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August 26, 2012
* [radiation-US-homeland security] Background radiation survey in San Francisco will use helicopter flying 300 feet above the ground, nuclear.com info nugget
March 21, 2008
* Iran and Al Qaeda are in league, and have been for some time
* Terror - prisons as incubators in UK
* Canada Supreme Court considers Guantanamo Bay
* Canada - Blueprints in trash a serious security breach
March 18, 2008
* U.S. focuses on deterrence against terrorist attacks
March 11, 2008
* Pakistan - risk of nuclear proliferation to terrorists
February 27, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Orange County Register, of California.
See full text of the local p. 1 story via the web version of this article.
February 23, 2008
This is from the front page of this weekend's edition of The Wall Street Journal.
February 11, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Highlands Today, of Sebring, Florida.
See full text of Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman's Feb 7 commentary titled "Terrorists can't make the Big 1".
February 8, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Christian Science Monitor, of Boston, Massachusetts.
See full text of this story via the web version of this article.
February 5, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Washington Times.
See full text of the story by Times reporter Bill Gertz here.
January 31, 2008
This is from the front page of today's Park City Daily News, of Bowling Green, Kentucky.
October 30, 2007
* Hanford area - dozens of suspected arson fires this year
February 27, 2007
NRC's proposed NMMSS rule - implications for Agreement States
NRC has issued a proposed rule (72 FR 5348) on Regulatory Improvements to the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS). The changes are needed, NRC says, to improve the accuracy of the material inventory information maintained in the NMMSS. The proposed amendments lower the threshold of the quantities of SNM and certain source materials which trigger requirement that status reports be submitted to the NMMSS. Also, the amendments modify the types of and timing of submittals of transaction reports to the NMMSS. The amendments also require licensees to reconcile material inventory discrepancies which NRC may identify in the NMMSS database. The proposed amendments reduce some regulatory burden by reducing the current reporting requirements triggered by export of certain source material and SNM. However, annual reporting is new requirement for licensees possessing 350 grams, or less, of SNM.
This proposed rule does not require Agreement States to change their programs, because it deals with areas of exclusive NRC authority. In a letter to Agreement States, NRC notes that "Although an Agreement State may not adopt program elements reserved to NRC, it may wish to inform licensees of certain requirements..." The letter, dated February 22, 2007, is available as ADAMS ACN ML070540309.
NRC proposes changes to radioactive materials program review procedure
NRC's Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs (NRC/FSME) has proposed change to FSME procedure SA-104, "Reviewing the Common Performance Indicator, Technical Quality of Licensing Actions". NRC/FSME uses the procedure in reviewing the radioactive material programs of the various NRC Regional Offices and Agreement States. The procedure is being revised to reflect the recent NRC reorganization and to clearly define the rationale for performing judgemental samples when selecting licensing casework for evaluation. NRC sent a copy of the proposed changes to Agreement States and invited their comments. NRC's letter, dated February 22, 2007, is available as ADAMS ACN ML070540530.
December 14, 2006
*
Ready . . . or not
Josh Schollmeyer, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
This story heaps abuse on the Dept of Homeland Security for their ready.gov website
October 25, 2006
*
The Al Qaeda Bomb is Coming - Vote for your Life!
American Thinker (AZ)
... Is there a genuine danger of al-Qaeda actually possessing the means to a nuclear detonation, or is this all psychological gamesmanship? ...
*
Radiation detectors for borders unreliable, GAO says
Stephen Losey, Federal Times
*
Clinton could win in '08, says Cheney
Buffalo News ( United States)
... of the administration, always taking the dark view,' ' Cheney said in discussing the bloodshed terrorists could cause if they used a nuclear, biological or ...
*
Is it Darth Vader or Dick Cheney?
PlanetSave.com (ME)
... The two were discussing the bloodshed terrorists could cause if they used a nuclear, biological or other dangerous weapon on an American city. ...
*
Epstein Becker & Green, PC: Immigration Crackdown Poses Serious ...
PR Newswire (press release) (NY)
... 'While nearly three-quarters of the recent investigations have focused on employers in critical infrastructure industries such as nuclear and chemical plants ...
August 28, 2006
"Al Qaeda makes videos while Hezbollah makes war"
Al Qaeda, as an exemplar of Sunni terrorism, has largely receded into the background in the post-Lebanon-war Middle East, according to George Friedman, head of the Austin, Texas-based private intelligence company Stratfor. He was impressed by how effectively the British security services penetrated and took down- the terrorist ring bent on blowing up airliners over the Atlantic. He likewise says that the FBI and CIA have dramatically improved their performance on the terrorism fronts. The West has been helped immeasurably by both Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which, in Friedman's words, have the book on al Qaeda. But Iran and Syria, who have the book on Shiite terrorist groups like Hezbollah, aren't sharing information with Western intelligence. And Hezbollah is a potentially more lethal organization than al Qaeda, should it decide to revert to its roots, says Friedman. Hezbollah pioneered suicide bombing (the 1983 Marine barracks attack in Beirut) and has pulled off international operations (the 1994 Jewish Social Center bombing in Argentina). "Al Qaeda makes videos while Hezbollah makes war," he adds.
[Source: Jonathan R Laing, "Why the Cease-Fire Won't Hold for Long", Barron's (New York, N.Y.), v86 n35, August 28, 2006, p.Ê17]
June 2, 2006
Kicking and screaming about thinking about terror risk
A first-time appellate ruling requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to consider potential terrorist attacks at nuclear waste facilities as part of environmental studies conducted under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) could force developers of NRC-licensed sites and other industrial facilities to install costly control measures to mitigate against risks of an attack, industry and other observers say.
"This could be applied at all NRC-licensed facilities," says an attorney who represented environmentalists in the case, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Such facilities could include the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, NV, and the temporary repository at Skull Valley, UT.
A nuclear industry source adds that industry should be concerned that the ruling could apply not only at nuclear sites, but all facilities where NEPA reviews are required, including natural gas plants, coal plants and wind farms.
"Depending on what their disposition toward the industry is" other judges could broadly interpret the ruling, which "could have a chilling effect," the industry source says.
In its June 2 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected NRC's argument that because the probability of an attack is "remote and speculative," it need not consider possible impacts while conducting environmental impact assessments required by NEPA.
"The NRC's position that terrorist attacks are 'remote and highly speculative,' as a matter of law, is inconsistent with the government's efforts and expenditures to combat this type of terrorist attack against nuclear facilities," the ruling says. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com.
The case stems from an NRC license sought by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, an intervenor in the lawsuit, to construct and operate an interim spent fuel storage installation at PG&E's Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, CA. The NRC granted the license, but the environmental groups sued, claiming that in doing so the NRC violated NEPA, the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). In its June 2 ruling, the court upheld the NEPA claims, but denied the AEA and APA claims.
Supporters and opponents of nuclear projects have raised the prospect that the ruling could have an impact beyond the San Luis Obispo case.
The ruling could be important for Utah, where the state is challenging the NRC's recent licensing of a temporary nuclear waste facility in Skull Valley in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In that case, State of Utah v. NRC, the state is challenging an NRC license that would allow 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive reactor waste to be stored in 4,000 steel and concrete containers.
A lawyer in the Utah Attorney General's office notes the NRC offered its rationale in not considering terrorism at the Utah site in its brief in the 9th Circuit case, and the court rejected that rationale in its ruling. The source says the state will likely reference the ruling when it briefs its arguments in the DC Circuit, which has yet to set a briefing schedule in the dispute. The Utah facility is not the only nuclear site where NRC has rejected requests to consider terrorism as part of environmental assessments, the lawyer who handled the 9th Circuit case notes. The NRC made similar arguments pertaining to the Catawba Nuclear Station and the Savannah River Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina and the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Connecticut in recent years, the source notes.
The nuclear industry source says the ruling is particularly harmful for the industry, which is already struggling to address nuclear waste storage shortages due to delays in constructing Yucca Mountain. This ruling creates "another bureaucratic hurdle" at a time when many facilities are being forced to consider construction of temporary dry cask waste storage facilities, the source says.
The source says environmental groups could cite the San Luis Obispo ruling when nuclear facilities apply for relicensing, although it is unclear whether nuclear opponents would be able to contest licenses not already being challenged in court. Sites currently going through the relicensing process include the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Massachusetts, the source notes.
The nuclear industry maintains NRC's position on not conducting terrorism assessments is correct, an industry source says.
The industry source says he does not know what NRC's legal strategy in light of the recent ruling would be, but noted the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit is considered "very left" and the "most overturned circuit in the country."
An NRC spokesman said the commission's lawyers are "still assessing the ruling" to determine "what our options are." Asked if the ruling could affect future NRC policy, the spokesman says he is "not ruling out anything."
But the environmentalists' attorney says the NRC should take it upon itself to apply the Obispo ruling broadly, noting the commission voluntarily reversed a policy in which it had rejected considering the possibility of nuclear accidents following a 1989 3rd Circuit ruling, Limerick Ecology Action vs. NRC.
"It ought to be (applied broadly)," the lawyer said of the 9th Circuit ruling. The lawyer adds that the NRC's position that the likelihood of a terrorist attack is "remote and speculative" is curious considering its claims to be conducting a "top to bottom" security review to protect against the same type of threat. "This situation has gone on too long," the lawyer says.
[Source: Inside Washington Publishers, "Terror threat ruling could force stricter controls in NEPA reviews", Superfund Report, v20 n13, June 19, 2006]
April 2, 2006
* Border tests - GAO operation involved radiological equivalent of a smoke detector
* [2006-03-31] Response to Sen. Coleman, re GAO report on Border Security and Radioactive Sources
NRC (pdf-54K)
* [2006-03-30] Reports: Combating Nuclear Smuggling: Corruption, Maintenance, and Coordination Problems Challenge U.S. Efforts to Provide Radiation Detection Equipment to Other Countries. GAO-06-311
GAO (pdf-5.89M)
* [2006-03-30] Reports: Combating Nuclear Smuggling: DHS Has Made Progress Deploying Radiation Detection Equipment at U.S. Ports-of-Entry, but Concerns Remain. GAO-06-389
GAO (pdf-779K)
* [2006-03-30] Nuclear waste trains - terror targets on wheels
Greenpeace UK
* [2006-03-30] Correspondences: Border Security: Investigators Successfully Transported Radioactive Sources Across Our Nation's Borders at Selected Locations. GAO-06-545R
GAO (pdf-124K)
* [2006-03-29] US Senate in 'dirty bomb' warning
BBC News
* [2006-03-29] GAO: Customs Failed 'Dirty Bomb' Test
Spencer S. Hsu and William Branigin, Washington Post
* [2006-03-28] Testers Slip Radioactive Materials Over Borders
Eric Lipton, New York Times
* [2006-03-28] Radioactive Matter Gets Into U.S. in Test
Liz Sidoti, Guardian
March 27, 2006
* Saddam-terror link: conventional wisdom is wrong
* "Iraqi Perspectives Project" study released by Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia
* Iraq-terror link - US intelligence community didn't see any reason to be concerned
* Saddam and al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden - post-Jan 1997
* Saddam and al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden - 1995-1996
* Saddam's terrorist training camp - 10 miles outside Baghdad
* 9/11 Commission report wasn't portrayed as definitive regarding Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda
* [2006-03-23] Call for Aussie uranium export restriction
UPI
* [2006-03-22] Bush Pulls Out the Stops to Save Ratings
Jennifer Loven, Guardian
* [2006-03-22] Terrorism: A shifting landscape
Josh Schollmeyer, BulletinWire
* [2006-03-22] U.K. terror cell 'sought nuclear weapon'
UPI
* [2006-03-20] Insurers say risk of WMD terror is low
UPI
* [2006-03-18] German Trial Promises a Look Into the Nuclear Black Market
Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times
* [2006-03-16] Bush to Restate Terror Strategy
Peter Baker, Washington Post
* [2006-03-15] Terror risks of nuclear fuel
Mark Clayton, Christian Science Monitor
* [2006-03-13] Blair may give Britain new nuke weapons
UPI
* [2006-03-09] Sessions may slash DOE nuke budget
UPI
* [2006-03-06] Thursday 03/09/2006 - 12:00 PM--Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims--Oversight Hearing on the "Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act"--Are We Fulfilling the Promise We made to These Cold War Veterans When We Created This Program. Part ll
U.S. House of Representatives
* [2006-03-05] Fremont prepared for result of terrorist attack
Inside Bay Area (CA)
... the nation's largest cities to participate in training to deal with the results of a chemical, biological, explosive, radiological or nuclear attack, Valdes ...
* [2006-03-05] Weldon grills execs of UAE seaport firm
Norristown Times Herald (PA)
... vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the UAE has been linked to terrorism and illicit weapons shipments - including nuclear technology to rogue ...
* [2006-03-05] Guantanamo millionaire testified he met Bin Laden twice
Chicago Sun-Times
... The accusations included money laundering for al-Qaida, plotting to smuggle explosives into the United States and recommending that nuclear weapons be used ...
* [2006-03-05] Gitmo inmate: Osama called himself prophet
Centre Daily Times (PA)
... Those accusations included money laundering for al-Qaida, plotting to smuggle explosives into the United States and recommending that nuclear weapons be used ...
* [2006-03-03] WorldÕs regulators meet on nuclear safety and security at UN conference
UN News Centre
* [2006-03-02] Colombians caught trying to sell uranium in Bogota
Reuters
* [2006-03-01] Fly a jet into our N-plant, it WON'T hurt it
Mark Hookham, icNorthWales
February 16, 2006
January 18, 2006
*
Astrophysical Device Will Sniff Out Terrorism
California Institute of Technology press release
Caltech astrophysicist Ryan McLean recently began the first phase of a $2.2 million contract to develop a radiation-detection module that is compact, with a range of 100 meters, and can tell the difference between a "dirty" bomb and background radiation from natural or harmless manmade sources. Current radiation detectors are often set off by essentially benign materials. They also tend to be large pieces of equipment located only at the nation's entry points, such as ports. McLean wants to make detectors that will ignore natural radiation sources like fertilizer and that will also be small and mobile, so that security officers can take them anywhere and target any ship, truck, or building. McLean, who has also contributed to a project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to build a radiation detector the size of a cell phone, plans to use a sensor made of cadmium zinc telluride, which has been used in telescopes to detect gamma rays and X rays. The advantage of these crystals is that they work at room temperature, unlike other sensors that work only at very low temperatures. To accomplish this, McLean teamed with the X-ray/gamma-ray group at Caltech's Space Radiation Laboratory (SRL), which is led by Professor of Physics Fiona Harrison. The SRL has been developing cadmium zinc telluride gamma-ray sensors, as well as custom, low-noise, low-power electronic chips for X-ray and gamma-ray instruments, for more than 10 years. While SRL's efforts have largely focused on developing these sensors for space missions, after 9/11 SRL teamed with LLNL to develop a chip for a handheld radiation monitor for Homeland Security.
Looking for radiation on the ground is not much different from searching for it in space. "What we are doing with Ryan is taking the best of what we developed for the previous Homeland Security device, and combining it with the best of what we developed for our space instruments," says senior SRL engineer Rick Cook. Everything SRL has learned about the pros and cons of the cadmium zinc telluride itself will also be key to making this project a success.
In the second phase, which could begin by the middle of 2006, McLean will build a workable device. If a successful design emerges, the technology would likely be licensed to a private manufacturer that would turn them out in volume. "The idea is that if you could have lots of small detectors, you might have a better chance of detecting harmful nuclear material than if you're stationed only at central locations, like bridges and ports," he says. Given government officials' warnings that it is only a matter of time before the next terrorist attack in the United States, McLean says that there is a lot of pressure to complete the work quickly. "It helps push the project along."
January 12, 2006
US efforts to detect nuclear and radiological weapons
Worldwide, between 1993 and 2004, there were 662 confirmed cases of illicit trafficking in radiological and nuclear materials, according to the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Of these, 196 incidents involved nuclear materials, including highly enriched uranium -- a key component of nuclear bombs. Another 400 of the incidents documented by IAEA included radioactive material that could be useful in manufacturing a "dirty" bomb.
Within the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has installed nearly 500 monitors to detect radiation at ports, land border crossings and package facilities. Similarly, the Energy Department initiated a program to install radiation sensors at seven major foreign seaports.
In April 2005, President Bush established, issuing a national security and homeland security directive, the Domestic Nuclear Deterrence Office (DNDO). Its mission is to develop a global nuclear detection architecture and support the deployment of a domestic detection system that will identify terrorist attempts to import nuclear or radiological material. The Pentagon, and other federal departments and agencies are contributing experts to the new office. DNDO currently has a staff of 46 and is expected to grow, according to a DNDO spokesperson.
The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, last summer found that nuclear and radiological detection technologies were not foolproof. "The effectiveness of the current generation of radiation detection equipment is limited in its ability to detect illicitly trafficked nuclear material, especially if it is shielded by lead or other material," Gene Aloise, GAO's director of natural resources and environment, said June 21 before the House Homeland Security subcommittee on the prevention of nuclear and biological attacks. Vayl Oxford, the DNDO director, told Congress last year that a major focus of the office would be the development of detectors capable of discriminating between naturally occurring radioactive material and substances manufactured for weapons use.
Aloise also said U.S. government efforts to detect nuclear and radiological weapons were hampered not only by inadequate sensors, but by poor information sharing among federal agencies that try to monitor and track such shipments.
[Source: Jason Sherman (Inside Washington Publishers), "Defense Department to consolidate new nuclear detection efforts", Inside the Pentagon, January 12, 2006]
November 20, 2005
November 4, 2005
Nuclear power expansion would add to terrorism and proliferation risks
Nuclear power is promoted as the answer to ... energy insecurity... In an age of terrorist threats, [nuclear power] is more of a security risk than a solution... There are already hundreds of tonnes of high-level radioactive material for which no inventory exists and blueprints for nuclear hardware are increasingly available on the international black market. An expanding sector would make nuclear proliferation - Iran - and terrorism not just more likely but almost inevitable.
[Source: Andrew Simms (policy director - New Economics Foundation), "The fallacy that nuclear energy will prove to be our saviour", Financial Times (London, England), November 4, 2005, p. 17]
September 7, 2005
Quote of the day: There is a group of murderous psychopaths in this country who wish to destroy us from within.
[Source: editorial in London, UK Daily Express, "Stop the squabling and start fighting terrorism", September 7, 2005, p. 12]
August 25, 2005
* Base closings - in your gut, you know its not the right time
May 26, 2005
*
Can nuclear plant deal with attack?
Greg C. Bruno, Times Herald-Record (Middletown, NY)
Indian Point has buoys in the Hudson River marking the perimeter of a 900-foot "seclusion zone". This article describes the reporter's trip, aboard a 36-foot boat operated by Riverkeeper group, to within about 2,000 feet of the plant -- a distance "well within missile range ... of a number of black market weapons systems". Meanwhile, the plant's two patrol boats stayed tied to the plant's bulkhead. "It strikes me that it would be incredibly easy to get around the security forces that are in place," the pilot said as he turned his vessel from the facility. "What they're doing is like a police helicopter flying around the World Trade Center trying to protect them, he said. "It's not going to work." With a rocket propelled grenade, someone would have to be "closer than a few hundred yards" to the plant, says Jim O'Halloran, the London-based editor of Land Based Air Defense. "But if you're talking anti-tank weapons, bunker busters, you can use anything up to about a nautical mile," or about 6,000 feet, he says. "In that case, yes, there are anti-tank weapons that would do the job with penetrating warheads."
April 18, 2005
* 
Bin Laden's Nuclear Connection: If America had agreed to a nuclear-free world, we wouldnt face threats today
Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin, The Nation, April 25 cover date, p. 18
This essay is adapted from the authors' book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (Knopf). Over the past decade, Osama bin Laden has repeatedly talked and written about America's atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He says he is planning an atomic attack on America that will shock us into retreating from the Middle East, as the Japanese imperial government was shocked into an early surrender. Decades ago, Oppenheimer realized that the bomb was a Trojan horse that would soon threaten our own security as much as it threatened the security of others. He developed a plan for a nuclear-free world and did his best to promote this alternative path. His efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons at the beginning of the atomic age are as applicable today as they were then. Oppenheimer believed that in the long run, "without world government there could be no permanent peace, [and] that without peace there would be atomic warfare." Since world government was not a prospect, Oppenheimer argued that in the field of atomic energy all countries should agree to a "partial renunciation" of sovereignty. Under his plan, the proposed Atomic Development Authority would have sovereign ownership of all uranium mines, atomic power plants and laboratories. No nation would be permitted to build bombs-but scientists everywhere would still be allowed to exploit the atom for peaceful purposes. Complete and total transparency would make it impossible for any nation to marshal the enormous industrial, technical and material resources necessary to build an atomic weapon in secrecy. Oppenheimer understood that one couldn't un-invent the weapon; the secret was out. But one could construct a system so transparent that it would at least provide ample warning if a rogue regime set about to make an atomic weapon. Soon afterward, Oppenheimer's draft plan, which became known as the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, was optimistically submitted to the White House. But optimism was misplaced. While Secretary of State James Byrnes made a pretense of saying that he was "favorably impressed," he was in fact shocked by the sweeping scope of the report's recommendations. A day later he persuaded Truman to appoint his business partner, Wall Street financier Bernard Baruch, "to translate" the Administration's proposals to the United Nations. When Oppenheimer read the news, he told his Los Alamos friend Willy Higinbotham, by then president of the newly created Federation of Atomic Scientists, "We're lost." In 1946, he was asked in a closed Senate hearing room "whether three or four men couldn't smuggle units of an [atomic] bomb into New York and blow up the whole city." Oppenheimer responded, "Of course it could be done, and people could destroy New York." When a startled senator then followed by asking, "What instrument would you use to detect an atomic bomb hidden somewhere in a city?" Oppenheimer quipped, "A screwdriver [to open each and every crate or suitcase]." There was no defense against nuclear terrorism-and he felt there never would be. International control of the bomb, he later told an audience of Foreign Service and military officers, was "the only way in which this country can have security comparable to that which it had in the years before the war. It is the only way in which we will be able to live with bad governments, with new discoveries, with irresponsible governments such as are likely to arise in the next hundred years, without living in fairly constant fear of the surprise use of these weapons."
*
Dollars of Terror
Rachel Ehrenfeld, FrontPageMagazine.com
Dr. Ehrenfeld is the director of the American Center for Democracy, and author of a book titled "Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed Ð and How to Stop It". This article tells a particularly scary story about a Quincy, Massachusetts-based company named GoAgile. That's a new name. The company used to be known as Ptech. Ptech software is used primarily to develop enterprise blueprints at the highest level of US government and corporate infrastructure. ÊThese blueprints hold every important functional, operational, and technical detail of the enterprise. PtechÕs clients in 2001 included the Department of Energy, Customs, Air Force, the White House, the Department of Justice, the FAA, IBM, Sysco, Aetna, and Motorola. Examples of information gathered utilizing PtechÕs capabilities would include the following:
* A complete blueprint of a nuclear waste disposal site would detail the security procedures required to access military bases during transfer of nuclear waste materials. It would also include security rules, revealing where tight security searches vs. random searches exist for conducting detailed identity screening and security checks. These are typically noted in the architecture process, and surely, would be of interest to terrorists.
* A complete blueprint of food distribution patterns, which would include food suppliers, warehouse locations, distributors, vehicles and schedules. With this knowledge, fraudulent deliveries of contaminated food would not be difficult to accomplish.
* Product specifications in the blueprint for Smartcards as implemented in various defense facilities would include enough information to provide templates for duplication, and for unauthorized production of fake Smart IDs, which are a basic tool in the arsenal of criminals and terrorists alike.
Surely the type of company involved in such matters would be thoroughly secure, national security-wise? Would you be surprised to learn that among PtechÕs top investors and management in 2001 was Yassin Al-Qadi, who was listed as a specially designated global terrorist on October 12, 2001? ÊHis investment of $14 million in Ptech in 1998 made him PtechÕs major investor. ÊAl-Qadi was the Director of the Saudi-based Muwafaq Foundation ("Blessed Relief") that fronted for, and funded, Makhtab Al-Khidamat (MK), Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the Abu-Sayyaf organization, to name just a few. ÊAccording to a Treasury Department letter to SwitzerlandÕs Attorney General in November 2001, there was "a reasonable basis to believe that Mr. Kadi has a long history of financing and facilitating the activities of terrorists and terrorist-related organizations, often, acting through seemingly-legitimate charitable enterprises and businesses."
The possibility that Al-Qaeda or other Islamist terrorists have taken advantage of our free market system to undermine our economy and national security seems quite real when you identify the connections and affiliations of PtechÕs management, investors and employees. ÊÊ So, how could a small, Saudi-financed company with questionable terrorist connections obtain significant government and business contracts, and who facilitated this? ÊWas Horizons, its Egyptian branch, ever investigated? ÊWhy wasnÕt Ptech shut down? ÊWhy is it still allowed to operate? ÊAnd even more importantly, are there other Ptechs around?
April 16, 2005
*
Homeland Security director assesses terrorist potential
Carol A. Clark, Los Alamos Monitor (New Mexico)
"There are no existing credible threats going on in New Mexico at this time," Homeland Security Director Tim Manning said... Manning said terrorists are continually changing the way they do things to try to keep the good guys off guard. They have had success with roadside bombings so that atrocity continues but they also keep creating new ways to terrorize civilized people. "One of the emerging terrorist tactics we've seen is seizes like the schoolchildren in Russia," Manning said. "They keep changing so we have to adapt that into the way we train and exercise. We have to ensure our SWAT teams and first responders are equipped for this." ... New Mexico has several identified targets including LANL and Sandia and the military installations, he said. "Another obvious concern is our southern borders," Manning said. "A lot of people of all nationalities pass through those borders - Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, Asians - people from all over the world." ... Manning spoke highly of New Mexico Tech in Socorro calling its responder training the premiere program of its kind in the world. He said his office sends first responders through Tech's program as part of their emergency preparedness training. President Bush recently issued HSPD 5 and 8 requiring NIMS certification for all emergency personnel. Manning said his OEM employees began going through the certification program a couple of years ago. "We are a year ahead of the rest of the country in terms of implementing this order," he said. ... Manning said they must always remember to think creatively and be that step ahead of the terrorists the next time around. ... "We've got a good grasp on it but we must keep going, we can't get complacent. We can't ever be totally prepared, we can get close but I don't think we can ever be done."
*
US panel: Fuel pool attack could trigger zirconium fire
Thecla Fabian, Nuclear Engineering
A terrorist attack on the spent fuel pools at some US nuclear plants could trigger a high-temperature zirconium fire that would lead to a significant release of radioactivity, though not on the scale of the 1986 Chernobyl explosion, concluded a blue-ribbon panel of scientists assembled by the National Research Council of the US National Academies. The unclassified academies' report, Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel: Public Report, contains all the findings and recommendations of the classified report, but with all national security and safeguards information removed, said Louis Lanzerotti, who chaired the 15-member expert panel pulled together by the academies' Board on Radioactive Waste Management in response to a mandate from congress. The panel spent six months gathering and analyzing data, and meeting with regulators, nuclear industry experts, and independent scientists. Lanzerotti is a geophysics expert consulting for Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies and a distinguished professor for solar-terrestrial research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Other panel members included a former NRC division director in nuclear materials management, and experts in the behaviour of nuclear materials at high temperatures, penetration mechanics, ballistics and weapons technology, health physics, actinide chemistry, heat transfer, thermal hydraulics, structural engineering and terrorism. The panel unanimously concluded that an attack that caused either partial or complete draining of a plant's spent fuel pool might be capable of starting a high-temperature fuel cladding fire that could lead to the Òrelease of large quantities of radioactive material into the environment.Ó The risk depends on a number of factors, including the type of attack, the design of the fuel pool, and the configuration of the fuel in the pool. The panel recommended two immediate measures that could reduce the potential for fuel cladding fires: (1) The reconfiguration of the position of fuel assemblies in the pools to more evenly distribute decay heat loads; and (2) Making provisions to cool the fuel with water spray systems that could continue to operate even after a pool or the building housing it is damaged. The panel noted that water spray systems might not be needed at plants where the fuel pools are located below ground or otherwise protected.
... Pools are and will continue to be needed at all nuclear plants for the foreseeable future, the panel stressed, noting that fuel newly removed from the reactor needs about five years cooling time in a water pool before it can be loaded into casks. For older fuel, however, dry storage has two advantages. It is a passive system that relies on air circulation for cooling, and it divides the spent fuel inventory into a number of individual, robust containers that contain only a small amount of the total inventory. Different dry cask systems available on the US market differed only slightly in robustness under different terrorist attack scenarios, the panel found.
*
Spent-fuel storage 'secure'; What is Dominion power doing to protect tons of highly radioactive spent fuel at North Anna nuclear plant?
Rusty Dennen, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA)
More than 900 tons of highly radioactive spent fuel sits in a swimming-pool-like enclosure and in 22 giant steel casks at North Anna Power Station. Every 18 months, North Anna's two reactors must be shut down and partially refueled. Sixty-four spent fuel assemblies are typically removed from each reactor core. Each reactor has 157 assemblies. The assemblies -- rectangular modules packed with uranium-pellet-filled tubes -- are lifted from the reactor and submerged in what looks like an industrial-size indoor swimming pool. Twenty-seven feet of water, infused with neutron-absorbing boron, protects workers in the room from radiation. The pool sits between North Anna's two reactors. The spent fuel assemblies are submerged, where they will stay for at least five years to cool. After that, they are placed in helium-filled steel casks, which are decontaminated and moved to the storage area outside. Helium is an inert gas that helps transfer heat to the outside of the casks, each of which holds 32 fuel assemblies. The gas is easy to detect if there's a container leak. Twenty-two of the 115-ton storage containers sit on concrete pads in a fenced, secure enclosure at North Anna. By 2010, there could be 36. It has become an issue locally because Dominion power -- owner of the North Anna plant -- has an application to add up to two more reactors wending its way through the regulatory process. More reactors would mean the storage of many more tons of spent fuel.
Earlier this month the National Academy of Sciences recommended a plant-by-plant review of the storage pools at nuclear plants, suggesting that they may be vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Environmental groups opposing additional reactors at North Anna say the protection of the spent fuel is a legitimate concern and that expansion would present a more tempting target to terrorists. In a public hearing in February in Louisa on environmental aspects of Dominion's early site-permit application, spent fuel was addressed by a number of speakers. One of them was Sue Chase, who lives in Albemarle County, about 50 miles from North Anna. "Who can assure us that a plant won't be bombed, invaded or hit by a plane and that the fuel rods won't be exposed, resulting in a devastating fire? No one." The [NAS] report [released earlier this month] said the spent-fuel pool, and others like it in 31 states, could be compromised by a suicide aircraft or high-explosive attack, exposing the assemblies and unleashing an uncontrollable fire and large amounts of radiation. The NRC has concluded release from such a fire would be "extremely low," but the agency still advised reactor operators to consider reconfiguring the fuel assemblies in the pools. Jerry Rosenthal, president of Concerned Citizens of Louisa and a member of the People's Alliance for Clean Energy, formed to oppose the North Anna expansion, scoffs at the notion [that the spent-fuel storage systems are safe and secure]. "They are protected very well from ground attack, or certain types of attack. Not from above. The pool is covered by a [thin steel] building and the casks are covered by nothing." "We have video of [military] TOW missiles blowing holes in the casks," he said, adding, "Seven attorneys general around the U.S. have recommended putting towers and wire barriers above dry casks and pools for further protection from air attack."
"These facilities are very secure," said Richard Zuercher, spokesman for Dominion's nuclear operations. He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "already did an assessment of individual [plant] sites and made recommendations for everybody to implement, and we are in full compliance with those orders." Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Zuercher said, security has been ramped up, and the chance of a terrorists attacking the fuel pool or the casks is remote. "A lot of money has been spent [on security] by Dominion since 9/11, but we believe the sites were very secure before 9/11." Zuercher says just how and where the security has been beefed up is a secret, for obvious reasons. But he said: "We have increased our security force. We have more officers and we have put more sophisticated surveillance equipment in that allows us to keep watch on all of the property." Zuercher said that prior to 9/11, security was focused on the secure area of the plant containing the reactors, spent-fuel pool and storage casks. "Since then, security has been enhanced to cover the whole [plant] site."
Dominion recently received permission from the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to add another cask-storage pad. New casks will be better protected -- encased in reinforced-concrete containers. The board didn't go along with a Planning Commission recommendation that a berm be added to the fenced area around the casks to improve security from a possible shoulder-fired-missile attack. Dominion, however, was asked to study a berm.
On Monday, the Government Accountability Office found that some utilities have not kept close enough track of spent fuel. The GAO report questioned oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and said the materials "could be diverted or stolen and used maliciously." The report was requested last year by Vermont's two senators following news that spent fuel had been reported missing at the Vermont Yankee plant. It was later found in the spent-fuel pool, but not where records said it was supposed to be. Spent fuel also was reported missing from the Millstone nuclear plant in Connecticut in 2000 and from the Humboldt Bay plant in California last year.
Dominion power has accounted for all the spent fuel at its North Anna and Surry plants.
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In our view: A small success on nuclear waste
The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah), p. A6
After a meeting with Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff agreed to study the security risks of shipping nuclear waste to remote sites such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada or Skull Valley in Tooele County versus leaving the material where it was created... Huntsman deserves credit for getting the Homeland Security department to look hard at the potential for terrorist attacks on nuclear waste shipments. Unfortunately, the fact that this hasn't been done already suggests the government hasn't thought it through very carefully. It shows that we're still not thinking as creatively as our enemies... If there is any lesson we should have learned from the attacks on New York and Washington it is that terrorists fight unconventionally, and we need to adjust our defenses accordingly. Who would have thought before 9/11 that terrorists would hijack commercial airliners and use them in kamikaze attacks on the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon? Likewise, we've not carefully considered how a terrorist could turn a nuclear waste shipment into a dirty bomb by simply punching a hole in a waste cask. We know from our experience in Iraq that it's not hard to get armor-piercing weapons. While spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors are not explosive, a ruptured cask could release radiation, killing or injuring people in the immediate area and creating widespread panic. A radiation release is not the kind of thing local police or emergency response teams train for on a regular basis, and many agencies likely don't have the resources or equipment to handle such a situation. If such an attack occurred in Salt Lake City, St. Louis or Las Vegas, the economic shockwaves would likely be felt around the country. In the case of Las Vegas, which depends upon tourism to survive, an attack on a radioactive waste shipment could be economically fatal...
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Homeland clarifies position on study of storage of nuclear fuel
Robert Gehrke, Salt Lake Tribune
The Department of Homeland Security says it will look at security concerns involving storage of nuclear fuel, but has not committed to a formal study. The department clarified its position after Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said following a Tuesday meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that the department committed to a study of the issue... "The secretary agreed to look into the issue to determine if the department would need to do a study," said Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse. Roehrkasse said it's unknown at this point what the department's "look into" the nuclear storage issue might entail. Huntsman spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi said that, "It's study more as a verb than as a noun."
February 19, 2005
bin Laden - examples of his historic pursuit of nuclear weapons
Last year Michael Scheuer, who ran the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit for several years in the late 1990s, wrote a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee warning of the "careful, professional manner in which al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear weapons ... in deadly earnest." More than a decade ago, bin Laden allegedly tried to buy a canister of uranium in Sudan for $1.5 million. (He appears to have been scammed.) In August 200l, he met with two Pakistani nuclear scientists. And later that year, crude sketches of nuclear weapons were found in Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Scheuer told CBS's 60 Minutes last year that bin Laden even sought a religious edict from a Saudi cleric on whether he could use a nuclear weapon against America. The cleric's answer: Go for it.
Intent isn't the same as capability, of course. But of more than a dozen nuclear-arms experts I interviewed, almost all agreed that assembling a crude nuclear bomb, though extremely difficult, is by no means impossible.
Just ask Graham Allison. In his recent book Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, he concludes that a terrorist nuke attack is "inevitable" unless the U.S. works much harder and faster to safeguard nuclear material. A former assistant secretary of defense who served under President Bill Clinton and now teaches government at Harvard University, Allison is actually taking small bets from colleagues that terrorists will detonate a crude nuclear bomb in a U.S. city within a decade. "If this happened tomorrow," he says, "I could almost explain it more easily than I could explain why it hasn't happened."
Not everyone is as alarmist as Allison. Most experts with whom I spoke said that a nuclear terror attack is plausible but not inevitable, and that there's no way to precisely gauge the odds. "I don't think the public ought to lose a lot of sleep over the issue," says nuclear physicist Tom Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
[Source: Michael Crowley (senior editor, The New Republic) and Eric Adams, "Can terrorists build the bomb?", Popular Science, v266 n2, February 2005, p. 58]
January 26, 2005
Chirac urges taxes, to be earmarked for foreign aid, on international financial transactions, airline tickets
... globalization and common threats - from terrorism to increased vulnerability to natural disasters - have made the world's nations and governments more dependent on each other. Chirac alluded to such interdependence, saying that natural disasters, political unrest, uncontrolled migration and extremism are "breeding grounds for terrorism" - suggesting developed nations had a stake in resolving the problem. Blair and Chirac said large-scale, sustained assistance for the poor can only make the world a more stable place, but outlined different scenarios on how to get there... Prevented by bad weather from coming to Davos, Chirac suggested in his video message from Paris that rich nations raise billions of aid dollars through new taxes and other measures... Chirac outlined a number of steps to raise billions of dollars through taxes on international financial transactions, plane tickets or fuel used by airliners and oceangoing vessels. He also proposed that countries with bank secrecy laws make a special contribution to Third World aid and that developed nations provide "coordinated tax incentives" to stimulate private donations. He did not spell out an amount of money that would be generated, but gave several examples. A tax on international financial transactions - which the United States strongly opposes - would raise US$10 billion a year, while a US$1 tax on every plane ticket sold worldwide would raise "at least US$3 billion" a year without causing the aviation industry much harm, Chirac said... Referring to the Dec. 26 tsunami that struck Asian coastlines - possibly killing up to 300,000 people - he added: "The world suffers chronically from what has been strikingly called the 'silent tsunamis.' Famine. Infectious diseases that decimate the life force of entire continents."
[Source: Robert Wielaard (AP writer), "At Davos: Blair says U.S. must work with rest of world, Chirac calls for fight on poverty", Associated Press Worldstream, January 26, 2005 2:47 pm ET]
December 14, 2004
* Hospital sets up decontamination unit; MEDecon 3L trailer at Sunrise ready for operations
Paul Harasim, Las Vegas Review-Journal
Sunrise is the first U.S. hospital not connected with the Veterans Administration to receive such a decontamination trailer. The $40,000 cost of the mobile unit is covered by a federal grant for homeland security. Seven other hospitals in the Las Vegas Valley will receive units in the coming months, according to Lake. The decontamination units work like this: Three people can enter the trailer at once. They are met by emergency responders who look like someone wearing a spacesuit. The responders give the patient a package that contains bags for clothing and valuables as well a poncho-gown and footies to wear. The decontamination process is an assembly line operation, where patients disrobe, step into the shower area, and then put on clean clothes. Because each section is compartmentalized, up to nine people (or more if people are with small children) can e going through the trailer at once. As many as 75 people could go through in an hour, depending on how mobile they are, according to Robert Denser, who works for Global Protection, distributor of decontamination products.
November 19, 2004
* N. Korea: cash-strapped, might sell Pu to terrorists, sez USA Gen. LaPorte
November 18, 2004
Terrorists apparently haven't found it easy to bring nuclear bomb or material into US via Mexico so far
O'BRIEN: How possible do you think it will be to acquire the capability to, in fact, bring that material, whether it's for the dirty bomb or a nuclear weapon, through Mexico?
BROOKES: Well, it's really a challenge, I mean, and there are two different things, Soledad. A dirty weapon is basically a conventional weapon that has nuclear material in it. And what it has -- it does -- you don't see a mushroom cloud from a nuclear weapon. So where in a nuclear weapon you have a chain reaction, which creates tremendous over pressures, tremendous temperatures, what we saw in World War 2. So the challenge is not only getting the material, but also manufacturing the weapon itself. So getting it across the border could be a real challenge because it would not necessarily be small. But there are ways of doing it. They could, like the drug smugglers do, they could fly a small plane at very low altitude across the border into the United States. But right now they would have to get it to Mexico, move it across the border and then get it to its point of detonation. So there are some real challenges involved here and I think that's the reason we have not seen it happen yet.
[Source: Peter Brookes (Heritage Foundation), interviewed by CNN's Soledad O'Brien, "... Is Al Qaeda Focused on Bringing Nuclear Terrorism to the U.S.? ...", American Morning, Cable News Network, November 18, 2004 7:00 am ET]
bin Laden didn't need cleric's fatwah approving use of nuclear weapons, because OBL considers himself a cleric
O'BRIEN: There are reports that Osama bin Laden has obtained a fatwa, permission, essentially, to explode a nuclear weapon in the United States. How important is that element, getting the fatwa, to all of this?
BROOKES: I don't think it's very important for Osama bin Laden because Osama bin Laden, even though he's not, considers himself to be a cleric, and he has even declared fatwas himself. So perhaps having additional support outside of his own religious beliefs is important to him, or perhaps to his followers. But Osama bin Laden, which, even, like I said, even though he's not a cleric, has declared fatwas in the past against the United States. In fact, a couple of them are two -- very significant, which talks about that it's OK for Muslims to kill Americans. So this is not unusual to me and I don't think he really needs the support of another -- of a cleric, of a Muslim cleric, to go ahead and do this. I don't think he necessarily felt he needed to do that to attack us on 9/11.
[Source: Peter Brookes (Heritage Foundation), interviewed by CNN's Soledad O'Brien, "... Is Al Qaeda Focused on Bringing Nuclear Terrorism to the U.S.? ...", American Morning, Cable News Network, November 18, 2004 7:00 am ET]
Conventional expert wisdom: Dozens of terrorist groups are seeking WMD
... for quite some time, the intelligence community has believed that over two dozen terrorist groups are pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Now, once again, weapons of mass destruction not only includes nuclear weapons, it also includes chemical and biological weapons. And then there's also another subcategory called radiological weapons, or dirty bombs, which are not nuclear weapons, but something that uses fissile material to irradiate people or to contaminate them with nuclear material.
[Source: Peter Brookes (Heritage Foundation), interviewed by CNN's Soledad O'Brien, "... Is Al Qaeda Focused on Bringing Nuclear Terrorism to the U.S.? ...", American Morning, Cable News Network, November 18, 2004 7:00 am ET]
* Armenia - new radioactive material licensing legislation, to use against black market material sales
November 7, 2004
Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah seek n-weapons, sez Aussie FM Downer
Terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) are trying to obtain nuclear weapons and will not hesitate to use them, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer warned Sunday. Speaking ahead of a two-day conference on regional nuclear proliferation starting here Monday, Downer said although JI was yet to get its hands on atomic weapons, it would not give up trying. "There's absolutely no doubt that terrorists, or at least some terrorists, are endeavouring to get hold of nuclear materials as well as other forms of weapons of mass destruction," he told commercial television. "We don't have any evidence that for example that Jemaah Islamiyah is trying to do that, but we do in the Middle East that organisations like al-Qaeda are." Downer said it was clear JI had no problem targeting innocent victims as it had in the Bali bombings which claimed 202 lives, including 88 Australians, in October, 2002. "Obviously, any organisation that is prepared to wipe people out, young people enjoying themselves, wipe them out in Bali, is an organisation that wouldn't stop short of using at least some sort of more vicious and more dangerous weapons.
[Source: Agence France Presse, "Terrorists trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons, Australia warns", November 7, 2004 2:26 am GMT]
September 3, 2004
Useful radioactive isotope shipments caught in Global Security Web
Transport delays and denials are increasingly affecting radioisotope trade, according to IAEA staff report, although no statistics allow for estimating the extent of the problem. The problem affects short-half-life isotopes for medical uses -- typically transported by airlines -- as well as long-lived isotopes typically transported by boat, and used for everyday applications from pacemakers, medical equipment and electricity generation, to improving the safety of food, checking for hairline fractures in pipelines and controlling disease laden insects. IAEA Board of Governors this month is considering adopting new guidance for nations to use in minimizing the impact of controls on bona fide shipments. [More]
April 30, 2004
Terror Target: Texas coastal oil refineries
The big oil refineries along Texas' coast are considered targets of al Qaeda. A front page article in today's New York Sun describes information from industry, law enforcement and intelligence sources about refineries being "cased" -- with dozens of individuals caught photographing or filming facility perimeters. Last month, the FBI released raw, unspecific and uncorroborated intelligence from foreign source which warned that a refinery would be targeted in November. Instances of discovered surveillance have become so frequent that security directors of oil companies often only report them to local police, according to National Petrochemical & Refiners Association security director Maurice McBride. The Sun story mentions several unusual occurrances which illustrate the kind of diligence required to prevent terror attacks within our borders. Earlier this month, a tugboat crew found a crude bomb (powder-filled WD40 can with egg timer) wrapped with care floating on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. It was powerful enough to do some severe damage to a small boat, although sheriff said it was too small to have been intended for use on a big target.
On June 6, 2002, the Texas Department of Transportation spotted two individuals in full-length wet suits near the Galveston Causeway Bridge. A report of the incident said the two men appeared to be prepared to scope out offshore facilities 30 miles northwest from the bridge in Pasadena, Texas. About a month later, the FBI issued a nationwide broadcast to locate Mohammad Altaf, an individual who made threats with four other men on oil facilities in Pasadena, Calif. After analysis, the bureau determined that the threats were against the facilities in Pasadena, Texas.
The article notes that, according to the FBI, between 50 and 100 Hamas and Hezbollah operatives with terrorist training had infiltrated America by 2002 and have been involved in fund-raising or logistical support. American intelligence has learned that a Hezbollah organization instructed its operatives to change its targets after the September 11 attacks, the article says. And a report last month from Department of Homeland Security concludes that there's reason for concern in the fact that an average of 20 Middle Eastern individuals in Texas a week are applying to have their surnames changed to Hispanic-sounding surnames.
[Source: Eli Lake (New York Sun staff reporter), "Enemy casing Texas for attack, U.S. fears; Intelligence analysts reporting concern as election nears", The New York Sun, April 30, 2004, p. 1]
April 15, 2004
* The what-ifs of nuclear terrorism
* Nuclear terrorism - vulnerability to hackers
* Nuclear terrorism - "greedy insider" factor quadruples risk
* Nuclear terrorism - how many sites could withstand assault by 41 like took Moscow theater?
* Nuclear terrorism - could terrorists use an n-weapon if they seized one?
March 15, 2004
February 18, 2004
* Seabrook - mail handler's reaction-like symptoms
January 9, 2004
January 6, 2004
* Greater security urged for Sweden: radioactive materials, borders
September 10, 2003
Examples of post-9/11 changes at dams
At dams operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, initial post-9/11 increases in security personnel, patrols and general surveillance have been augmented in the past year with equipment including motion detectors, video equipment, and new locks.
[Source: Craig Sprankle (U.S. Bureau of Reclamation spokesperson), cited by Chris Mulick et al (Tri-City Herald staff writers), "Security constant since Sept. 11", Tri-City Herald, September 10, 2003]
September 10, 2003
Examples of post-9/11 security changes at Hanford
Security for Hanford workers entering the site can change week to week and month to month, based on international conditions. One constant, however, is that visitation has been 'extremely limited', according to DOE spokesperson Andrea Powell. No more public road tours are offered on Saturdays. [Source: Chris Mulick et al (Tri-City Herald staff writers), "Security constant since Sept. 11", Tri-City Herald, September 10, 2003]
September 8, 2003
* Anti-terror success story - Brooklyn Bridge
* Terror targets - 120 chemical refineries could each cause more than a million casualties
* Vulnerable - US practically invites terror
* Vulnerable - US safer now, sez feds
August 3, 2003
Sandia's missing master set of keys
Key control is about as fundamental a security concept as there is. If you lose control of a key, you change the lock. Former DOE security official Notra Trulock read with interest the public portions of a new DOE whitewash, er, report, about goings-on at Sandia National Lab and was surprised to find no mention of lock changes after a master set of security keys were discovered to be missing. Heck, the report doesn't even mention if the missing keys were ever recovered. Mr. Trulock reports that lab insiders allege that no locks were changed after the loss was discovered. Mr. Trulock's article paints quite a disturbing picture, security-wise: Sandia guards taking unauthorized breaks, a guard stealing lab computer equipment. I guess there's a bright side -- he sold the stuff only to other members of the guard force. Sheesh. The thief was not prosecuted, and was given the opportunity to resign, which he did.
[Source: Notra Trulock, "Yet Another Lab Scandal", NewsMax, Aug. 4, 2003]
The reality is that we are a target, and we are at war. Permanently.
Tom Ridge (secretary of Homeland Security), "Meet the Press", NBC TV, August 3, 2003
[W]e operate toward the notion that there will be [another terror strike], and I think we have to... [The] reality [is] that we are a target. Everything we stand for is anathema to all these people who would do us harm... [T]he president ... realized we are at war. It is a permanent condition. That's why they made permanent changes in the government. That's why we have a Department of Homeland Security. ... If you took a look at the body of information that we receive and the chatter, the noise of what we hear, there's virtually nothing they're not talking about... The terrorists are looking at every phase of our economy, looking at how we operate, and from time to time, we just send out advisories to these people who operate, whether it's commercial airliners, ferries, power plants, dams, whatever it is, that they're talking about you.
More excerpts from this interview:
* al-Qaeda expected to continue to use commercial airliners as weapons
* Homeland Security - working with State Dept to open a visa office in Saudi Arabia
* 9/11 - Two of the terrrists had lived with FBI informant in San Diego
* Homeland Security - "Watch List" program consolidated into Threat Integration Center
* 9/11 - we knew, for years, that terrorists were looking at using airliners as weapons
* Homeland Security - Air Marshal program cuts explained, rescinded
* Terror target - the permanent and pervasive reality in which we find ourselves
* Homeland Security - food supply considerations
* Homeland Security - cybersecurity head nominee being vetted by White House
* Homeland Security - CAPPS II - Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System
* Homeland Security - emergency response capability much improved since 9/11
* Homeland Security - Only Half The Firemen Yet Have Operable Radios, But Progress Is Being Made
* Terror war is permanent condition, prompting permanent changes in our government
* Terror - there will be more attacks on the USA
July 22, 2003
NRC to start verifying legitimacy of new applicants for materials licenses, by adding pre-licensing visit requirement. [Ref: July 8 NRC memo to regional directors from Charles L. Miller (director, NMSS Division of Industrial and Medical Nuclear Safety), titled "Interim guidance for pre-licensing visits to verify the legitimacy of certain new applicants and to protect against malevolent terrorist activities ", released by NRC via ADAMS system on July 22]
July 16, 2003
* Imminent danger to US cities from Korea-terrorist nuclear hook-up, sez former DOD Secy William Perry
July 13, 2003
Backers hold out hope for funding training center including Rancho Seco
Sacramento Bee article describes iffy prospects for a Sacramento Chamber of Commerce-backed plan to use the decommissioned Rancho Seco nuclear plant site as a realistic training classroom for a national security training center. The $60-million potential price tag for the proposed expanded training center seems right in line with the $300-million line item for regional centers.
[Source: David Whitney (Bee Washington Bureau), "Backers hold out hope for center funding", Sacramento Bee, July 13, 2003]
* Rancho Seco - use for national security training center could proceed even without Congress requiring its use
July 11, 2003
June 29, 2003
June 21, 2003
* Spent fuel pool fire could far exceed release at Chernobyl
* Spent fuel pools - biggest security threat is probably small plane
* Spent fuel pools make poor targets for terrorist planes, missiles
* Spent fuel - dry cask storage much better, risk management-wise, than pools
June 10, 2003
* Homeland Security funds for repaving road to Browns Ferry?
May 26, 2003
* Iran - al Qaeda link seen as immediate fundamental issue by USA and Australia
* Iran - al Qaeda link includes advance notice of bombings
May 13, 2003
Examples of industries resisting security proposals
Some industries have resisted basic security measures that legislators have tried to make law. The chemical industry has fought against stepped-up security testing at its facilities and inspection regimes to better determine whether they're fulfilling existing mandates. U.S. airlines have also fought efforts to get them to match each bag loaded into the hold on domestic flights to a passenger sitting on the plane. [Source: Alex Salkever, "Securing America's Vital Organs and Arteries", Business Week Online, May 13, 2003]
May 12, 2003
Aviation safety a factor in not restricting n-plant airspace
The FAA briefly restricted airspace around nuclear plants two months after the Sept. 11 hijackings. Early this year, it notified general-aviation pilots to keep their small aircraft away from the plants. And late last month the FBI alerted nuclear plant operators and law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for suspicious activity near the plants.
But the agency believes that it has dramatically reduced risks of airliner hijackings by requiring reinforced cockpit doors, putting armed sky marshals aboard flights and conducting more sophisticated passenger and baggage screening.
To permanently restrict airspace over the plants, FAA spokesman Tony Molinaro said, "we'd wind up squeezing aircraft into fewer airspace pathways. We don't want to do that, because that would create the potential for safety and efficiency problems."
[Source: Greg Gordon (Star Tribune Washington Bureau Correspondent), "Pawlenty worried about airplane attack on nuclear plants", Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 12, 2003]
N-plant airplane risk debate
Despite post-Sept. 11 security upgrades, nuclear watchdogs, however, believe that the plants remain vulnerable. They say terrorists could use airplanes or other means to attack some of the nation's 65 nuclear plants and 27 decommissioning plants, causing a fire that could send radiation as far as 50 miles away or even a nuclear meltdown.
The watchdogs also say that elevated pools filled with spent fuel at the two plants [in Minnesota] are less protected than the largely below-grade pools at many plants. They say the terrorism risks are high enough to warrant packing most of the spent fuel into canisters and burying it until a permanent disposal site opens.
Such fears have triggered a running debate between groups that monitor nuclear power and the nuclear industry over the adequacy of terrorism shields and emergency backup systems at the nation's commercial reactor sites.
The watchdogs say the worst air attacks could come from a seized jetliner in a scenario similar to the Sept. 11 attacks, or from a smaller plane loaded with explosives. But they also warn that a band of terrorists on the ground could overpower guards and disable a plant's primary and backup cooling systems.
NRC and industry officials respond by pointing to the robust 3-to 5-foot-thick steel-reinforced concrete walls around the reactor containment buildings. They say similar walls, plus a thick inner lining of stainless steel, surround the Olympic-like pools that hold highly radioactive spent fuel after its removal from the reactors.
Industry officials also say the evidence indicates that even if terrorists blew a hole in one of the steel-and-concrete casks storing spent fuel outside the Prairie Island plant, it would not lead to a major radiation release.
... The main fear surrounding an aircraft attack on a nuclear plant is that the impact might cause such a large breach in a wall surrounding the reactor or spent fuel pool that backup water supplies could not keep up with the gush of escaping water. The water keeps the reactor and spent fuel from overheating.
Stanek said that about a month ago, while touring the Monticello plant, Pawlenty eyed the corrugated metal roof over the spent fuel pool. Like all boiling water plants, Monticello's pool is entirely above grade, making it easier to punch a hole through one of its walls. The governor wondered whether a plane could crash through the concrete wall surrounding the 38-foot-deep pool, Stanek said.
Engineer and physicist Gordon Thompson, who has monitored the nuclear industry for 25 years, said the air threat remains "the highest risk mode of attack" on the plants.
A smaller general-aviation plane loaded with explosives would have "high accuracy of delivery, high expectation of success . . . and [face] essentially no defense," said Thompson, who heads the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Mass.
If a terrorist with piloting skills got hold of a plant layout, identified its most vulnerable spot and executed his mission, he said, he would have "a very high probability of causing a reactor accident."
Thompson said the heat from the resulting fire or reactor meltdown could prevent emergency crews from getting close enough to regain control of the situation.
NRC Commissioner Ed McGaffigan, who says the fears are overblown, dismissed Thompson's arguments as coming from the scientific fringes.
But one of the NRC's own studies, aimed at calculating the impact of an accidental plane crash into a nuclear plant, concluded months before the Sept. 11 attacks that half of all aircraft are large enough to penetrate a 5-foot-thick reinforced concrete wall.
The Nuclear Energy Institute counters by pointing to a Sandia National Laboratory study in which an F-4 Phantom military jet traveling 480 miles per hour on a "rocket sled" slammed into a thick concrete wall and penetrated only 2 1/4 inches.
David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, notes that the Sandia test wall was nearly 12 feet thick -- similar to the base of a reactor containment building -- and was floating on an air cushion.
Roy Zimmerman, director of the NRC's Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, said that a plane filled with explosives would cause "localized damage," but that its crash would be highly unlikely to "result in an off-site [radiation] release that would challenge public health and safety."
Mark Findlay, security director for the Nuclear Management Co., which operates both of Xcel's plants, said a recently declassified NRC analysis should eliminate much of the concern. He said it found that a plane packed with explosives would likely "pre-detonate," or blow up upon hitting the exterior of a building, before striking its target.
Although elevated, Prairie Island's spent fuel pool has an extra layer of protection. Located inside a 100-foot-high building, it is surrounded by a huge concrete superstructure.
[Source: Greg Gordon (Star Tribune Washington Bureau Correspondent), "Pawlenty worried about airplane attack on nuclear plants", Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 12, 2003]
Proposed "Beamhenge" technique for hardening n-plants against aircraft crash
Amidst a scathing criticism of the approach by nuclear industry and regulators to security against terrorist attack, was this suggestion for increased physical protection of plant structures:
There is a... low-cost way to quickly improve a nuclear facility's survivability. It's called "Beamhenge."
Beamhenge is simply a line of steel beams set vertically in deep concrete foundations connected by bracing beams, a web of high-strength cables, wires, and netting linking the vertical beams to form a protective screen--the nuclear-grade equivalent of the fences erected around golf driving ranges. Beamhenge would not need to completely encircle the nuclear plant--it would merely need to shield the vulnerable side or sides of the facility's key structures. Depending on the nuclear plant's geography and vulnerabilities, Beamhenge could be a single row of closely spaced beams or multiple rows of more widely spaced beams. The height of the beams and the length of the Beamhenge would depend on the configuration being protected from likely incoming trajectories.
The main purpose of Beamhenge would be to slow down an attack, fragment the attacking aircraft into smaller pieces, disperse the mass of jet fuel, and protect the more vulnerable containment, spent fuel pool, and other structures located within the perimeter from being breached by the mass of the projectiles. The beams would tend to scatter the jet fuel and slow down other projectiles like the fuselage.
The structure would also provide some degree of protection against surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles, as well as other ballistic and self-propelled ordnance. The metal mesh netting strung between the vertical beams would not stop a projectile, but would serve to trigger detonation of its warhead before it reached the facility's walls.
In fact, the possibility that an attack by air would lead to a catastrophe could be rendered from "more likely than not" to "essentially unlikely" for the expenditure of a fraction of one percent of the construction cost of the average facility, and the protective structure could be built in a few months. Even if the project were evaluated in terms of economic costs only, with no consideration of the value of human lives, a price in the low tens of millions of dollars for each facility should be difficult to resist. The total cost may seem high, but it would still be less than the total of the one-time loans the government arranged for the airline industry in the days following September 11.
[source: Joel Hirsch (attorney for Committee to Bridge the Gap), "Beamhenge?", sidebar to "The NRC's Dirty Little Secret", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 59(3):44, May/Jun2003]
April 25, 2003
Screening could check all containers entering ports, not just the current < 3%
"... [P]erhaps the greatest danger we face from terrorism [is] a nuclear weapon ... being smuggled through one of our ports and detonated in one of our cities.
"Despite recent administrative improvements in container tracking, less than 3 percent of shipping containers entering the country are inspected each year. This means that approximately 770,000 containers that enter the Port of New York annually are unchecked.
"Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island indicate that nuclear screening devices capable of checking all containers can be developed relatively cheaply, yet the Bush administration refuses to spend the money to purchase them. The president here is being penny wise and pound foolish."
[Source: Sen. Charles Schumer (D-New York), April 21, 2003 Letter to editor, "Security at Our Ports", New York Times, April 25, 2003]
April 3, 2003
$370-million in post 9/11 n-plant security upgrades, 2000 more guards
David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said he has been told that the new security measures could cost the industry $ 30 million per plant, plus an additional $ 8 million to $ 10 million a year for additional guards. If those numbers are accurate, it would cost Exelon Nuclear, which owns half of the Three Mile Island, Peach Bottom and Oyster Creek (N.J.) plants, plus seven other nuclear stations, about $ 245 million.
And those expenses would be in addition to the $370 million the nuclear industry already has spent on security upgrades since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Included in the post-Sept. 11 costs are various capital improvements, such as fencing and barriers, and the addition of 2,000 security officers, a 35 percent increase, Kerekes said [Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute].
[Source: Garry Lenton, "Nuclear Power Plant Security Evaluated", The Patriot-News (Harrisburg Pennsylvania), April 3, 2003]