, I am not
going to go into it in open session, but yesterday we actually,
though one of your colleagues, know that you folks at the
laboratories have been ahead of the game here in that you have
been concerned about this possibility for sometime, and that
you have actually constructed devices to see how difficult or
how hard it would be to determine, to be able to make an
informed judgment of how difficult it would be for an informed
or uninformed terrorist to build a device, and that would make
this nuclear reaction take place, and there are various
concerns.
One is the wholesale purchase of a device, and we went
through yesterday in closed session the kinds of devices that
would theoretically be on the top of the wish list for a
terrorist out there trying to purchase such a device, and they
genuinely relate to how compact, and the size.
You cannot buy an SS-18 and pack it in your bag and take it
over to the United States, or even know how to fire it. An SS-
18 is one of the big Soviet missiles with considerable throw
weight, multiple warheads independently targeted, et cetera.
But there are devices, nuclear devices that weaponize, nuclear
devices that are smaller.
The second thing we were told is that there is the concern
about being able to construct a device that could cause this
nuclear reaction, and therefore the devastation that would
follow, and the somewhat good news that I took away from that
was that such a device within the realm of possibility ends up
being a fairly heavy device. It is not something you can pack
in a suitcase. It is not something you can disperse out of the
back of a moving vehicle. It is not something that you can
carry onto a plane, et cetera.
But nonetheless, there is literature out there that is
available to anyone with--and I told you yesterday I had a
friend who used to say he was not the brightest candle on the
table. He passed away, but he had a lot of common sense. He
said, Joe, you have to know how to know. There are folks out
there who know how to know, and how to get an open source
material, if not literal diagrams, cookbooks for how to
actually--and it is difficult, but cookbooks on how to build
the device that would cause the nuclear reaction to take place
with relatively small amounts. The larger the amounts get, the
more complicated this all gets.
Now, what I am leading to is this. I would like you to, if
you can, speak to how difficult it is not to get the material,
that is, the enriched uranium, or the plutonium, the weapons-
grade material that causes this nuclear chain reaction, but how
difficult is it to get the material that would be required to
construct, without describing it, construct the thing that
would make it go boom, the apparatus in which this material is
placed to cause the chain reaction, and I am trying to be
articulate without being specific, and I am probably doing
neither.
Dr. Cobb. In terms of the discussion here, I would say
there is a lot of information. Some of it is incorrect, some of
it is just speculation, but there is a lot of information that
is out that is available that might lead a terrorist group to
think they could do something whether they could or not, and
the key to stopping them, again I would go back to say is, the
materials that are most difficult for them to get would be, at
least from their perception I believe would be, the hardest
thing for them to do would be to get the nuclear materials
themselves, and so that is always still back to the focus that
I said earlier.
The other thing I might mention, you were talking about a
spectrum of potential threats, and I am glad you raised that
again because if we have to face these kinds of threats then we
need to be prepared for a whole spectrum of possibilities, and
I mentioned the nuclear support team earlier. Our folks, some
of the thinking we are doing is not because we know that these
are the specific threats we are going to face tomorrow. It is
just that the possibility may occur, so we have got to be
prepared, so a lot of this is about just thinking and preparing
in advance.
The Chairman. Well, I want to make that clear as well. I
have received, and I will continue to urge all of my colleagues
in the Senate to receive, a detailed briefing from the
intelligence community as to what we know has occurred or has
not occurred, and what we know or believe is being sought and
what is not being sought, but it is no longer--I remember when
I was first on the Intelligence Committee there was clear
evidence that two individuals in other parts of the world had
attempted to negotiate purchasing nuclear weapons. It was then
a very classified idea.
Since September 11 it has been discussed openly that there
is a knowledge that there is a serious desired to purchase
wholesale--the easiest way to do this is buy the finished
product, not have to find the raw material and then construct
from that raw material a device that would make it functional,
causing the damage.
Now, the other question I have for you is, just again
without getting into classified information, it is clear--those
of us who have worked in this area from the layman but
policymaker side of the equation know that there are a number
of nuclear scientists who are unemployed in the former Soviet
Union. There are a number of people who, given the material,
given the fissile material, it would not be beyond their
capability to construct a very, as the phrase used by Dr.
Agnew, a very crude device, a crude nuclear device.
What kind of background does one have to have, and this may
be beyond your scope here, but what kind of background, if any
of you could speak to this, would one have to have in order to,
given access to the material, be able to construct a device
that could do significant damage, a nuclear device.
Dr. Cobb. Clearly, this is the so-called brain drain
problem, and what you are focusing on is the numbers of people
who have direct knowledge of nuclear weapons and their
construction and their design in the former Soviet Union.
Now, through these cooperative programs with the Russian
Federation, we meet some of our colleagues, and I can just say
that the people that we talk to are patriots in their own
country. We do not see that this brain drain is an epidemic of
people leaving to go serve some other country.
Having said that, it is a concern. Clearly, one person with
this kind of information and knowledge can change the
speculation from a maybe and a wish to something that is more
scientifically or engineeringly certain, so it is a concern.
The Chairman. To summarize my questions to you, and I will
ask two more questions and yield to my colleague from Florida,
and ask him to chair this because I will have to go to meet the
President at 11.
There are really sort of three elements, and this is Joe
Biden speaking now. I am not trying to paraphrase you, but just
so I understand it and can communicate this accurately to my
mother--I have a very bright mother, but she always says to me
when I try to explain what I think is a relatively complicated
concept, she will look at me and say, Joey, speak English, so I
want to make sure that I am able to, quote, speak English, as
my mother would say, because I think it is important.
My colleagues and I understand what it is we are facing in
order to work with scientists and serious people like you to do
all we can to diminish the prospect of any of this occurring.
The first is, you need, for a nuclear device, not radiological,
you need the raw material, which is enriched uranium,
plutonium, there are other possibilities but those are
primarily the ones, so-called fissile materials, and that is
very difficult to get a hold of, although our concern relates
primarily--is it correct, Dr. Meserve, we are fairly confident
here in the United States that access to that material--nothing
is impossible, I guess. Fort Knox could be held up, too, but it
is like Fort Knox. We are talking about a great degree of
difficulty, and requiring incredible sabotage or espionage for
there to be a release of that material in a way that would go
undetected, is that correct?
Dr. Meserve. That is correct.
The Chairman. So therefore we look at sources, and there
are, the estimates I have--and I do not want to guess at it
again, because my memory may not be correct, but there are more
than several tons of this material in the Soviet Union, is that
correct?
Dr. Meserve. That is correct. The precise number may be
classified, but there are more than hundreds of tons.
The Chairman. And that is enough to make, if we were
dedicated to do it and had it available, thousands of nuclear
weapons, correct?
Dr. Meserve. That is correct.
The Chairman. Now, we do know that the Russians very badly
want to protect that material, but in light of their economic
and political circumstances, they are not nearly as equipped to
do that as we are in the United States, and they have been
working with us on threat reduction possibilities. This all
goes to priorities for us, and what we fund and how we fund it.
So first thing is, protect the source. The most open
source, the most likely source, the most vulnerable source,
although not porous, is the former Soviet Union, Russia in
particular. Is that a fair statement?
Dr. Meserve. That is correct.
The Chairman. Would you think that, Dr. Cobb, as well?
Dr. Cobb. I would agree.
The Chairman. Now then, the second feat that has to be
overcome beyond getting the material is having the engineering
capability, building the box, building the thing, building the
device that causes the nuclear reaction to take place, even if
you have the material, correct?
Dr. Cobb. Plausibly, yes.
The Chairman. That relates to engineering know-how, some of
which is available in the open literature. Some is correct,
some is incorrect, some is accurate, some is inaccurate, and
our concern relates to the degree of sophistication and
knowledge and background, nuclear and engineering background of
the individual who is tasked to do that, so Joe Biden would
have great difficulty doing that.
As a history and political science major, and a lawyer I
would have great difficulty doing that, but someone with real
scientific background and knowledge, and particularly if they
had worked in the nuclear arena, might not have as much
difficulty, correct?
Dr. Cobb. That is fair.
The Chairman. And the material that would be needed to
construct such a device, those materials are available on the
open market because they are used for other things as well,
correct, most of them?
Dr. Cobb. To a certain extent.
The Chairman. And then the third thing to be concerned, so
we have to look at either if there are materials that could be
used in such a device, we have to deal with controlling those
materials to the extent we can if they are not enriched uranium
or plutonium, that is the canister, the thing that causes this
reaction to take place, and there is more vulnerability there,
because many of those elements are used for legitimate
purposes.
And the last piece, then, is that the degree to which our
intelligence services are able to detect and to interface with
other intelligence communities to try to get ahead of the curve
here to determine who may be engaged in such activity, and we
are working on that to determine whether we beef up our
intelligence capacity and our intelligence capability, but
there is one piece that I am not fully--I am not fully
cognizant of all those pieces, but I am not as certain about,
and that is the ability to detect the material, the fissile
material that produces the release of nuclear energy, and that
is the plutonium or enriched uranium.
Now, if I try to smuggle across a border or into a building
a radiological material, a material that is not adequately
shielded, we have devices now, do we not, that are in the
conventional market that could detect me walking into a
building with radiological material in a briefcase, a suitcase,
unless it was fully shielded, and then the more material I
have, the more shielding is required, the heavier it is, so
there are other ways to look for this material, other than just
merely detecting, is that correct, Dr. Meserve?
Dr. Meserve. That is correct. There is some intricacy here
having to do with the type of material, but basically, for many
of the materials of concern here, not highly enriched uranium
or plutonium, there are detection devices one could have at
ports of entry, or going into buildings, or at airports, or
what-have-you, to be able to detect them.
The Chairman. We discussed yesterday in one nonclassified
portion of this, if someone were to smuggle in radiological
material in a canister, a so-called dirty bomb in a canister--
excuse me, a cargo container that theoretically we are able to
detect one of two things, either based on the shipment we can
detect mass that is designed to shield the radiological
material, which would give us a heads-up to take a look at it,
or actually detect, have a little geiger counter go off and
say, there is radiological material in this big old cargo
container, and theoretically that is possible to attach to the
crane that picks this device up off a ship and puts it on the
back of a tractor trailer, or have a device where you go
through just like a metal detector, where the canister or
vehicle goes through a metal detector, in effect, and gives you
some reading as either the density of the material that is
there, and/or the radiological reading, is that correct?
Dr. Meserve. That is correct.
The Chairman. Now, I know it is much more complicated and
more detailed than this, but I am trying to get at the second
issue that Dr. Cobb raised yesterday that I think is very
important that we focus on, at least that we focus on, and that
is that I think the average person would think it would be
easier to detect fissile material, plutonium, uranium being
transported than it would be to detect a radiological material
because of the consequences.
People think the greater the consequence, the danger, I
think instinctively they think, well, the easier it would be
able to detect it. In fact, that is not true, is it? In fact,
it is very difficult for us to be able to detect, whether or
not in a suitcase, in an aircraft, on a train, on a plane, in a
cargo ship there is enriched uranium or plutonium, is that
correct?
Dr. Cobb. Well, let me comment. I think we have been
working for years--I think Dr. Koonin pointed out that
radiation sensors, devices to do detection, the physical
principles are pretty well understood, and we have worked on
these for a long time, and we focused on actually the weapons-
usable materials, uranium and plutonium, so I guess I would
only quibble with the comment that it may be difficult, but
there are approaches that have been developed over the years to
do the detection.
And without going into a lot of details about different
kinds of radiological sources and the radiation they emit, in
some sense you do get almost for free, because you have been
working the uranium problems and plutonium problems, some
capability to detect these other types of materials.
The Chairman. The reason I mentioned that, and I will cease
with this, is that again, in terms of priority for
policymakers, and we are talking about taking limited dollars
to deal with threats that are posed, if we could, if we could
develop on a larger scale, and with more precision, detection
devices that would expose the presence of nuclear-capable
material, that is enriched uranium, plutonium, et cetera, that
that is something we physically would be able to improve on and
do, but it comes down to a question of, we have not done it
extensively yet. I imagine it is fairly costly.
For example, when we talk about borders, one of the
questions that my friend from Florida and I talk about
privately is, he represents the State of Florida. There are
millions upon millions, over the period of time, of cargo
containers on ships that come into his state, and so should we
be looking at ports of embarkation where this material, where
things leave--whether it is Le Havre, or whether it is London,
whether it is Vladivostok, wherever, a cargo container is
placed on a ship. Should we begin--and I am not asking you the
question unless you want to answer it, should we begin to
negotiate trade agreements with other countries saying, we want
to be able to inspect on the dock, at the port of embarkation,
materials that are being sent to us?
I mean, there is a lot we have to think about. That is the
only point I am trying to get to, but it is within the realm of
scientific possibility and capability to be able to enhance the
prospect of detecting the transfer of this weapons-grade
material, is it not?
Dr. Cobb. I think it is consistent with the thought that
you need as much layers in your protection as you can afford
and you can put in place.
Dr. Meserve. Senator, if I might add a thought, however, I
think the consequences, if this material were to come into the
United States and were to be exploited by a terrorist, are so
severe that you would need to look at the whole range of
options to be able to deal with it.
Probably the single most effective thing that we could do
is to try to control these materials at the source, because of
the difficulty in detection. We have long borders and there is
the possibility that something could get through. Control at
the source is the one place where we really could assure
ourselves of great progress. I think that ought to remain the
place where our attention is primarily focused, not to
discourage these other things as well as backup, part of a
defense in depth.
The Chairman. Well, I have never before, and I am not
deliberately now standing up a President of the United States--
it is almost 11--but there are other colleagues there, and I am
sure he will not miss me, and I hope they will allow me to
enter this meeting late, but let me conclude with one comment,
or one question and one comment.
Dr. Koonin, your presentation has been extremely helpful,
and I truly appreciate the fact that you have emphasized, as
all of you have, that the life-threatening consequences of the
easiest--if I may, the easiest radiological terrorist
activities that they could undertake are de minimis, but part
of this is, I am of the view that educating the public as to
the nature of the threat and the consequences of the action
enhance our ability significantly to deal with it.
I said to you gentlemen yesterday, and this is pure
conjecture on my part, and I will probably get 10,000 letters
disagreeing with me, but God forbid we have another anthrax
letter, of weapons-grade anthrax, or something approaching
that. I have a feeling the American public will adjust to it
and move through it with a greater degree of confidence than we
did before, because we know more, and we know that at the end
of the day, as devastating as it was, there were a half dozen
or so people who lost their lives, incredibly bad.
That was terrible, but it is not what I think some people
envisioned, that I would go home during this period and people
would say to me, am I going to open up my mail and will my
whole family die, and will the neighborhood be taken down, et
cetera, and so I think there is a sense of proportion that is
being established here.
It is an awful reality we have to deal with. It is a shame
we have to be educated about this at all, so I appreciate,
doctor, you putting this in a context, but my question is, it
is clear that handling radioactive material, you can learn how
to do it, but it is still a difficult process, the larger the
amounts and the greater the danger one is exposed to.
What about the handling of plutonium and enriched uranium?
How difficult is it to physically handle, assuming you got
access to it?
Dr. Koonin. If you want to do it safely, it is very
difficult, and we have facilities at the national laboratories
that are very secure, expensive, safe, in order to do just
that. However, if you are willing to die for what you are
doing, then it would be quite easy to deal with large amounts
of highly enriched uranium [HEU], or plutonium.
Radiological materials could induce death within minutes to
hours, but again you do not need a very strong source in order
to cause a lot of trouble.
The Chairman. The last thing I would like to do is thank
the panel and ask your indulgence that if we desire to have you
back at another time, whether you would be willing to consider
giving us the benefit of your wisdom, and possibly in a
slightly different context for an additional hearing. Would you
be willing to do that?
Dr. Meserve. Of course.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Nelson. Mr. Chairman, I have to be presiding at 11.
The Chairman. I am sorry I did not give you a chance to ask
questions. I thought you were able to stay.
Senator Nelson. I understand you are going to recess this
until 2:30.
The Chairman. Yes, I am going to recess the hearing until
this afternoon. I started my day at 5 a.m. as my father
underwent a minor operation this morning at 6 a.m., so we are
going to recess until 2:30. I realize Drs. Meserve and Cobb are
unable to return this afternoon. Are you able, Dr. Koonin, to
be available at 2:30?
Dr. Koonin. I am, indeed.
The Chairman. We will resume at 2:30 with Dr. Kelly, Dr.
Koonin, and Dr. Vantine, and I appreciate your indulgence,
gentlemen. Thanks for the accommodation. I appreciate it a
whole lot. We are in recess until 2:30.
[Whereupon, at 10:55 a.m., the committee adjourned, to
reconvene at 2:30 p.m., the same day.]
----------
AFTERNOON SESSION
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 p.m. in room
SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph R. Biden,
Jr. (chairman of the committee), presiding.
The Chairman. The hearing will reconvene. It seems all I'm
doing today is apologizing to witnesses, and I do apologize.
You're all incredibly busy and important men, and what you have
to say is of great consequence to us, and I do apologize.
We had--as the Senator from Florida probably told you, we
had President Mubarak here, and we had a little followup with
the President a moment ago. There's a judge the President is
interested in. At any rate--it is hard to say, ``I've got
witnesses waiting''--but, unfortunately I'm not able to help
them. But, having said that, why don't we begin?
And let me invite Dr. Kelly, if you would be willing to
make your statement. And, by the way, we owe something beyond
the glass of water we're giving Dr. Koonin. He was here this
morning, and he is here this afternoon, and he has been kept
waiting in the meantime.
Dr. Kelly, I introduced you, in your absence this morning,
by pointing out that you are here to discuss a recent FAS study
on the effects of dirty radiological bombs. And I understand
you're going to show us some specifics of how such a device may
affect American cities. And you've spent over 7 years as
Director of Technology in the White House Office of Science and
Technology, and you've worked at the Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment, where you were an Assistant Director of
what is now known as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
So, doctor, why don't you begin, and then we will go to Dr.
Vantine, who gave us a great presentation yesterday, as well,
and I will introduce him at that time. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. HENRY C. KELLY, PRESIDENT, FEDERATION OF
AMERICAN SCIENTISTS, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Kelly. Thank you very much, and I certainly appreciate
the committee's attempt to try to understand this very
difficult subject and bring what we think is a very critical
problem to the public's attention. I would like to begin by
thanking two of my colleagues here, two physicists, Mike Levi
and Robert Nelson, who have worked with FAS to do the analysis.
The Chairman. Thank you for being here, gentlemen.
Dr. Kelly. So what I'm going to do here is concentrate on
the impact of radiological attacks using comparatively small
amounts of radioactive material. And I guess I have three main
points I want to make here. First is that the threat of an
attack using these radiological materials----
The Chairman. For years and years in the Senate, I served
either as chairman or ranking member with Senator Thurmond, and
he had the best explanation. He said, ``You've got to speak
into the machine.'' With all our great technology, you will
notice that this hearing room has a terribly inadequate PA
system, and poor Bertie has to work with it all the time. But
you have to speak right into the machine, as Senator Thurmond
would say.
Dr. Kelly. I remember reading a candidate in New York City
spoke to 20,000 people in 1960, and I always wondered--without
any amplification. So those were the days when lung-power
counted.
The Chairman. He was obviously desperate.
Dr. Kelly. Well, what I want to do is make three points.
The first is that the danger presented by radiological attack
is very real and credible. Anything of significant size is not
going to be trivial to undertake, but it's certainly not beyond
the capacity of a sophisticated organization.
A second point is that any attack that makes any reasonable
sense is not going to kill a large number of people. If that is
your aim, this is not the appropriate tool, nor will it even
injure a large number of people, so that it will be a
comparatively small number of people that will be getting
radiation sickness from this kind of attack. The main danger is
contaminating significant areas with material that would
require very expensive cleanup and could be extremely
disruptive and could, without proper emergency response, create
considerable panic. And, of course, you could deny economic use
of large areas.
Now, one of the things that needs to be put on the table to
put this in perspective, what you did this morning, is that
this needs to be clearly distinguished from a nuclear weapon.
This doesn't create an explosion. A nuclear weapon would be
killing tens, hundreds of thousands of people, and it is an
order of magnitude different. And so that this issue needs to
be kept in perspective.
And I guess my third point is that--the good news in all of
this is that, while this is a new class of threats that we need
to take seriously, there are a number of very constructive
things that we can do to vastly reduce the threat. This is a
problem which, compared to a lot of the other things we're
facing, is fairly solvable.
Now, let me just quickly go through why we think this is a
problem. And the problem is basically that we are using
radioactive materials in many parts of our economy--and this,
again, was discussed this morning--but they're extremely
valuable in application--from making food safe, to medical
facilities, to finding oil, smoke detectors, many other things
we count on for our economy. So they are distributed in quite
large numbers around the United States and around the world.
Now, in the past, our main concern about nuclear materials
has been, in the first instance: Is there enough material to
make a nuclear weapon? And we have, certainly in the United
States and in most parts of the world, made very sure that we
have control of any amount of radioactive material that could
be used to make a weapon. And----
The Chairman. Do you have a high degree of confidence in
that statement, doctor?
Dr. Kelly. I certainly have it in the United States. You
discussed the problem of controlling it in the former Soviet
Union, and I think it is a real problem, but in the United
States, our Department of Energy and the national labs have
done, I think, a spectacular job of maintaining control over
this material. So that means that there are smaller amounts of
material and radioactive samples that are used--that cannot be
used to make a nuclear weapon. And, in the past, of course, our
main concern about this stuff has been making sure that the
workers who are handling it were well protected, that it wasn't
lost or stolen or led to public health dangers of one kind or
another. There was concern about theft, but mainly because it
had the economic value. Somebody would steal it for--often by
accident, using it for scrap metal, but there was never any
thought of malicious intent, other than an honorable thief
looking for a quick buck.
The notion that someone would steal this material for
malicious intent and actually try to turn it into a
radiological weapon has created a whole new class of threats,
and that is what has put this issue on the table on what to do
about that.
What we have done is some very simple calculations just to
show the danger presented by many of the classes of materials
that are out there. What we have done is use a computer program
that is used to help emergency-response teams understand what
areas might be contaminated.
So I'm just going to take two examples. One is a very small
piece of cesium, roughly the size of the piece of cesium that
was found in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago that had
accidentally found its way into a steel mill. And let's see if
I can get the technology to work for me. We're assuming you
simply blow this material up at the foot of Capitol Hill. And
what happens is, if----
The Chairman. How much material are we talking about now in
this slide? \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ This reference is to slides of maps being displayed by Dr.
Kelly during his testimony. The maps are part of his prepared statement
that begins on page 37.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Kelly. Well, it's 2 curies, the size of the material
that was found in North Carolina. And we've assumed that it's
broken up into tiny particles and settles around Capitol Hill.
And I have--we've calculated three circles here. The inner
circle, the smaller one, you have one chance in a hundred of
getting cancer in that area. Now, that's roughly the risk that
is taken already by a nuclear worker, radiation workers. So
over their lifetime, they get roughly the same exposure. So at
least for that class of people, we would, you know, have been
willing to take that risk. The middle ring is one chance in a
thousand of getting cancer. And the outer ring is one chance in
ten thousand.
Now, this assumes that you are--to get this cancer risk,
you have to be there for--you have to live there for 40 years
to get that level of risk.
The Chairman. So it's not merely that if you're intially
exposed to this--let's say you're walking down the mall--that
looks like the mall or the ellipse.
Dr. Kelly. Yes, I think----
The Chairman. What you have there?
Dr. Kelly. Yes.
The Chairman. You're walking down the mall, and this thing
would go off. If you're in the first small circle, and you are
immediately evacuated from that area, is your risk still one in
a hundred?
Dr. Kelly. Oh, no. You would have to--your risk would be--
the risk of--if you just walked out of here, your risk would be
almost non-existent. The only people likely to be hurt in this
are likely to be hurt either by the weapon itself, the
explosion----
The Chairman. The actual explosion, right.
Dr. Kelly [continuing]. Or if there's panic----
The Chairman. Yes.
Dr. Kelly [continuing]. Which is something you want to be
worried about. So the reason for showing these contours,
however, is that the areas that are exposed----
The Chairman. Right.
Dr. Kelly [continuing]. Have to be cleaned up.
The Chairman. Right.
Dr. Kelly. And one of the problems in the outer ring is the
EPA threshold that was actually discussed earlier. It's the
Superfund threshold, one in ten thousand. Now, one thing you
have to understand about that level is that it's an extremely
low level or risk. It's about--we're saying you have one chance
in twenty of dying of cancer, in any event, and this makes it--
increases it by this one in ten thousand. So this is--you're
also exposed to a background level of radiation all the time.
No amount is good for you, but we get it from cosmic rays, we
get it from radon from the soil. You know every--you're rolling
the dice every time one of these radioactive rays goes through
your body. And so the more times you roll the dice, the higher
your probability is. But this increases the risk only about--by
a factor of one-twentieth above background.
Nonetheless, it is the level that EPA sets as the area
which they recommend decontamination. And one of the dilemmas
you face is that this stuff is pretty hard to decontaminate. In
the case of cesium, it binds to asphalt and concrete. It can
get into the air-conditioning system. And if anything like--if
it had gotten into the Hart Office Building, you couldn't, for
example, just pump chlorine into it and kill this stuff. I
mean, it is very hard to get out and, in many cases, you
probably would have to demolish the buildings or reconsider
whether this threshold really makes sense, because this is a--
--
The Chairman. Reconsider the one in ten thousand standard?
Dr. Kelly. Yes. I mean, you'd be faced with that decision
about----
The Chairman. Yes.
Dr. Kelly. Now, the second example I have is taking a
comparatively large source of cobalt of the sort that is used
in devices around the country, and detonating it at the tip of
Manhattan. Now, here you see the rings are--these are the same
three rings here, so you're basically----
The Chairman. Rings are elliptically shaped because that
represents wind--the direction of the wind, or whatever, just
arbitrarily----
Dr. Kelly. Yes; we just picked--low wind, but the wind just
happened to be blowing to the northeast. Now, one of the things
that I should emphasize is that all of these calculations--if
you read the manual for the first-responder calculation, they
say that the--there are huge errors associated with these
calculations, because it depends on the tails of the wind and
where the buildings are located and all sorts of other
assumptions. So this is not an absolute forecast----
The Chairman. Gotcha.
Dr. Kelly [continuing]. But it's a reasonable scenario of
what could happen. And again, you can see that you have, in
this case, quite significant areas that are affected, including
some agricultural areas you'd have to worry about. And the
other point here, though, is that anybody who tries to actually
handle this kind of material would have to be quite a
sophisticated person, because just holding this--if you held or
were close to one of these for even a few minutes, you'd get a
fatal dose of radiation and be incapacitated within an hour. So
this is not a simple task to do.
I want to just give you another point of comparison. We
tried to use the Russian standard at Chernobyl as a point of
comparison, and given the contamination levels that would have
come from this cobalt explosion that I was just describing, the
inner ring is the area that the Russians closed permanently as
a result of the Chernobyl accident. So this is just to give you
an indicator of the----
The Chairman. Is that the tip of Manhattan island we're
looking at?
Dr. Kelly. Yes, it's detonated right down at the tip.
The Chairman. OK.
Dr. Kelly. And, of course, this is a slightly different
wind pattern that we've got----
The Chairman. Yes.
Dr. Kelly [continuing]. And it just goes up----
The Chairman. Yes.
Dr. Kelly. It's just to give you a sense of scale. But the
point of this is--and again, you--the level of risks at the far
end of this are high, but if you walk out of this thing, even
in this case, very few people are going to be killed through
direct effects. There are always freak events where you'd have
a hot spot and some could get a high dosage, but this is not
going to be--if people are safely evacuated, you're not going
to be killing significant numbers of people.
So the question at the end, then, is if this is quite a
serious threat and a credible threat, as you said in your
opening remarks, one of the things we all need to face up to
here after September 11, is to take a very hardheaded look at
the real risks faced by the United States and find out whether
our resources are being aligned with where the real risks are
and where we can do some good. This is clearly an area where we
can do some good and where at least we believe the risks are
quite high.
And we have three classes of recommendations, which largely
follow the statements that have already been made. There seems
to be an amazing consensus here on how to proceed. First of
all, you want to reduce opportunity for the terrorists or any
malefactors to get hold of this material to begin with. Second,
you'd like to have very early warning to detect any illicit
movement of this. And, third, you want to minimize casualties
and panic that would result if such an event actually occurred.
And let me give a few specific things that I think would
qualify in each one of those areas. I think we really do
congratulate Dr. Meserve and the activities of the NRC to face
up to this new class of challenge for his materials. But we
plainly need to take a fresh look at the procedures under which
people obtain high levels of radioactive materials, the safety
and security procedures, and tracking these materials
throughout their lifetime.
Another thing we need to do is to beef up our intelligence,
both through domestic police work and through close cooperation
internationally, in making sure that we keep close track of
both the legal and illegal movements of this material. And I
should hasten to say that virtually every problem we're facing
here in the United States is being faced in Europe and most
parts of the world, so it really makes sense to approach almost
all of these problems through international collaborations and
perhaps even cost sharing where it's appropriate.
One place where this might be particularly appropriate is
looking for technical alternatives to radiation. Right now we
use radioactive materials to sterilize food and to do logging
and other things, because it's the cheapest way to do it. Now,
what will happen if you start applying rigorous security to
some of those facilities, the price of doing it that way might
go up. And one thing that is likely to happen is that it will
stimulate technology that is not high risk that could do the
same job, maybe at a slightly higher price. And we think that
it's probably appropriate for the laboratories and other
organizations to actually engage actively in research and
search for alternatives, particularly for these higher-level
sources of radioactive material.
One specific problem that people have had is that there's a
lot of--is getting rid of radioactive material when it's no
longer being used. And there are--it's a terrible problem, but
if you've got a sample in a laboratory or in a company that's
gone bankrupt or just is going to some other line of work, what
do you do with this stuff? In most cases, the Department of
Energy is the only organization allowed to come and pick the
stuff up and move it to a safe site.
And there's a program in DOE called the Offsite Source
Recovery Project, which we think has been chronically
underfunded. These are guys who just go out in trucks, locate
these sources, pick them up and take them to a safe place. And
it seems, to us, silly to have people who don't want this
material forced to keep it because this program is underfunded.
The second thing I mentioned was early detection, and there
are a lot of--there's a need to put radiation detectors in many
different pinch points, ports, bridges, tunnels, and other
areas, and also a need to develop improved detectors. And there
are a lot of things that can be done and are being done at the
labs and other places to increase our ability to detect
movement of all kinds. A lot of them are sophisticated systems
where the more different detectors you network together, the
better able you are to get patterns and eliminate false alarms.
And we would strongly support increasing research and testing
as well as deploying things we already know how to do.
And then, finally, in the event that you actually do have
an incident, there are--the first thing you need to do it to
make sure that people who respond to the emergency are able to
control panic and are able to treat any people who have real
symptoms. Emergency response training is key. One very
important thing is that this--an attack of this sort would
generate a lot of panic. There was a case in Brazil where a
large amount of cesium was released inadvertently in a
neighborhood, and huge numbers of people in the town showed up
at the emergency rooms. Some of them had radiation-sickness
symptoms. They were nauseous and had physical symptoms. But
only fewer than 10 percent of them actually had anything
approaching dangerous levels of exposure. It was purely
psychosomatic stress. And if the emergency responders aren't
prepared to deal with this kind of problem and do instant
triage, you could have chaos at the health facility.
We have some concern that, while a lot of money is being
directed into first-responder training, that there is a real
need to take a tight, controlled approach to this rather than
simply spread it out to all the states and hope for the best.
The Chairman. Tight control of the training?
Dr. Kelly. Yes. Things like quality control over the
materials. There's a lot of people who are still training with
obsolete information. And, as you know, we are learning,
rapidly, new things about the nature of these threats and how
to respond and trying to update everybody's field manual in the
realtime is not a very practical thing to do. Fortunately, the
Internet and other tools like this should make it easier to do
that. You'd also like to have some kind of peer review or
quality control for the materials which are being sent out to
these people. And again, advanced information-based training
systems seem to cry out for this.
The Defense Department and the labs have started to work in
this area, but we sense that there is a real need to get some
infrastructure here to make sure that good material is easy to
find and distributed quickly out to the very large number of
people who need it. There are 2.7 million nurses and over a
million police and fire alone, let alone emergency responders.
So in the end, we're concluding that this is a very serious
security problem from radiological attack, from sources that
are spread throughout the economy. One of the things I haven't
talked about is nuclear reactor fuel rods. Of course, these
have many times more nuclear radioactive material in these rods
than anything that I've been talking about. But also trying to
acquire and move and manipulate these is also many times more
difficult. So I haven't formally considered that here. But the
good news, of course, is that with some prompt and very
practical things, we can hugely reduce the risk of these kinds
of attacks.
I have to conclude by saying that in the long run, there's
no way we can reduce this risk to zero. And one of the things
we plainly need to do is to try to find a way to build a world
where the kind of people who would even contemplate this kind
of attack aren't being bred and trained. But I really do thank
the committee for engaging this. I think it's very timely, and
I look forward to being able to work with you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Kelly follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Henry C. Kelly, President, Federation of
American Scientists
introduction
Surely there is no more unsettling task than considering how to
defend our nation against individuals and groups seeking to advance
their aims by killing and injuring innocent people. But recent events
make it necessary to take almost-inconceivably evil acts seriously. We
are all grateful for the Committee's uncompromising review of these
threats and its search for responses needed to protect our nation.
Thank you for the opportunity to support these efforts.
My remarks today will review the dangers presented by radiological
attacks, situations where nuclear materials that could be released,
without using a nuclear explosive device, for the malicious propose of
killing or injuring American citizens and destroying property. Our
analysis of this threat has reached three principle conclusions:
1. Radiological attacks constitute a credible threat.
Radioactive materials that could be used for such attacks are
stored in thousands of facilities around the U.S., many of
which may not be adequately protected against theft by
determined terrorists. Some of this material could be easily
dispersed in urban areas by using conventional explosives or by
other methods.
2. While radiological attacks would result in some deaths,
they would not result in the hundreds of thousands of
fatalities that could be caused by a crude nuclear weapon.
Attacks could contaminate large urban areas with radiation
levels that exceed EPA health and toxic material guidelines.
3. Materials that could easily be lost or stolen from U.S.
research institutions and commercial sites could contaminate
tens of city blocks at a level that would require prompt
evacuation and create terror in large communities even if
radiation casualties were low. Areas as large as tens of square
miles could be contaminated at levels that exceed recommended
civilian exposure limits. Since there are often no effective
ways to decontaminate buildings that have been exposed at these
levels, demolition may be the only practical solution. If such
an event were to take place in a city like New York, it would
result in losses of potentially trillions of dollars.
The analysis I will summarize here was conductd by Michael Levi,
Director of the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of
American Scientists (FAS), and by Dr. Robert Nelson of Princeton
University and FAS.
background
Materials are radioactive if their atomic nuclei (or centers)
spontaneously disintegrate (or decay) with high-energy fragments of
this disintegration flying off into the environment. Several kinds of
particles can so be emitted, and are collectively referred to as
radiation. Some materials decay quickly, making them sources of intense
radiation, but their rapid decay rate means that they do not stay
radioactive for long periods of time. Other materials serve as a weaker
source of radiation because they decay slowly. Slow rates of decay
mean, however, that a source may remain dangerous for very long
periods. Half of the atoms in a sample of cobalt-60 will, for example,
disintegrate over a five year period, but it takes 430 years for half
of the atoms in a sample of americium-241 to decay.
The radiation produced by radioactive materials provides a low-cost
way to disinfect food, sterilize medical equipment, treat certain kinds
of cancer, find oil, build sensitive smoke detectors, and provide other
critical services in our economy. Radioactive materials are also widely
used in university, corporate, and government research laboratories. As
a result, significant amounts of radioactive materials are stored in
laboratories, food irradiation plants, oil drilling facilities, medical
centers, and many other sites.
A. Commercial Uses
Radioactive sources that emit intense gamma-rays, such as cobalt-60
and cesium-137, are useful in killing bacteria and cancer cells. Gamma-
rays, like X-rays, can penetrate clothing, skin, and other materials,
but they are more energetic and destructive. When these rays reach
targeted cells, they cause lethal chemical changes inside the cell.
Plutonium and americium also serve commercial and research
purposes. When plutonium or americium decay, they throw off a very
large particle called an alpha particle. Hence, they are referred to as
alpha emitters. Plutonium, which is used in nuclear weapons, also has
non-military functions. During the 1960s and 1970s the federal
government encouraged the use of plutonium in university facilities
studying nuclear engineering and nuclear physics. Americium is used in
smoke detectors and in devices that find oil sources. These devices are
lowered deep into oil wells and are used to detect fossil fuel deposits
by measuring hydrogen content as they descend.
B. Present Security
With the exception of nuclear power reactors, commercial facilities
do not have the types or volumes of materials usable for making nuclear
weapons. Security concerns have focused on preventing thefts or
accidents that could expose employees and the general public to harmful
levels of radiation. A thief might, for example, take the material for
its commercial value as a radioactive source, or it may be discarded as
scrap by accident or as a result of neglect. This system works
reasonably well when the owners have a vested interest in protecting
commercially valuable material. However, once the materials are no
longer needed and costs of appropriate disposal are high, security
measures become lax, and the likelihood of abandonment or theft
increases.
Concern about the intentional release of radioactive materials
changes the situation in fundamental ways. We must wrestle with the
possibility that sophisticated terrorist groups may be interested in
obtaining the material and with the enormous danger to society that
such thefts might present.
Significant quantities of radioactive material have been lost or
stolen from U.S. facilities during the past few years and thefts of
foreign sources have led to fatalities. In the U.S., sources have been
found abandoned in scrap yards, vehicles, and residential buildings. In
September, 1987, scavengers broke into an abandoned cancer clinic in
Goiania, Brazil and stole a medical device containing large amounts of
radioactive cesium. An estimated 250 people were exposed to the source,
eight developed radiation sickness, and four died.
In almost all cases, the loss of radioactive materials has resulted
from an accident or from a thief interested only in economic gain. In
1995, however, Chechen rebels placed a shielded container holding the
Cesium-137 core of a cancer treatment device in a Moscow park, and then
tipped off Russian reporters of its location. The only reported death
from terrorist use of a radioactive material occurred when a Russian
mafia group hid a radioactive source below the office chair of a
businessman, killing him after a few days of exposure.
Enhanced security measures at commercial sites that use dangerous
amounts of radioactive material are likely to increase the cost of
using radioactive materials and may possibly stimulate development and
use of alternative technologies for some applications.
C. Health Risks
Gamma rays pose two types of health risks. Intense sources of gamma
rays can cause immediate tissue damage, and lead to acute radiation
poisoning. Fatalities can result from very high doses. Long-term
exposure to low levels of gamma rays can also be harmful because it can
cause genetic mutations leading to cancer. Triggering cancer is largely
a matter of chance: the more radiation you're exposed to, the more
often the dice are rolled. The risk is never zero since we are all
constantly being bombarded by large amounts of gamma radiation produced
by cosmic rays, which reach us from distant stars. We are also exposed
to trace amounts of radioactivity in the soil, in building materials,
and other parts of our environment. Any increase in exposure increases
the risk of cancer.
Alpha particles emitted by plutonium, americium and other elements
also pose health risks. Although these particles cannot penetrate
clothing or skin, they are harmful if emitted by inhaled materials. If
plutonium is in the environment in particles small enough to be
inhaled, contaminated particles can lodge in the lung for extended
periods. Inside the lung, the alpha particles produced by plutonium can
damage lung tissue and lead to long-term cancers.
case studies
We have chosen three specific cases to illustrate the range of
impacts that could be created by malicious use of comparatively small
radioactive sources: the amount of cesium that was discovered recently
abandoned in North Carolina, the amount of cobalt commonly found in a
single rod in a food irradiation facility, and the amount of americium
typically found in oil well logging systems. The impact would be much
greater if the radiological device in question released the enormous
amounts of radioactive material found in a single nuclear reactor fuel
rod, but it would be quite difficult and dangerous for anyone to
attempt to obtain and ship such a rod without death or detection. The
Committee will undoubtedly agree that the danger presented by modest
radiological sources that are comparatively easy to obtain is
significant as well.
Impact of the release of radioactive material in a populated area
will vary depending on a number of factors, many of which are not
predictable. Consequences depend on the amount of material released,
the nature of the material, the details of the device that distributes
the material, the direction and speed of the wind, other weather
conditions, the size of the particles released (which affects their
ability to be carried by the wind and to be inhaled), and the location
and size of buildings near the release site. Uncertainties inherent in
the complex models used in predicting the effects of a radiological
weapon mean that it is only possible to make crude estimates of
impacts; the estimated damage we show might be too high by a factor
often, or underestimated by the same factor. The following examples are
then fairly accurate illustrations, rather than precise predictions.
In all three cases we have assumed that the material is released on
a calm day (wind speed of one mile per hour). We assume that the
material is distributed by an explosion that causes a mist of fine
particles to spread downwind in a cloud. The blast itself, of course,
may result in direct injuries, but these have not been calculated.
People will be exposed to radiation in several ways.
First, they will be exposed to material in the dust inhaled
during the initial passage of the radiation cloud, if they have
not been able to escape the area before the dust cloud arrives.
We assume that about 20% of the material is in particles small
enough to be inhaled. If this material is plutonium or
americium (or other alpha emitters), the material will stay in
the body and lead to long term exposure.
Second, anyone living in the affected area will be exposed
to material deposited from the dust that settles from the
cloud. If the material contains cesium (or other gamma
emitters) they will be continuously exposed to radiation from
this dust, since the gamma rays penetrate clothing and skin. If
the material contains plutonium (or other alpha emitters), dust
that is pulled off the ground and into the air by wind,
automobile movement, or other actions will continue to be
inhaled, adding to exposure.
In a rural area, people would also be exposed to radiation
from contaminated food and water sources.
The EPA has a series of recommendations for addressing radioactive
contamination that would likely guide official response to a
radiological attack. Immediately after the attack, authorities would
evacuate people from areas contaminated to levels exceeding these
guidelines. People who received more than twenty-five times the
threshold dose for evacuation would have to be taken in for medical
supervision.
In the long term, the cancer hazard from the remaining radioactive
contamination would have to be addressed. Typically, if decontamination
could not reduce the danger of cancer death to about one-in-ten-
thousand, the EPA would recommend the contaminated area be eventually
abandoned. Decontaminating an urban area presents a variety of
challenges. Several materials that might be used in a radiological
attack can chemically bind to concrete and asphalt, while other
materials would become physically lodged in crevices on the surface of
buildings, sidewalks and streets. Options for decontamination would
range from sandblasting to demolition, with the latter likely being the
only feasible option. Some radiological materials will also become
firmly attached to soil in city parks, with the only disposal method
being large scale removal of contaminated dirt. In short, there is a
high risk that the area contaminated by a radiological attack would
have to be deserted.
We now consider the specific attack scenarios. The first two
provide examples of attacks using gamma emitters, while the last
example uses an alpha emitter. In each case, we have calculated the
expected size of the contaminated area, along with other zones of
dangerously high contamination. The figures in the Appendix \1\ provide
a guide to understanding the impact of the attacks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See figures 1 through 5 at end of statement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
example 1--cesium (gamma emitter)--figure 1
Two weeks ago, a lost medical gauge containing Cesium was
discovered in North Carolina. Imagine that the Cesium in this device
was exploded in Washington, DC in a bomb using ten pounds of TNT. The
initial passing of the radioactive cloud would be relatively harmless,
and no one would have to evacuate immediately. But what area would be
contaminated? Residents of an area of about five city blocks, if they
remained, would have a one-in-a-thousand chance of getting cancer. A
swath about one mile long covering an area of forty city blocks would
exceed EPA contamination limits, with remaining residents having a one-
in-ten thousand chance of getting cancer. If decontamination were not
possible, these areas would have to be abandoned for decades. If the
device was detonated at the National Gallery of Art, the contaminated
area might include the Capitol, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress,
as seen in figure one.
example 2--cobalt (gamma emitter)--figures 2 and 3
Now imagine if a single piece of radioactive cobalt from a food
irradiation plant was dispersed by an explosion at the lower tip of
Manhattan. Typically, each of these cobalt ``pencils'' is about one
inch in diameter and one foot long, with hundreds of such pieces often
being found in the same facility. Admittedly, acquisition of such
material is less likely than in the previous scenario, but we still
consider the results, depicted in figure two. Again, no immediate
evacuation would be necessary, but in this case, an area of
approximately one-thousand square kilometers, extending over three
states, would be contaminated. Over an area of about three hundred
typical city blocks, there would be a one-in-ten risk of death from
cancer for residents living in the contaminated area for forty years.
The entire borough of Manhattan would be so contaminated that anyone
living there would have a one-in-a-hundred chance of dying from cancer
caused by the residual radiation. It would be decades before the city
was inhabitable again, and demolition might be necessary.
For comparison, consider the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in which a
Soviet nuclear power plant went through a meltdown. Radiation was
spread over a vast area, and the region surrounding the plant was
permanently closed. In our current example, the area contaminated to
the same level of radiation as that region would cover much of
Manhattan, as shown in figure three. Furthermore, near Chernobyl, a
larger area has been subject to periodic controls on human use such as
restrictions on food, clothing, and time spent outdoors. In the current
example, the equivalent area extends fifteen miles.
To summarize the first two examples, materials like cesium, cobalt,
iridium, and strontium (gamma emitters) would all produce similar
results. No immediate evacuation or medical attention would be
necessary, but long-term contamination would render large urban areas
useless, resulting in severe economic and personal hardship.
example 3--americium (gamma emitter)--figures 4 and 5
A device that spread materials like americium and plutonium would
present an entirely different set of risks. Consider a typical
americium source used in oil well surveying. If this were blown up with
one pound of TNT, people in a region roughly ten times the area of the
initial bomb blast would require medical supervision and monitoring, as
depicted in figure four. An area 30 times the size of the first area (a
swath one kilometer long and covering twenty city blocks) would have to
be evacuated within half an hour. After the initial passage of the
cloud, most of the radioactive materials would settle to the ground. Of
these materials, some would be forced back up into the air and inhaled,
thus posing a long-term health hazard, as illustrated by figure five. A
ten-block area contaminated in this way would have a cancer death
probability of one-in-a-thousand. A region two kilometers long and
covering sixty city blocks would be contaminated in excess of EPA
safety guidelines. If the buildings in this area had to be demolished
and rebuilt, the cost would exceed fifty billion dollars.
recommendations
A number of practical steps can be taken that would greatly reduce
the risks presented by radiological weapons. Our recommendations fall
into three categories: (1) Reduce opportunities for terrorists to
obtain dangerous radioactive materials, (2) Install early warning
systems to detect illicit movement of radioactive materials, and (3)
Minimize casualties and panic from any attack that does occur. Since
the U.S. is not alone in its concern about radiological attack, and
since we clearly benefit by limiting access to dangerous materials
anywhere in the world, many of the measures recommended should be
undertaken as international collaborations.
(1) Reduce access to radioactive materials
Radioactive materials facilitate valuable economic, research and
health care technologies. Measures needed to improve the security of
facilities holding dangerous amounts of these materials will increase
costs. In some cases, it may be worthwhile to pay a higher price for
increased security. In other instances, however, the development of
alternative technologies may be the more economically viable option.
Specific security steps include the following:
Fully fund material recovery and storage programs. Hundreds
of plutonium, americium, and other radioactive sources are
stored in dangerously large quantities in university
laboratories and other facilities. When these materials are
actively used and considered a valuable economic asset, they
are likely to be well protected. But in all too many cases they
are not used frequently, resulting in the risk that attention
to their security will diminish over time. At the same time, it
is difficult for the custodians of these materials to dispose
of them since in many cases only the DOE is authorized to
recover and transport them to permanent disposal sites. The DOE
Off-Site Source Recovery Project (OSRP), which is responsible
for undertaking this task, has successfully secured over three-
thousand sources and has moved them to a safe location.
Unfortunately, the inadequate funding of this program serves as
a serious impediment to further source recovery efforts.
Funding for OSRP has been repeatedly cut in the FY2001 and 2002
budgets and the presidential FY2003 budget proposal,
significantly delaying the recovery process. In the cases of
FY01 and FY02, the 25% and 35% cuts were justified as money
being tansferred to higher priorities; the FY03 would cut
funding by an additional 26%. This program should be given the
needed attention and firm goals should be set for identifying,
transporting, and safeguarding all unneeded radioactive
materials.
Review licensing and security requirements and inspection
procedures for all dangerous amounts of radioactive material.
HHS, DOE, NRC and other affected agencies should be provided
with sufficient funding to ensure that physical protection
measures are adequate and that inspections are conducted on a
regular basis. A thorough reevaluation of security regulations
should be conducted to ensure that protective measures apply to
amounts of radioactive material that pose a homeland security
threat, not just those that present a threat of accidental
exposure.
Fund research aimed at finding alternatives to radioactive
materials. While radioactive sources provide an inexpensive way
to serve functions such as food sterilization, smoke detection,
and oil well logging, there are sometimes other, though
possibly more expensive, ways to perform the same functions. A
research program aimed at developing inexpensive substitutes
for radioactive materials in these applications should be
created and provided with adequate funding.
(2) Early Detection
Expanded use of radiation detection systems. Systems capable
of detecting dangerous amounts of radiation are comparatively
inexpensive and unobtrusive. Many have already been installed
in critical locations around Washington, DC, at border points
and throughout the U.S. The Office of Homeland Security should
act promptly to identify all areas where such sensors should be
installed, ensure that information from these sensors is
continuously assessed, and ensure adequate maintenance and
testing. High priority should be given to key points in the
transportation system, such as airports, harbors, rail
stations, tunnels, highways. Routine checks of scrap metal
yards and land fill sites would also protect against illegal or
accidental disposal of dangerous materials.
Fund research to improve detectors. Low-cost networking and
low-cost sensors should be able to provide wide coverage of
critical urban areas at a comparatively modest cost. A program
should be put in place to find ways of improving upon existing
detection technologies as well as improving plans for
deployment of these systems and for responding to alarms.
(3) Effective Disaster response
An effective response to a radiological attack requires a system
capable of quickly gauging the extent of the damage, identifying
appropriate responders, developing a coherent response plan, and
getting the necessary personnel and equipment to the site rapidly. The
immediate goal must be to identify the victims that require prompt
medical attention (likely to be a small number) and to ensure that all
other unauthorized personnel leave the affected area quickly, without
panic, and without spreading the radioactive material. All of this
requires extensive training.
Training for hospital personnel and first responders. First
responders and hospital personnel need to understand how to
protect themselves and affected citizens in the event of a
radiological attack and be able to rapidly determine if
individuals have been exposed to radiation.
There is great danger that panic in the event of a radiological
attack on a large city could lead to significant casualties and
severely stress the medical system. Panic can also cause
confusion for medical personnel. The experience of a
radiological accident in Brazil suggests that a large number of
people will present themselves to medical personnel with real
symptoms of radiation sickness--including nausea and
dizziness--even if only a small fraction of these people have
actually been exposed to radiation. Medical personnel need
careful training to distinguish those needing help from those
with psychosomatic symptoms. While generous funding has been
made available for training first responders and medical
personnel, the program appears in need of a clear management
strategy. Dozens of federal and state organizations are
involved, and it is not clear how materials will be certified
or accredited. Internet-based tools for delivering the training
will almost certainly be necessary to ensure that large numbers
of people throughout the U.S. get involved. In the U.S., there
are over 2.7 million nurses and over a million police and
firefighters who will require training, not to mention the
medics in the U.S. armed services. However, there appears to be
no coherent program for developing or using new tools to
deliver needed services, and to ensure that training and
resource materials are continuously upgraded and delivered
securely.
Decontamination Technology. Significant research into
cleanup of radiologically contaminated cities has been
conducted in the past, primarily in addressing the possibility
of nuclear war. Such programs should be revisited with an eye
to the specific requirements of cleaning up after a
radiological attack. As demonstrated above, the ability to
decontaminate large urban areas might mean the difference from
being able to continue inhabiting a city and having to abandon
it.
conclusion
The events of September 11 have created a need to very carefully
assess our defense needs and ensure that the resources we spend for
security are aligned with the most pressing security threats. The
analysis summarized here shows that the threat of malicious
radiological attack in the U.S. is quite real, quite serious, and
deserves a vigorous response. Fortunately, there are a number of
comparatively inexpensive measures that can and should be taken because
they can greatly reduce the likelihood of such an attack. The U.S. has
indicated its willingness to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to
combat threats that are, in our view, far less likely to occur. This
includes funding defensive measures that are far less likely to succeed
than the measures that we propose in this testimony. The comparatively
modest investments to reduce the danger of radiological attack surely
deserve priority support.
In the end, however, we must face the brutal reality that no
technological remedies can provide complete confidence that we are safe
from radiological attack. Determined, malicious groups might still find
a way to use radiological weapons or other means when their only goal
is killing innocent people, and if they have no regard for their own
lives. In the long run our greatest hope must lie in building a
prosperous, free world where the conditions that breed such monsters
have vanished from the earth.
The Chairman. Well, thank you, Dr. Kelly. After Dr. Vantine
speaks, I have some questions I'd like to pursue with you, as
well as Dr. Koonin, on this.
But, doctor, welcome. I indicated this morning, when I
opened the hearing, that we had had a very good briefing, in a
secure setting. And some of what each you had to say we felt
was not prudent to repeat here or was classified and could not
be repeated in this setting. And at any time in your
presentation, any question that I ask--which is unusual for us
to do, but important--that I know what I don't know, and
therefore I know you know more than I know--and therefore if
you conclude, classified or otherwise, that it is better not to
respond to the question in open session, all you have to do is
indicate that. I'd appreciate it, and we'll pursue it in closed
session.
You all have acknowledged and been willing to come back for
the larger session I want to set up for my colleagues, the
entire Senate, and the first briefing, more detailed and
classified briefing we received. And so we'll have an
opportunity to pursue that. But I leave you to your own
judgment, and I thank you again for the briefing yesterday, and
I'm sure we'll benefit from the testimony today.
STATEMENT OF DR. HARRY C. VANTINE, DIVISION LEADER, COUNTER-
TERRORISM AND INCIDENT RESPONSE, LAWRENCE LIVERMORE NATIONAL
LABORATORY, LIVERMORE, CA
Dr. Vantine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the remarks. And
thank you for the opportunity to talk before you this
afternoon.
By way of introduction, I'm Harry Vantine. I lead the
program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
Counter-terrorism and Incident Response. I've been a member of
the Emergency Response Program at Livermore for 20 years, so I
have quite a bit of experience in these fields.
As you mentioned, yesterday, in closed session, we talked
about the threat to homeland security posed by terrorist use of
improvised nuclear devices and radiological dispersal devices.
What I'd like to do today is to talk about means by which we
can go forward and protect the United States against the
terrorist threat. And to that end, I've prepared some written
testimony. I ask that that be submitted into the record.
The Chairman. It will be placed in the record.
Dr. Vantine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I'd like to do
is start out by giving a little bit of background about the
current emergency-response program in the United States.
As you know, there are over 40 agencies involved in
emergency response and counter-terrorism in the United States,
and they all play a role. And the essential progress that we'll
make in this country is the progress we'll make by those
agencies working together cooperating and coordinating.
One thing that strikes me, though, is that whenever a
matter of nuclear expertise comes up, those questions get
referred to the Department of Energy. The requests come from
many agencies. They can come from the FBI. They can come from
State, Transportation. But the Department of Energy is the
repository of nuclear knowledge.
We have a program at Energy, the NEST program, emergency-
response program, and we try to respond to all requests for
information. And to the extent that we can, we do.
Now, the program, as has been talked about this morning, is
a volunteer program. We have limited resources. And so when
requests come in, we have to prioritize those requests. And the
way that we prioritize the requests is by looking at the threat
to life that the particular area might pose. For instance, we
look at the improvised nuclear device and the biological weapon
as those terrorist devices that can cause the greatest loss of
life. And so we prioritize--give those the highest priority.
There's been a lot of discussion at today's hearing about----
The Chairman. Doctor, I want to make something clear.
Dr. Vantine. Sure.
The Chairman. I'd like you to clarify it, because I think
it's an important point that most people don't know. When
you're contacted by the FBI, when you're contacted by any of
these 39 other government agencies, about the content of the
prospect of the particular circumstance that has occurred, that
is not included in your yearly budget at the laboratory. That
is work done, as you said, on a volunteer basis. Is that
correct?
Dr. Vantine. That's correct, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Which I think is probably the most astounding
and stupid thing that I have heard us do of late, that we do
not--knowing that the one place where the expertise resides, we
don't provide you--I know you're not here asking for resources,
but that we don't provide you the resources so this need not be
a volunteer effort. Or am I missing something on that?
Dr. Vantine. Mr. Chairman, let me explain the rationale.
The rationale is that we have major programs at the
laboratories looking at nuclear matters. We have the National
Nuclear Stockpile Program. We have many experts----
The Chairman. Which I hope we can keep going, by the way.
Dr. Vantine [continuing]. In many fields. Thank you. We
have experts in many fields in nuclear weapon design,
detection, diagnostics, engineering. Those people, many of
those people, have volunteered, in the case of a national
crisis, to respond. And so when a request comes in, they do
respond. So that's the rationale.
With the heightened concern about terrorist use of nuclear
materials since September 11, it may be time to revisit that.
In the past, that has worked, though.
The Chairman. Yes.
Dr. Vantine. Now, improvised nuclear devices, as I said,
and biological weapons are at the top of our list. What I'd
like to do is spend a few minutes talking about what an
improvised nuclear device is and what a radiological dispersal
device is.
An improvised nuclear device, as its name implies, is a
nuclear device. It produces nuclear yield, and the yield has
catastrophic effects. And we talked about some of those effects
yesterday. Those effects are generally well known. They're in
the open literature. And I think the public has a keen
awareness of the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons.
If you consider what would have happened if the World Trade
Center terrorist attacks had been a nuclear attack, the effects
would have been much more catastrophic than they were.
The Chairman. Of the same proportions as it relates to the
release of energy. Make the comparison for me.
Dr. Vantine. That's right. There has been an estimation of
the effects of the two airplanes crashing into the World Trade
Center, that they carried the chemical equivalent of a kiloton
of energy. Now, normally we don't express chemical energy in
kilotons, because chemical energy is released over a longer
time than the blast from a high explosive. But in terms of raw
energy, those airliners carried the chemical equivalent of
about a kiloton of energy.
If that kiloton had been a nuclear device, the effects
would have been immediate and much longer-range. The loss of
life would have been at least two orders of magnitude--a
hundred times larger, maybe more, so that it would have been
much more catastrophic. It just emphasizes, punctuates the
point, that nuclear weapons are much more deadly than their
chemical equivalents.
The other thing that I would point out is that dealing with
the aftermath of an improvised nuclear device would really be
horrific. The rescue workers who tried to go back to ground
zero would see radiation levels that were just enormous. In
certain parts near ground zero, radiation workers just would
not be able to reenter. The radiation levels would be too high.
Further away from ground zero, there would have to be
evacuation because of fallout. So there would be a long-term
consequence, a long-term evacuation needed, and clean up. And,
of course, clean up would produce enormous quantities of
radioactive material that would have to be disposed of, and
that would be no mean feat.
So that, in a nutshell, is why we're really concerned about
improvised nuclear devices. The effects are tremendous, and
loss of life is just enormous.
Now, if a terrorist decides not to pursue the idea of
building a nuclear device and, instead, tries to build what has
been called a radiological dispersal device, or a dirty bomb,
they would try to get radioactive material, as has been
described by both Dr. Koonin and Dr. Kelly. This requires the
acquisition of radiological material and some kind of a
dispersal mechanism. And radioactive materials are used around
the world for a variety of purposes--medical, industrial, and
research. And standards for handling the material are in place,
and the United States has high standards.
But if you read stories in the world press--some of those
have been referred to today--controls around the world--those
stories in the press suggest that current controls are just
maybe not adequate for protecting some of this radiological
material.
The effects of radiological dispersal devices vary fairly
widely, and they are measured in terms of contamination area,
which we've talked about this morning, health effects, and
economic consequences. The health effects appear to be small.
The economic consequences can be very large. The psychological
effects can be very large. These things are hard to quantify,
and we certainly need to guard against radiological dispersal
devices.
Now, you know, it's interesting. I mean, there are things
that we can do. And in the paper that I'm submitting, I'm
suggesting some of those. One of the things that you'd like to
do, of course, to guard against both improvised nuclear devices
and radiological dispersal devices is you'd like to protect the
material. And so if you can protect the material, keep the
terrorists from getting it, that's your first measure of
protection.
At the next level, you'd like to have some indications and
warning. If somebody was planning something, you'd like to see
it. You'd like to get some indications of that. One of the
advantages that we have is that we understand, if somebody is
trying to build an improvised nuclear device, what they have to
do, what kinds of materials they need. There are certain
signatures and indicators, and we can look for those, and we do
look for those.
Going on, search and interdiction is an important area.
There are two major areas I'd like to talk about in trying to
improve our search and interdiction capability. One is a
technology area. We should try to build better detectors. We
have ideas for better detectors, detectors that are longer-
range, detectors that are smarter, detectors that use computers
to try to take the man out of the loop, to interpret the
signals coming from the detectors. So better detectors is the
first part of the equation.
The second part of the equation is to try to integrate
those detectors into some kind of a system. The technology
fails if we're just throwing this technology over a wall
without anybody to catch it. What we really need to do is
integrate these detectors into systems. And so I'm going to
propose two ideas for systems here. There are probably others.
These two have to do with protecting the borders and protecting
the cities.
The idea of protecting the borders, a system that might
help to do that is a system that looks at cargo containers
coming into the United States. You could put detectors at the
cargo sites and try to find these materials before they find
their way into the country.
The idea of protecting cities is to look internal to the
borders, to look at cities, to put out distributed sensor
network systems, networks of sensors that sense the motion of
materials and identify the transport and then are hooked into
an infrastructure system that allows us to interdict those
shipments. So those are ideas in the area of search.
The next area I'd like to talk about a little bit is
consequence management. We tend not to think about the
consequences of an improvised nuclear device or a radiological
dispersal device, because it's not a very pleasant thing to
think about. And at that point, there's a feeling of
hopelessness. The event has occurred, you've been unsuccessful
in stopping it. But we really have to think about that. We have
to think about what we do, how we protect the public.
We need to educate the public. We have to understand what
stories we would tell the public about what's happened. We
can't start looking at the problem when it happens. We really
have to look at the problem before it happens. And so we need
to do that. The public needs to be educated. There have to be
emergency response plans in place. There have to be
decontamination procedures exercised and embedded.
And then the final area I think we need to work on is what
I'll call forensics analysis or attribution. Here we are, 3
months after the anthrax events, still don't know who the
perpetrator was, still looking for that. That's really not an
acceptable position to be in. We need to develop forensic
methods to look at the forensic evidence whenever somebody uses
a weapon of mass destruction, to go back and understand who did
it. And those forensic methods need to be quick, and they need
to be precise. And so that's something that we really need to
do.
Traditional forensics labs don't handle radiological
materials. They don't handle chemical weapons. They don't
handle biological weapons. They handle fingerprints, DNA, that
sort of thing.
The DOE laboratories have started forensics work looking at
weapons of mass destruction. I think that's work that needs to
be supported. And we're doing a lot in that area, and I think
there's more to be done. I think there's more that we could do.
So let me kind of wrap up and make some points about where
we are with improvised nuclear devices and radiological
dispersal devices. In my opinion, the use of an improvised
nuclear device is a low-probability event, but it is a high-
consequence event. And, for that reason, it's a high-risk
event, and it's something we need to prepare for.
We've talked about use of radiological dispersal devices.
They're dirty bombs. Those are higher-probability events,
because the material is more readily available, but they are
certainly lower-consequence events.
As September 11 has shown us, we don't know where the
terrorists are going to strike. We don't know how they're going
to strike. We need to be prepared for all of these events, and
we need to be thinking about vulnerabilities in our
infrastructure.
I think the most important message that I would try to give
today is that there is no silver bullet in dealing with weapons
of mass destruction. We really need a layered approach. We need
to look at many different systems to counter the terrorist
threat. Coordination among the many different agencies is
vital. And I have seen a real improvement, I would say, in the
coordination among different agencies, since September 11. We
are working together, the different agencies. I think we could
do more in the future. I think planned exercises and drills is
a way to do more.
As has been mentioned many times today, the key to
protecting the country against weapons of mass destruction,
against INDs, is to protect the materials. And I think no
effort should be spared in trying to protect materials,
particularly the strategic nuclear materials, out of which an
improvised device could be made. We need to look for signatures
that people or groups are trying to obtain weapons of mass
destruction and try to get some early indications and warning.
And, finally, let me say that I think this area of
emergency response is one where we're going to have to make a
sustained investment in science and technology to win the war
on terrorism. There are too many places that a terrorist can
strike. They have too many opportunities to rely on traditional
law-enforcement methods. I think technology is going to have to
play a part, and I think we're going to have to look for
advanced technologies to protect us.
In closing, I'd like to say that we've been aware of this
problem of weapons of mass destruction for a number of years.
The NEST team goes back 30 years. We've been involved in this
program for a long time. We are aware of it. We're committing
resources to it. And we've done a lot. And I think since
September 11, we've done a whole lot. I think we could do more.
I think we need to do more in the future.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Vantine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Harry C. Vantine, Ph.D., Program Leader for
Counter-terrorism and Incident Response, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. I lead the program in
Counterterrorism and Incident Response at the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL). However, the opinions that I present today
represent my views and not necessarily those of the Laboratory or the
National Nuclear Security Administration. Yesterday, in closed session,
I discussed the threat to homeland security posed by terrorist use of
improvised nuclear devices or radiological dispersal devices. Today I
would like to focus on what we can do to protect the U.S. against
terrorist acquisition and use of nuclear WMD.
Let me start by briefly defining improvised nuclear devices (INDs)
and radiological dispersal devices (RDDs).
improvised nuclear devices
An IND, as its name implies, is a nuclear explosive device. It
produces nuclear yield, and this nuclear yield has catastrophic
effects. An IND is the ultimate terrorist weapon and terrorist groups
are actively attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Detonation of an
IND could dwarf the devastation of the September 11 attack on the World
Trade Center.
Dealing with the aftermath of an IND would be horrific. Rescue
efforts and cleanup would be hazardous and difficult. Workers would
have to wear full protection suits and self-contained breathing
apparatus. Because of the residual radioactivity, in certain locations
they could only work short times before acquiring their ``lifetime''
dose. As with the Chernobyl event, some rescue workers might well
expose themselves to lethal doses of radiation, adding to the casualty
toll. Enormous volumes of contaminated debris would have to be removed
and disposed of.
radiological dispersal devices
If a terrorist group decides not to pursue an actual nuclear
device, it might well turn to RDDs or ``dirty bombs'' as they are often
called. RDDs spread radioactivity but they do not generate nuclear
yield, The fabrication of an RDD requires radioactive material and a
dispersal mechanism. Radioactive materials are used all over the world
for medical, industrial, and research applications. Standards for safe
handling and accountability of radioactive material vary around the
world. Stories in the press suggest inadequate controls on radiological
materials in parts of the world.
The effects of an RDD vary widely, and are measured in terms of
contamination area, health effects to the exposed population, and
economic consequences. Even a negligible, but measurable, exposure
would exploit the general public's fear of things radioactive and have
significant psychological consequences. The greatest impact of a small
release would probably be economic, associated with cleanup and
restoration of the contaminated area.
multilayered defense against inds and rdds
So, what can we do to protect the U.S. against terrorist
acquisition and use of INDs and RDDs? As with every other aspect of the
terrorism problem, there is no silver bullet. A layered strategy is
required, addressing the various stages on this threat.
Weapons and Material Protection
Since acquiring the nuclear materials is a prerequisite to the
fabrication of an IND or RDD, first and foremost we must protect
nuclear weapons and special nuclear material. Extensive safeguards are
in place in this country to protect weapons-usable nuclear materials;
Security at weapon storage sites is rigorous. The NNSA's Material
Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) program is making essential
enhancements to the security of nuclear materials at dozens of sites
across Russia.
Switching to commercial radiological and nuclear facilities, two
threats need to be considered. One is the theft of materials by
terrorists and the other is attack on a facility to disperse
radiological or nuclear materials. Facilities may include reactors,
waste and storage areas. A high-level risk assessment should be
performed of U.S. and relevant foreign radiological and nuclear
facilities to provide an integrated national view of vulnerabilities.
This high-level assessment and analysis of proposed controls would
supplement and update current assessments. It would include additional
research and development needed for protection. This summary assessment
and corresponding recommended measures should be distributed to
appropriate agencies/facilities for implementation.
The September 11 terrorists clearly demonstrated considerable
technical innovation, excellent operational security, and extensive
financial backing. We should therefore conduct enhanced threat
assessments that include some threats beyond the current design basis
threat. These outside-the-box threats should be analyzed for high-risk
or strategic potential targets, based upon likelihood and consequence.
The results would be used to guide intelligence gathering and enhance
protection of sites and facilities.
Indications and Warning
As always, accurate and timely intelligence is critical. The
September 11 attacks demonstrated the extraordinary difficulty of this
task, particularly when faced with a diffuse organization that
practices excellent operational security. We must be alert to
signatures of terrorist IND activities. Significant indicators may be
available but difficult to identify either because they are embedded in
massive quantities of background information or because it is difficult
to share analysis results between different user communities.
Improvements in data mining/extraction techniques will offer important
advances in the out-years. The utilization of existing national
laboratory resources could significantly enhance in the near term the
identification of terrorist intentions. Terrorists formulate their own
attack plans and strike where and how they choose. However, with
nuclear weapons and INDs there are limits involving design, materials
and fabrication that must be met in order to produce a nuclear yield.
This is the realm of the national design labs and we are able to
identify some early indications of a terrorist group attempting to go
nuclear.
The NNSA's Nuclear Assessment Program provides a national
capability to expeditiously assess the credibility of nuclear threats.
Decision makers at the FBI, in concert with their counterparts at the
NNSA and NRC, use these assessments together with other information to
determine the appropriate response. Since the program began in 1977, we
have assessed the credibility of more than 75 nuclear extortion
threats, 30 nuclear reactor threats, 20 nonnuclear extortion threats,
and nearly 1000 cases involving the attempted illicit sale of alleged
nuclear materials. Since September 11 alone, this program has evaluated
13 nuclear extortion threats, 1 nuclear reactor threat, 24 nuclear
smuggling cases, and 23 nonthreat incidents.
Search and Interdiction
We need to be able to detect and intercept INDs and RDDs before
they reach their target, preferably before they enter the U.S. This
element alone requires layers within layers. The DOE Second Line of
Defense (SLD) program is assisting Russia's State Customs Committee in
detecting and intercepting illicit traffic in nuclear materials,
equipment, and technology across the 35,000 miles of Russia's borders.
Information from this and similar efforts should be used to enhance
existing nuclear smuggling databases, providing linkages among prior
scams, materials, regions and intermediaries.
Protection at U.S. borders or ports of entry should be enhanced.
Maritime shipping is a particular concern, with nearly six million
cargo containers entering the U.S. each year. Technology can play an
important role here, with improved detectors at border crossings, and
``smart'' transportainers with built-in nuclear, chemical, and bioagent
detectors. The Labs are exploring improvements in port security
including building a test bed for cargo container technology.
While the problem of complete protection for large metropolitan
areas remains difficult, it is possible to install correlated sensor
networks around key facilities and approach routes. Prototype systems
have been studied, developed and shown to work. These prototypes will
help lay the ground-work for development of effective approaches for
more complex deployment. Multiple organizations are/will be engaged in
these types of efforts; communication regarding these activities will
be essential.
Crisis Response
Should we fail to intercept a terrorist IND or RDD, the next layer
of defense is crisis response. We must locate the device and render it
safe. Established U.S. capabilities exist, most notably the Nuclear
Emergency Search Team or NEST. NEST capabilities include search and
identification of nuclear materials, diagnostics and assessment of
suspected nuclear devices, technical operations in support of render-
safe procedures, and packaging for transport to final disposition. NEST
personnel are drawn from the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, and NEST
personnel and equipment are ready to deploy worldwide at all times.
In the current threat environment the NEST program takes on a more
critical role. Funding for research and development needs to keep pace
with the changing threat environment. Also, additional personnel will
need to be recruited and trained.
Consequence Management
In the event of a domestic nuclear event, consequence management
assets would be deployed. The NNSA has an established capability for
predicting the transport and dispersion of materials released into the
atmosphere, including radionuclides. Most important here is knowledge
about the probable transport and distribution of prompt effects (blast,
thermal, radiation) and delayed effects (fallout). The Atmospheric
Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) is a national emergency response
service for real-time assessment of incidents involving nuclear,
chemical, biological, or natural hazardous material. Since it was
established in 1979, ARAC has responded to more than 70 alerts,
accidents, and disasters (including Cosmos 954, Three Mile Island, and
Chernobyl) and supported hundreds of emergency response exercises.
Emergency managers use ARAC plots to develop the best response strategy
for minimizing hazards to life or health and property damage in
affected regions.
Efficient emergency response will require a capability for promptly
predicting the dose to the population as a function of location
relative to ground zero and time after the explosion. Such a capability
is also essential for rescue teams and others who must enter the
contaminated area. ARAC's dose-factor database contains dose conversion
factors for internal and external exposure to all radionuclides. ARAC
results include plots of material deposited on the ground,
instantaneous and time-integrated doses, or air concentrations at
selected levels above the ground. Contours are overlaid on maps with
features proportional to scale, from buildings to streets to cities to
countries.
Decontamination procedures, including a framework for assuring
public confidence in the adequacy of cleanup, need to be exercised and
vetted. Incident site monitoring capabilities may require enhancement.
A mechanism to ensure that decision-makers are familiar with the
Federal Radiological Emergency Response Plan should be developed and
implemented; a protection guide for the public needs to be developed
because written guidance addressing a terrorist event is negligible.
Plans are needed to prepare for a large-scale incident requiring long-
term deployments of personnel (potentially at multiple locations) and
significant laboratory analytical capabilities.
Attribution
The final layer of defense against terrorist use of INDs and RDDs
against the U.S. is the threat of retaliation. Effective retaliation
requires accurate attribution of the device--its nuclear materials and
device design as well as the perpetrators and their suppliers,
intermediaries, and sponsors. A key technical component is forensic
analysis of post-detonation debris. The NNSA laboratories, in
coordination with a DOD sponsor, are working to enhance the timeliness
of the current attribution capability.
A related need is the development of a comprehensive forensic-type
database of nuclear materials worldwide.
conclusions
Terrorist acquisition and use of an IND against the U.S. is a low-
probability, but high-consequence threat. The use of an RDD is a higher
probability, but lower consequence event. As September 11 so chillingly
demonstrated, today's terrorists are technically innovative and
resourceful, financially well supported, actively attempting to acquire
weapons of mass destruction, and intent on causing mass casualties and
wide-scale devastation.
Let me note that important elements of a layered defense against
the threat of terrorist INDs and RDDs are already in place.
Coordination among the many agencies involved in Homeland Security is
improving and continues to be vital. However, with such a complex
problem, more needs to be done.
We must protect the key materials for fabricating an IND--full-up
weapons, weapon pits, plutonium, and enriched uranium--both in the
U.S., in Russia, and in the rest of the world.
We must watch for signatures of individuals or groups attempting to
obtain materials or components of INDs.
Last, but most important, we must make a sustained investment in
the science and technology needed to win the war on terrorism. Pulling
resources from other important programs is ``robbing Peter to pay
Paul'' and is not a effective long-term strategy. Programs in
nonproliferation, proliferation detection, counterterrorism, and
homeland security are closely linked and must not be selected ``either/
or'' or conducted in isolation from each other.
In closing, let me assure you that we at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory have long been concerned about the terrorist
nuclear threat. We have built on our historical nuclear weapons mission
and developed unique expertise, capabilities, and technologies to meet
these emerging threats. LLNL is already providing critical elements of
the nation's defense against nuclear, chemical, and biological
terrorism, many of which were called into action post-September 11. We
are committed to using our worldclass scientific and technological
resources--people, equipment, and facilities--to meet the nation's
national security needs today and in the future.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, doctor. Let be begin
with you, and then I want to talk a little more about nuclear
devices, improvised nuclear devices, and then go back to
radiological devices and dispersal means.
As I said yesterday, you showed us a much more detailed
outline as well as graphic material. And I don't want to
trespass on anything that is classified, but I think it would
be useful for the record to know whether or not in your
counter-terrorism and incident-response efforts over the last
many years, have you and your colleagues at Livermore--have you
attempted to go through the process of constructing, doing the
engineering that would be required for--you obviously know how
to make nuclear weapons, but, I mean, have you gone through the
engineering requirements, minimal requirements, that would be
needed in order to be able to have a reasonable probability
that if a terrorist had plutonium or enriched uranium, what is
the most crudest, most workable weapon they could construct?
I'm not asking you to describe it to me, but have you all
looked into that to try to figure out what we should be looking
for?
Dr. Vantine. Senator, we have looked at that, in a sense.
We periodically do exercises and drills in the emergency
response programs. And so for those drills, on occasion, we
will ask our designers to build what they consider an
improvised nuclear device. Now, there's a problem, because
these are often experts in the field, and so they don't think
like a terrorist.
The impediment to doing this in a more rigorous way is that
you don't want to take people who are untrained in the business
to ask them to do this, because, in some sense, you'd be
educating them to the problem. So you have to approach it very
carefully.
I think it's a good point that you bring up, that, in fact,
if you want to look for surprises, if you want to look for
innovative ideas, you probably should, in a systematic way, ask
people who are not trained in the area to do this.
The Chairman. And the second point that--you state what has
been repeated by others, including your former colleague, Dr.
Agnew, at Los Alamos, that--and I'm paraphrasing him, but
quoting you--``low probability, high consequence.'' And what I
was trying to get at this morning, because I think it's
important that policymakers know and that the American people
know so we can have a rational debate in allocation of
resources as to what our priorities are in which we seek to
deal with first, what threat--the threat assessment is the
phrase that is used in your business, as well as over at the
Pentagon--and for us to make some rational judgments on what
our priorities should be.
And as I understand it, there are, in terms of an
improvised nuclear devise, the, hopefully, most difficult part
of the process is gaining access to the material that goes
boom, gaining access to the enriched uranium or plutonium or
fissile material that would cause a chain reaction--a nuclear
explosion, correct?
Dr. Vantine. That's certainly true, Senator. If you can't
get access to the materials, there's no further progress.
The Chairman. Alright. Now----
Dr. Vantine. They need that.
The Chairman [continuing]. The reason I raise this is that
there has been a good deal of discussion about the existence of
the safeguard capabilities that exist in the United States
relative to that kind of material. In my private briefings, in
classified briefings, and in this open discussion, there is, at
least in my assessment--I don't suggest I've surveyed every
person who has any knowledge, but there is a fairly broad
assessment that is in sync that says that we are pretty darn
confident about our ability to safeguard our--meaning U.S.--
weapons-grade material. But there is--and I'm not going to ask
you to comment in any detail--but there is a diminished--in
some cases, significantly diminished--confidence in the ability
of other nations that possess weapons-grade material to guard
that weapons-grade material from access to someone
unauthorized.
Now, one of the things that--and I'm trying to make this
not only--I've been doing this a long time; I think I
understand it--but I'm trying to recall the dilemma I had in
understanding the process when I was first exposed--no pun
intended--first exposed to this subject. And that is the first
thing I wondered about was how--in what form can this material
be acquired or stolen? For example, does a terrorist, assuming
they had access to enriched uranium or plutonium in Russia--
they gained access to a not-sufficiently guarded--now, I want
to make it clear, I am not suggesting, and no one has suggested
to me that the Russian Government has anything other than the
highest interest in making sure no one has access to this
material, so I'm not implying when I say Russia is the ``candy
store'' that the Russian Government in any way has been part
of, is considering, has any desire that anyone have access to
this material other than the Russian Government and Russian-
Government personnel.
I know that sounds like stating the obvious, but there's an
old expression from a friend of mine, ``Assumption is the
mother of all screw ups.'' I don't want to make any assumptions
here, because they can be dangerous.
But having said that, assuming that a person with a mal-
intent--whether an individual or an organization, whether it's
al-Qaeda or an organization that has yet to be spawned--gained
access to the--not a constructed weapon, not a weapon, period,
but to enriched uranium or plutonium. How do they gain access?
Do they have to have an expertise? It's not like walking in and
saying--if I'm a terrorist and I'm part of an international
network and I buy off someone in Russia and they sell me a
small nuclear device, I can put it in the back of a truck, I
can put it--depending on how big it is, I can put it in another
container, I can transport it, and I can do it without any
danger other than I may get shot transporting it, but it won't
be because, by my touching it, by my putting it in the truck, I
am going to be contaminated.
What about the actual raw material--and it's not raw,
because it's been--it's acted upon. But what about plutonium?
How does that occur? Is that a difficult thing, even if you
have access, to take it from its source and transport it to
whatever destination you desire for purpose of making an
improvised nuclear device?
Dr. Vantine. Senator, let me answer that by way of relating
some of the findings of the DOE's Nuclear Smuggling Program.
The Department has a program to look at smuggled sources, if
you will, smuggling. And what they find is that there are a
significant number of what I'll call ``scams'' on the market.
So there's a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of
uncertainty about, ``Whether this is nuclear material,'' by
people who really aren't educated as to what they have or what
they think they have or are trying to make a fast buck for
something they don't have. So there's a lot of misinformation
out there.
The Chairman. Well, that's good.
Dr. Vantine. That is good. But I'm not sure that addresses
your question, but it shows that, indeed, there is some
difficulty on people's part understanding what they have and
how important it is, how vital the material they have might be.
The Chairman. I guess what I'm trying to get at is this. If
someone were to steal, purchase, acquire radiological
substance. That is, what you showed Dr. Koonin, that--I forget
how many pounds it was----
Dr. Koonin. Fifty pounds.
The Chairman [continuing]. A 50-pound device used for a
legitimate commercial purpose--were it not shielded, it may
admit, depending on what you are acquiring, a lethal dose of
radiation, rendering you too ill, and eventually die, to be
able to fulfill your mission if you had to do an engineering
feat to construct something to put it in to make it do
something that would be dangerous to society. Is the transport
of plutonium as difficult if you are in contact with it? Need
it be shielded?
Dr. Vantine. I don't want to go too far with this, Senator,
but----
The Chairman. OK.
Dr. Vantine [continuing]. But let me say that with proper
precautions, shielding and distance from the source, these
materials can be handled. How easy or hard it is, I'd rather
not get into that.
The Chairman. And the reason I ask is, it seems to me--and
one of the things we, in the closed session, I'm going to ask
my colleagues to listen to you at another time--I mean all 99
of my colleagues at some forum or another--is to try to get a
sense of whether or not the low probability is a low
probability throughout the process. It's a low probability
you're going to get to the point where someone is going to make
available to you this material, even in the former Soviet
Union, hopefully. Second----
Today's my day for Presidents. Excuse me. It's the
President of another country. I apologize. I lost my train of
thought.
There is the process of acquiring the material. There is
the process of transporting the material. And then is there a
requirement that the material would have to be put in a
different form than acquired in order to make it applicable or
be able to be used in a device that would be designed,
engineered to make it explode, to cause a nuclear chain
reaction?
Dr. Vantine. Mr. Chairman, I understand the question, and
I'd be glad to respond to that in a closed session.
The Chairman. OK. Now, I think I'm right at the end of my
string of what we can talk about in an open session. I recall
what the other thing I wanted to ask you is.
Are you able to discuss this at all in an open session?
What are the signatures and indicators of the presence of or
the attempt or the circumstances that makes the lights go on
that would make government officials say, ``This group, based
on this signature, based on''--as I understand what you mean by
signature and indicators--``is a group that appears to be
pursuing an effort to build, acquire, and/or construct an
improvised nuclear weapon?''
If I can make an analogy, I have some considerable
experience in the drug field for doing this for so many years.
There are certain precursor chemicals that are obvious if
they're present what the individuals involved in the drug
business are about. And it relates to whether or not they're
making methamphetamine or cocaine or heroine. Is that what you
mean by signature? What do you mean by ``signature'' and
``indicators''?
Dr. Vantine. Normally when I talk about signatures, I mean
precisely what you just mentioned, Senator. When somebody is
trying to produce biological or chemical weapons in particular,
there will be chemicals given off in the production process
that perhaps we can look for.
In the nuclear business, there is some of that to some
degree, so that when somebody is trying to work with materials
that might go into a warhead, they might have to deal with
certain materials, and we can look for indicators that they are
working with those materials.
In a general sense, let me say that, in working with
nuclear--trying to develop either a radiological or a nuclear
warhead, you look for people, you look for information, and you
look for equipment. So you can look for the kind of people that
maybe are working on this. You can look at people with various
degrees--in the case of nuclear, nuclear engineering--look for
the kind of sources they might use, look at resources from the
Internet, resources from the library that they might collect.
So you look for the people. You look for the knowledge. I
touched on that. People who are interested in--you know, in the
case of the World Trade Center, flying airplanes, but not know
how to land them. So you look for pieces of intelligence that
tells you somebody's out there looking--seeking information
about how to build something.
And then you look for the technologies, if somebody is
buying equipment that could be used in the construction of
nuclear devices. This morning we talked a little bit about
radiation detectors. If people are buying who don't seem to
have a reason--a normal reason to buy that--so you can put all
this together. I think these are all signatures, in a broad
sense.
The Chairman. Without naming them, are there certain
metals--if you were aware that I was purchasing certain metals
or certain devices that would be categorized as elements of my
engineering process to construct a device, not the material,
are there certain obvious telltale signs that would raise a red
flag if you knew that so and so went to such and such a
supplier and purchase x amount of a particular metal or a
particular anything else, are there those kinds of things that
are--are there basic elements that are required to construct a
device that are essential?
Dr. Vantine. There's no one path here. There's no one
solution that we look at. There are multiple paths forward. So
there's not just one indicator, for instance.
Coming at it from the other direction, a lot of materials
are what I'll call ``dual use,'' so they have a legitimate use
besides the use of trying to make INDs. So there's no smoking
gun in that sense. But I think it's the preponderance of
evidence, it's collecting a number of indicators, trying to put
the--make composite case out of this and then understanding
what somebody is trying to do. That's how we----
The Chairman. I guess what I'm trying to say is----
Dr. Vantine. It's a difficult problem.
The Chairman [continuing]. If you knew that the XYZ Club to
Promote Peace and Humanity was buying dual-use items without
any reason to believe that they would have a legitimate use for
them, that would be--that's an indicator, I assume.
Dr. Koonin. One dual-use, maybe. Two dual-use items, you
get very worried. Three dual-use items, you're very worried.
The Chairman. Now, what can we do, the U.S. Government, to
raise the barriers or raise the stakes that make it more
difficult for terrorists to obtain these improvised nuclear
devices or basement nukes or whatever the phrase you hear
bouncing around. The term of art you all use is ``improvised
nuclear device.'' But what are some of the things that we can
do? If we first prevent them from acquiring plutonium-enriched
uranium, is the game over?
Dr. Vantine. Let me just second the first point you made. I
think the United States has the most serious program to protect
strategic nuclear materials, and I think it's in our interest
to encourage the rest of the world to have the same standards
that we have.
I think once they get--if somebody is known to have
materials, I think we ought to try to recover those materials.
The game is certainly not over at that point. I think there's a
long, rocky road ahead. But at that point, it becomes much more
speculation as to where they'll go, and you'll find many strong
opinions. There are many detours you can take along the way.
There are many wrong turns you can make. There is no guarantee
of success at that point. But there is a very heightened state
of concern at that point, when somebody has the materials.
The Chairman. If they have the material. Because as I
said--I quoted Agnew this morning, and I'll quote him again,
``For those who say building a nuclear weapon is easy, they are
very wrong, but those who say building a crude device is very
difficult, they are more wrong.'' Would you agree with that
statement?
Dr. Vantine. I won't comment on that statement, sir.
The Chairman. Alright, OK. I think you're really with the
CIA. I don't think--or, if not, maybe you're with the
Department of Information at the State Department. I'm not sure
which, but one thing I do know is you're a first-rate
scientist, and I told you I would abide by your concerns of
what you stated in open session, and I will.
But in terms of priorities, though, is there agreement
that, in a sense, first things first, the single most
significant thing we could do to even make the probability of a
device being able to be purchased lower than it is at this
moment is increase the safeguards surrounding the actual--that
weapons-grade material that is in existence.
Dr. Vantine. Absolutely correct, Senator.
The Chairman. Good. Well, and have you had a chance,
doctor--are you familiar with the Baker-Cutler report?
Dr. Vantine. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with that
report, no.
The Chairman. Alright. Well, I'm going to--because I know
you have really very little else to do, you're not a busy man--
I'm going to send you a copy of the report. And maybe over the
next month or so, if I ask you for your response, in open or
closed session, as to some of its recommendations, because
neither Mr. Baker--Senator Baker--Mr. Ambassador, now, Baker or
Mr. Cutler, who are very schooled and aware of matters relating
to what used to be called ``strategic doctrine,'' and now we're
talking about its--the application of very cruder versions of
weaponry in the hands of individuals and not nation states, but
they don't have your background on the science side of it, so
I'd be interested to see what you thought.
But the safeguarding of the world's fissile material is not
the only defense, but it seems to me, from what I've heard
today, it may be the best defense. We get the--no pun
intended--the biggest bang for the buck if we were able to make
it even more difficult. The degree to which we raise that bar,
in terms of accessing that material, the degree to which, it
seems, increase the lower, even than it is now, the probability
of such a weapon being able to be constructed.
Let me move, if I may--my one other question is--
apparently--and I don't remember this, but I'm told that Dr.
Oppenheimer was asked what resources would be needed to
intercept a smuggled atomic bomb. And at the dawn of the
nuclear age, he told the Congress the best tool for finding a
smuggled atomic bomb was a screwdriver--and that was to open
every crate and open every package.
Which leads me to, really, my next--not line, but my next
area of questioning, and that is that--and we just touched on
it briefly, and I'd appreciate the three of you giving me your
best judgment. You indicated, Dr. Vantine, that in order to
deal with this, you look at the source, the signature,
detection, mitigation, management, and attribution. And not
probably in that order. With regard to detection, there has
been discussion this morning, and there will be more discussion
about the detection capability presently exists commercially,
detection capability that exists, at least in the literature,
and detection capability that is on the horizon. And everyone
has said we should spend more time and energy and resources in
attempting to better that capability.
Now, can you--any of you or all of you--explain, in
layman's terms for me--the difference in the degree of
difficulty, if there is any, in detecting a radiological weapon
and detecting a nuclear weapon, even though it is an improvised
nuclear weapon or device. Could you talk to me about that?
Dr. Vantine. Yes, let me begin with that, maybe. Let's talk
about radiological weapons first. By their nature, these
radiological weapons are meant to scare people by emitting
radiation. So they're fairly ``hot'' in that sense. In a
radiation sense, they're very hot. And particularly before
they're dispersed, if there's an explosive or something, they
can be extremely hot. And in that sense, they can be detected.
Someone walking down a street--that's one peg point, if you
will. People with radiation treatment for medical--people who
have medical isotope treatments, generally they can be seen
very easily by these detectors. Those sources are very strong
in the sense of the kind of detectors that we have. So we can
see those.
We do have sensors for looking for nuclear weapons. And,
yes, we can see those. They're somewhat harder to see than the
radiological weapons.
So there is real potential here to be able to detect these
weapons. And we do have prototype detectors that are even
better. We have prototype detectors that are very effective at
removing background radiation. There's background radiation all
around us, but if you can knock down some of that, you can see
things much more clearly. So that's a path forward that I think
we're almost ready to take. We're almost ready to bring it out
of the box.
The other big advantage here, particularly for low-cost
detectors, is trying to put some computer software on and
trying to include some interpretive software so that when they
take their signals, on the spot, they can look and compare what
they're seeing to known data bases and relay the message back
to someone that--some control point that, ``This is what I'm
seeing.'' So those things have real promise in the future.
So I think we're sitting at the dawn, maybe, of a new era.
Maybe that's too strong a word, but I think we're sitting at
the breakout of new detector technology. So I think it's pretty
exciting. We have lots of people working that at the, I'll
call, development level--R&D level.
The Chairman. Thank you. Dr. Koonin.
Dr. Koonin. Mr. Chairman, I'm not quite as confident as Dr.
Vantine is about the detectability of radiological sources. I
won't go into the details of steps one might take to minimize
their detectability, but I would note that we routinely ship
radiological sources through ordinary public transportation
channels without setting off detectors.
The Chairman. Dr. Kelly.
Dr. Kelly. Well, I must say the one thing I think we all
agree on is the fact that our detection systems are good, but
they could be a lot better, and that there are many
technologies out there that could be tuned to the variety of
different materials that will be moving through the economy.
And a lot of these materials we're talking about for potential
radiological weapons have fairly unique signatures. I think we
need to work on that.
Plainly, the highest priority is finding smart systems that
are able to bring lots of different sources together. But the
more information you've got, the more your computer system can
filter out spurious signals from real ones. And I'm sure we all
would say that this needs to be a very high-priority research
project in the laboratories and elsewhere.
Dr. Koonin. One last point. As we put surveillance systems
of all sorts, and we've seen this with the airport security
systems, it's very important that they be constantly tested and
``red-teamed'' to be effective. Someone must probe the system
and someone must be actively trying to defeat the system to
make sure we understand its capabilities and limitations.
The Chairman. We have, as a Nation, supported IAEA programs
to provide confidential technical advice to countries that may
have nuclear security problems. The IAEA also helps bring
radioactive sources under control, as it did in two very
dangerous sources in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia
earlier this year. How useful are the IAEA programs to help
countries improve their nuclear materials security?
Dr. Koonin. I think they're an excellent place to start.
But again, as we've been talking, in this country the change in
atmosphere and context of the control of sources shifting from
safe-use to perhaps tighter security is something that the IAEA
may also want to consider changing its posture on. But it's a
very good start.
The Chairman. Anyone else? Should we support efforts to
expand those programs so that we can better address security of
radioactive sources? I mean, is that something any of you have
any background or expertise in?
I mean, a lot of these things are complicated. As we expand
methods to deal with this, we end up with more intrusive
practices, and sometimes they are counterproductive, arguably.
But is there any instinct you all have about how to proceed,
whether we should be looking at that? Or should we be going to
a--no pun intended--a different source to get that advice or
information?
Dr. Koonin. There's one international aspect that strikes
me here as perhaps worth bringing out. Because of our concerns
about security and our economic capacity to do so, we might
encourage the shift away from sources to accelerators or
neutron generators, and that would be our judgment of the
economic tradeoff, versus security. Other countries which might
not have as robust an economic situation or might not have the
same security situations, might see the balance in a different
way. And so it may be very difficult to impose uniform
standards of control across all countries.
Dr. Vantine. I might comment, Senator, that one of the
things that I recommended was that in certain areas of our
infrastructure we do risk assessments. And I think this issue
of shipping practices internationally is an area that we might
want to do a risk assessment, to look at the problem, find out
if there are particular vulnerabilities, and, once having
identified those vulnerabilities, trying to close them. I think
those type of systems studies, in the context of the current
threat, need to be done and they should be high priority.
The Chairman. I couldn't agree with you more, and what I'm
about to say, I want the record to show, is not a criticism of
the new Homeland Defense Office, nor is it a criticism of
Governor Ridge. I think he has an incredible job to undertake,
and he is going to find so many bureaucratic roadblocks in his
way that it's going to be awhile to sort this out, but it's a
good place to start. I am--and I'm not asking for a comment--I
am operating under the assumption, because I do not know at
this point--I'm operating under the assumption that that very
approach is being considered and organized and plotted by this
new agency of the government, because it goes back to my
central point and, quite frankly, my primary reason for
engaging you gentlemen in the first place, and that was that--
is that I am--again, as a bit player in the policy process
here, I am incredibly--for me, the place that I start and
drives my professional staff crazy, is I want that risk
assessment. I want that analysis, because I'm being asked to--
and occasionally proposing--to spend the taxpayer dollars for
purposes protecting them.
And the one great thing about this job--and taking a quote
out of context from former Judge Bork is, ``This is an
intellectual feast.'' This is the most wonderful job in the
world to have if you have intellectual curiosity. You can have
at your disposal the best minds in the world. Three of them are
sitting at this table, and I get to ask them anything I want to
ask them, and I get to hopefully learn something.
But I think there's been precious too little--in this
administration, the last administration--precious too little
emphasis on risk assessment, risk analysis, and comparative
analysis of the priority that should attract our attention
relative to the threat and the risk. And that's one of the
reasons for this hearing. And there will be more.
Let me ask you, one of the things that you all have spoken
about as it relates to all of the questions that have been
raised is this notion of mitigation. Once an episode, an event,
has occurred, whether it be an improvised nuclear device or a
radiological disbursal device--and you've pointed out that
we're talking about a standard that exists now, which I believe
is one in ten thousand. Is that right? The EPA?
Dr. Kelly. Yes.
The Chairman. And how, in God's name, do you decontaminate
the exterior, let alone the interior, of a building that is--as
you pointed out, doctor, the cesium attaches to asphalt,
attaches to granite, concrete, I assume glass--maybe not, I
don't know--to just anything, any substance. How would--how is
that done? And don't say ``with great difficulty.'' Please.
Dr. Kelly. Well, I guess in some of the--there has been
considerable experience, of course, after Chernobyl, and
particularly the Scandinavian countries that have been downwind
have invested very heavily in trying to find ways to mitigate.
And it is really, unfortunately, a largely unsolved problem.
You can make the matter--one thing they did discover is you can
make things worse if you don't do it right. You can trade a lot
of contaminated water that can go under the ground, not
something you want to do.
I think that there's a--this is a place which I think--
well, you say ``with great difficulty''--unfortunately, the
way, often, these sites often are decontaminated is by scooping
up the dirt and ripping down the buildings. And one would hope
that there's a better way. And it strikes me that this is an
area where, again, we need to do some fairly careful thinking
about what the alternatives are to us.
Of course, there are also procedural things we need to do
to figure out how we can make sure we get people out of these
places in an efficient way. But, plainly, our highest priority
is to----
The Chairman. Well, if I can--again, I'm just trying to get
my arms around this so it's understandable. Assume, for the
moment, that we could roll the tape back to September 10, not
September 11, and the terrorists set off a 1,000-curie
radiation device in lower Manhattan. How would you compare the
number of buildings that we'd have to raise compared to what
happened, if that's a fair--it may not be a fair question, and
there may not be a precise answer. But we'd be taking down a
heck of a lot more than the World Trade Towers, wouldn't we, or
would we?
Dr. Kelly. Yes, we're talking----
Dr. Vantine. Oh, yes.
Dr. Koonin. A thousand curies, we'd be looking at--30
square miles is probably a good fraction in Manhattan if it
were disbursed efficiently.
Dr. Kelly. And Manhattan has roughly $2 trillion worth of
real estate.
The Chairman. Say again?
Dr. Kelly. There's roughly $2 trillion worth of real
estate----
The Chairman. Two trillion dollars worth of real estate.
Well, I suspect that's the first time we would visit seriously
of whether or not the standard----
Dr. Kelly. Indeed, we----
The Chairman. No, I'm not being facetious. Obviously one in
ten thousand is something that is the standard that we would
be----
Dr. Koonin. Mr. Chairman, I wonder, as we think about
preparations for this sort of thing, what we can do in advance,
I wonder whether some amount of education of the public about
the different standards, how they are set, the differences
between recommended dose, legally allowed dose, seriously--
health hazards associated with doses--might be something that
would be worth talking about in public forums more----
The Chairman. Well, quite frankly, that's the very reason--
one of the reasons I wanted to have this hearing, because, as I
said earlier this morning, obviously anthrax is a dangerous
substance, but before our most recent and, God willing, our
only, but not likely, experience with anthrax disbursal, there
was a sense that it may have a lethality far beyond what it
did. And there was a significant period, and still a question
now, of whether or not the lethality of what was released in
the envelope that was released in the building adjacent to
here, actually connected to this building, was even more
dangerous than it was--than had occurred, but because of
mitigation at the time, it didn't do as much damage.
But, having said that, I don't think there is the same
response out there now. I went home immediately after the first
anthrax event, and literally I found reasonable people,
understandably in my constituency, close to panic about what
was underway. We had great discussions about the issue of the
disbursal anthrax through crop-dusting aircraft and the ability
to wipe out whole cities and so on. And then we got to the
issue of--which I would argue is a little more analogous
because of difficulty of acquiring--to smallpox virus and its
disbursal and means of disbursal through a self-infected human
being, et cetera.
But we began to gather some sense of proportion here. And
when you had a case of the bubonic plague in India--in two
different cities in India about--I think it was about 10 years
ago--there was, in one area--in one of the cities where the
political--meaning the governmental apparatus--had sufficient
information. They greatly diminished the panic, greatly
diminished the damage done, greatly diminished the
consequences, compared to the city where there was little
information made available to the public.
And so I operate on the premise here that your suggestion--
or your question should be turned into a suggestion, that I
think we should be doing that. And I would ask, not for you
necessarily to respond now, whether any of you or all of you
would be willing to submit for the record how one would best
approach doing that, from a public policy position, from the
position of sitting behind this bench. What should we be doing?
Because I think that it is the--I mean, the greatest tool
terrorists have is terror. It is inflicting this sense of
helplessness upon a society and in many cases designed and if
not handled, literally being able to break governmental
entities and breed chaos.
So I would very much be interested, doctor, in any
suggestions you have, because I think the discussions should be
undertaken in light of the fact that it is a--it is, in a
sense, the opposite geometry of--political geometry of a
nuclear device, which is a low probability and high damage.
This is a higher probability and lower-end life-threatening
damage that can occur. And to the extent that we educate
people, I think we will be doing the country a service.
Rather than keep you all beyond what I have, beyond
trespassing on your time, as I've done so far today, is there
any comment any of you would like to make in closing here or
any suggestions you would have for me or the Congress in how we
should think about proceeding as we explore what is obviously a
problem, obviously a concern?
Dr. Vantine. Senator, let me just wind up things by
reiterating something I started with, and that is that I think
as we look at weapons of mass destruction--nuclear, chemical,
biological, the whole panoply of weapons of mass destruction--
we always have to come back to--the worse scenario is loss of
life. And I think that needs to be put at the top of the list.
We need to be concerned with those scenarios where people lose
their life.
And I would just close by reminding people that in the
Chernobyl incident, which is about the worst radiological
release I can think of--maybe there are worse ones, but it's
pretty bad--5 percent of the core up in the air, carbon core
reactor burning for several days dispersing materials--you look
at that accident--30 people died--they were all radiation
workers--as a result of that accident. A hundred and forty
people had radiation sickness--again, all radiation workers.
That kind of an event, in terms of loss of life, pales
compared to World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, Khobar Towers,
Embassy bombings. So I think we need to keep our eye on all of
this, but the thing I'm most concerned about is those incidents
that cause loss of life.
The Chairman. Gentlemen?
Dr. Koonin. I would think, after what we have heard today
and in our discussions in the closed session yesterday, you or
your colleagues might want to take a hard look at the
improvements in safety and security of radioactive sources that
might be made in this country.
Dr. Kelly. I would say that the theme that you outlined,
which is to try to understand what the risks are facing the
country and what the probabilities are and what the
consequences are, is something that is seriously needed. And I
think what we've done here is to implicitly rank some of these
threats.
At the end of the day, radiological weapons are far from
the most serious kind of attack that we could have, but it's a
very plausible threat, and it's a place where a reasonable
investment and a good plan could accomplish a lot.
The Chairman. The reason why I think people are looking at
the--some of us are focusing on the radiological attack. And,
Dr. Vantine, I have had a preoccupation with your major concern
that absolutely has bored the living hell out of my colleagues
for the last 6 years. And I began to wonder--the reason I was
so impressed with your testimony is I said, ``My God, there's
someone else thinking about this,'' because I've gotten nowhere
in trying to raise the consciousness of the prospect, even the
raw prospect, of an improvised nuclear device, notwithstanding
its great degree of difficulty. And so I understand, and I
agree with your, sort of, calibration of the damage and the
risk and what we should look at first.
But just as we are looking at cyber-terrorism, we're
looking at it for--the two things terrorists seem to be
interested in in this country are disrupting our financial and
economic systems and, on the other hand, inflicting a
significant loss of life as a consequence of terrorist
activities. They seem to--there's some evidence to think that
those who think about doing us harm are no longer
unidimensional, are no longer looking just for, you know, the
big bang, although that is the thing that gives them the
greatest joy and seems to be the thing they are pursuing with
the greatest earnestness.
But the economic impact of a radiological weapon,
particularly in the absence of considerable more public
education, is one that can have catastrophic consequences for
us not resulting in a loss of life directly, but--and I'm not
comparing the two in terms of their consequence except to say
that the second-tier concern is nonetheless a monumental
concern.
But I look forward, if you're willing to doing two things,
making your individual and collective knowledge available to my
colleagues, as a whole, and, second, to--asking for your
willingness to continue to give us advice, in closed session as
well as open session, on how we should proceed, because this is
one area that is, in a sense--should be above my pay grade,
but, unfortunately, it's not. It should be above the
President's pay grade, but it's not. We have to rely on, and we
should rely on, the acumen that you all possess in order to
tell us, guide us, in how to proceed.
So again, I thank you very much. I apologize for the
confusion of the day and appreciate your forbearance. And with
that, the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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