Understanding the nuclear terrorist threat

Reading the January 27 posting of Tomdispatch.com, I found myself agreeing with many of the points there about the effects of the scare-mongering and unilateral military moves the US administration has engaged in since 9-11. But I was bothered by both the tendency in that piece to ignore second-order effects of actions (it minimized the effects of a hypothetical disappearance of terrorist groups worldwide), and more so by its disparagement of Charles Gibson for leading off a presidential candidates' debate with a question on what the candidates would do to head off a nuclear terrorist attack on the US.

So I wrote to Tom. Here is the body of my argument to him:
"(In) disparaging Gibson's first question in that presidential candidates' debate, you have underestimated the ease with which a determined terrorist group can acquire a nuclear fission bomb, and the damage that such a bomb detonated in a US city would do. If you do some research (see the websites of the Kennedy School's Belfer Center, or the Nuclear Threat Initiative, or the Citizens to Stop Nuclear Terrorism), you'll learn that Osama bin Laden has long been trying to acquire nuclear weapons and has publicly stated his intention to use them against the US. As you may know, it is relatively easy to build a bomb once you get either HEU or plutonium (easier with HEU, but smaller package with plutonium) - no need to buy or steal a ready-made bomb. There are 140 or so nuclear sites (research reactors, etc.) in dozens of countries where Al Qaeda can go to get the material it needs. Once stolen or built, it is easy to get a bomb into an American city, despite the silly assertions by DHS that radiation detectors might prevent this.

Imagine if one detonates in New York City, in Washington, or in the Port of Long Beach. The RAND Corp. recently did a simulation of the latter case. Immediate damage: 60,000 lives (it would be worse in NYC), a trillion dollars damage, loss of key trading capacity with East Asia, loss of major share of oil refining capacity, possible collapse of insurance industry, etc. But the downstream effect on the political stability of the US would be even scarier. If we got a Patriot Act and a host of other restrictions, illegal eavesdropping, and renewed aggressiveness internationally out of 9-11, imagine what we'd get after Long Beach is wiped out - and if Osama says, "Oh, by the way, I have four or five more already hidden in US cities. If you don't do X, Y, Z, etc., they will start being detonated." The reaction in America would be nothing at all like the aftermath of another set of airliners crashing into buildings.

Gibson was entirely right to lead off with the question on nuclear terrorism - it is really that serious.

Stunningly, even Bush has said it is our biggest threat - but then not treated it as such. Yet there is a well-conceived plan (see links at the Belfer Center or NTI sites mentioned above) to lock down nuclear materials worldwide, and its cost is piddling in comparison to the risk-adjusted cost of a nuclear bomb going off in a city.

I might add that this also means pretty much any city, not only a US one. Simply consider the implications and how both the victim country and the US leadership would react, knowing there could be more but not knowing the source or the next target, and perhaps (in the case of a bomb in a country not friendly to the US) the confusion wrought by inevitable claims that it was a US bomb, or an Israeli bomb, or a (fill in the blank of your nuclear-armed enemy) bomb.

Please give this some research and thought; I did, and the facts are so compelling that it got me involved in efforts to persuade Congress to mandate a crash program to lock down (and help others to lock down) all nuclear materials and bombs worldwide. It does not require scare-mongering publicity, nor further restrictions on our liberties, nor very much money. And it may buy us enough time to correct the mistakes we've made that have engendered this threat in the first place.

John Macgregor
Citizens to Stop Nuclear Terrorism"