| Subject: Threat of Nuclear Terrorism Is Growing, Experts Warn |
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Date Posted: 13:25:29 12/03/01 Mon
Threat of Nuclear Terrorism Is Growing, Experts Warn
http://ens-news.com/ens/nov2001/2001L-11-02-06.html
VIENNA, Austria, November 2, 2001 (ENS) - The ruthlessness of the September attacks against the United States has alerted the world to the potential of nuclear terrorism, making it "far more likely" that terrorists could target nuclear facilities, nuclear material and radioactive sources worldwide, the chief of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei opens the agency's special session on nuclear terrorism today (Photo courtesy IAEA)
"September 11 presented us with a clear and present danger and a global threat that requires global action," said IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, according to a statement released by the agency at its headquarters in Vienna. "Many of our programs go to the heart of combating nuclear terrorism, but we now have to actively reinforce safeguards, expand our systems for combating smuggling in nuclear material and upgrade our safety and security services."
More than 400 experts from around the world have been meeting at the IAEA's Vienna headquarters since October 29 at an international symposium on nuclear safeguards, verification and security. Today, the conferees are holding a special emergency seminar on combating nuclear terrorism.
The IAEA says there have been about 400 cases of nuclear smuggling over the past decade, but none have involved anything close to enough fissionable material to construct a nuclear weapon.
However, ElBaradei warned, the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center point to an additional threat - terrorists willing to die for their cause. The IAEA is no longer convinced that the hazards associated with handling radioactive materials will be enough to deter terrorists..
"If the terrorist is willing to die, that changes the security equation drastically," said ElBaradei.
Nuclear power plant produce radioactive waste that could potentially be used to make weapons, and the plants themselves could be targeted for terrorist attacks. This nuclear plant, Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, recently received approval to operate until 2034 (Photo courtesy Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
The IAEA, which helps countries to prevent, intercept and respond to terrorist acts and other nuclear safety and security incidents, has the only international response system in place that would be in a position to immediately react in case of a nuclear terrorist attack.
This week, the agency warned of "the potential of terrorists targeting nuclear facilities or using radioactive sources." The agency noted that "radiation knows no frontiers," and warned that, "safety and security of nuclear material is a legitimate concern of all states."
"An unconventional threat requires an unconventional response, and the whole world needs to join together and take responsibility for the security of nuclear material," ElBaradei said.
To prevent a terrorist nuclear attack, the agency is now proposing a number of new initiatives. It estimates that at least $30-$50 million each year will be needed in the short term to strengthen and expand its programs to meet terrorist threats.
Speaking to reporters at United Nations headquarters in New York, Gustavo Zlaufvinen, director of IAEA's office in the U.S., said efforts were under way to secure funding for the new measures.
"We are thinking of different ways to get that money, taking into account that our budget is limited by the 'zero-growth' policy for the last 10 years," said Zlaufvinen.
The Sellafield nuclear facility in Cumbria, UK, operated by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., reprocesses spent nuclear fuel into mixed oxides (MOX) fuel containing both uranium and plutonium (Photo courtesy BNFL)
The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a Washington DC based research and advocacy center specializing in problems of nuclear proliferation, welcomed the IAEA's new focus on nuclear terrorism, but warned that it is "long overdue."
"For more than two decades, we have urged the IAEA and the nuclear power industry to take seriously the risks of terrorists stealing bomb usable nuclear materials and attacking nuclear plants," said Paul Leventhal, president of NCI. "The need for action, not rhetoric, is long overdue."
Leventhal said the IAEA should call for a ban on the production and use of all atomic bomb materials, including separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium, in both nuclear power and research programs. In the U.S., projects are now underway to turn tons of weapons grade plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.
"More separated plutonium has been produced in civilian than military nuclear programs worldwide," Leventhal added. "Unless commercial reprocessing of spent fuel is halted, there will be nearly twice as much weapons usable plutonium in civilian than military programs by the end of this decade. Civilian plutonium, like plutonium removed from weapons, should be disposed of as waste, not used as fuel."
The NCI charges that the IAEA's safeguards against the diversion of civilian nuclear materials for use in weapons are "ineffective."
A study prepared for NCI by Dr. Marvin Miller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that bulk handling plutonium facilities, such as large reprocessing plants for spent nuclear fuel, could lose up to 263 kilograms of plutonium a year without detecting the loss.
"That is enough plutonium to make dozens of nuclear bombs," said Levental. "The IAEA is supposed to provide prompt detection of the loss of one bomb's worth of plutonium - officially eight kilograms."
NCI called on Director-General ElBaradei to retract his claim that "while we cannot exclude the possibility that terrorists could get hold of some nuclear material, it is highly unlikely they could use it to manufacture and successfully detonate a nuclear bomb."
Paul Leventhal, president of the Washington DC based Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) (Photo courtesy NCI)
In fact, Leventhal countered, "Those who have actually designed nuclear weapons do not agree with the IAEA's sanguine assessment."
In a study commissioned by NCI for its International Task Force on the Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism, a team of five former U.S. nuclear weapon designers found that terrorists would be capable of making an effective, first generation nuclear weapon if they could obtain enough reactor grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium, Leventhal said.
Even without the ability to make nuclear weapons, terrorist groups could still use radioactivity as a weapon.
Dr. Edwin Lyman, a physicist and NCI's scientific director, notes that a direct, high speed hit by a large commercial passenger jet on a nuclear plant "would in fact have a high likelihood of penetrating a containment building" that houses a power reactor.
"Following such an assault," Lyman said, "the possibility of an unmitigated loss of coolant accident and significant release of radiation into the environment is a very real one."
Such a release, whether caused by an air strike, or by a ground or water assault, or by insider sabotage could result in tens of thousands of cancer deaths downwind of the plant. A number of these plants are located near large cities.
At least seven U.S. states - Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York - have deployed National Guard troops to protect their nuclear power plants.
Republished with permission from the ENS, available online at: http://ens-news.com
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved.
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