Elite U.S. team works to keep nuclear bombs from terrorists
By Andrew Schneider
Of The Post-Dispatch
Stephen Bolhafner And Jennifer Lafleur Of The Post-Dispatch
Assisted In Researching This Story.
Twenty-seven years ago, extortionists threatened to blow up
Boston with a nuclear device unless $200,000 was paid.
A pickup team of federal agents scrambled to the scene.
Scientists with the Atomic Energy Commission flew into one
airport. Their radiation detection equipment went to another.
No one was sure what to look for or how to find it or exactly
what to do if they did. As it turned out, the government's
bewilderment really didn't matter. The extortionist never picked
up the money that the FBI left at a prearranged spot, and the
matter was declared a hoax.
Fortunately for Boston, there was no bomb. Fortunately for the
United States, emergency planners admitted that the response
was chaotic and bumbling; and President Gerald Ford ordered
the government to get its act together. Within a year, in 1975,
the nation's Nuclear Emergency Search Team was created.
While reports of anthrax and fears of bioterrorism have
permeated America's psyche in the last few weeks, security
experts have not forgotten their decades-old concern about
terrorists obtaining and detonating a nuclear device. The job of
protecting the nation from such a catastrophe falls to NEST.
This carefully crafted group of more than 1,100 men and women
work for the Department of Energy. They are nuclear physicists
— some who designed America's own atomic weapons —
chemists, engineers, meteorologists, physicians, nurses and
computer specialists and security experts. Most work at the
nation's weapons plants, but when alerted to a NEST call-up,
they can be delivered, fully equipped, to any place in the
country within four hours, they say.
The heart of the NEST operation is the security force. The small
group of government employees and civilian contractors is
highly trained, well armed and equipped with an evolving
collection of James Bond-like radiation detectors. If necessary,
these science-commandos on the security team believe they
can fight their way into a terrorist stronghold and secure a
nuclear device.They have trained the Delta force and other elite
military and government units in how to search for radioactive
material.
In almost all cases, they do their work unobtrusively. Hard hats
and jeans are worn on the docks, pin-striped suits and leather
briefcases near the Capitol and on Wall Street, and team colors
at the stadium. Their toolboxes, briefcases and beer coolers
often contain the most sophisticated tracking devices available.
Today they have their own aircraft to get the team and
equipment where they are needed. They have a fleet of
nondescript vans and trucks to carry tons of gear to receive
satellite information, lathes to machine their own equipment on
the scene, cameras, scuba and climbing gear, tents, special
foam and freezing chemicals and detection devices of all types
and sizes.
They train all the time and, as of last December, had responded
to about 125 actual call-ups. All but 30 were classified as
hoaxes or unsubstantiated. No one, not even former NEST
members, would discuss any of the 30, other than to say that
several dealt with extortion attempts by employees in various
areas of the nuclear industry.
Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson tells the tale of a call
the FBI received on Feb. 20, 1999, that radioactive material was
aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder and "its passengers are in
danger."
The Empire, bound from Chicago to Seattle, and an eastbound
passenger train were diverted to a remote stretch of track in
Montana. NEST teams were flown to the site and the trains
were searched. Nothing was found.
"It's not a plot in a Tom Clancy thriller. It was real," Richardson
said.
There has long been concern that someone - a militia member,
an irate student, a disgruntled government worker - might try
to put together an atomic device.
How-to-do-it guides for building nuclear devices can be found all
over the Internet, in college collections of doctoral theses and
in some survivalist or anarchist books or handouts. NEST
investigators collect and evaluate all of these as well as spy
novels and movie scripts dealing with the topic. In 1979, the
government fought to stop Progressive Magazine from
publishing details on how to build a hydrogen bomb. But the
information eventually was published by several sources.
"Fortunately, most of these home-brewed recipes are missing
key ingredients or vital steps, so the only real threat they
present would be to anyone crazy enough to try building a
device," said a former NEST team leader.
"Some of movies and novels come closer to the truth -
frighteningly closer - but without the right (weapons grade
nuclear) material, they remain interesting fiction."
Whereabouts of Soviet weapons
Uppermost on the "to do" list of those guarding against nuclear
terrorism is the security of nuclear weapons and radioactive
material.
Richardson questions "how much longer will America's luck
hold?"
The fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s did nothing to
ease the angst of those concerned about nuclear weapons and
material getting into the wrong hands.
Intelligence groups reported that between 4,000 and 6,000
former Soviet weapons scientists who were no longer being
paid by the new Russian government were being heavily
courted by Iraq, Iran, North Korea and terrorist groups. Of
greater importance, there was little or no security for the
thousands of nuclear devices spread out across Russia and its
breakaway republics.
President Bill Clinton pressured the Russian leadership to allow
the United States to help.
"Since 1994, we have employed more than 4,000 scientists at
170 institutes and organizations throughout Russia and the
Newly Independent States," Richardson said in a speech in
1999.
Scores of NEST members and other American specialists went
into Russia's secret nuclear cities to coach their former enemies
on how to safeguard the weapons and material within.
Russian guards found themselves outfitted in new U.S. winter
boots, heavy coats and heaters supplied to keep them from
leaving their posts.
Department of Energy personnel also have supplied the
technology and equipment to detect nuclear material at border
crossings, ports and airports leaving Russia.
Were these highly unusual steps successful? No one really
knows. Nor is it known how much, if any, Russian nuclear
material has been given or sold to terrorists.
But Interpol, the CIA and other intelligence services all report
that the firmly entrenched Russian mob can acquire anything
and will sell anything to anyone willing to pay.
Concern soared in May 1997 when former Russian Security
Council Secretary Aleksandr Lebed told U.S. congressmen
visiting Moscow that his nation once had between 80 and 100
atomic demolition weapons, suitcase-size one-kiloton bombs,
that had been ordered built in the 1970s by the KGB. He said
they were missing. (A kiloton has the explosive power of a
thousand tons of dynamite.)
The Russian government disputed the existence of the tiny
weapons. It then allowed that if they had been built, all were
accounted for.
In October of that year, Aleksey Yabokov, an adviser to former
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, told members of the U.S. House
subcommittee on Military Research and Development that many
of the portable weapons were missing.
The controversy continues.
"We believe we have a full accounting of all of Russia's strategic
weapons, but when it comes to tactical weapons - the suitcase
variety - we do not know, and I'm not sure they do either," said
Charles Curtis, former deputy energy secretary under Clinton
and the president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Some U.S. officials still dispute that a weapon that small could
be built by anyone, but until the mid-'70s select Marine and
Army units carried what was called the "backpack bomb," which
weighed less then 163 pounds.
"It's ridiculous to say that technology doesn't exist to make
small nuclear devices," said Bruce Blair, president of the
Defense Information Center. "In the late '70s, scientists from
the Energy Department's Lawrence Livermore labs built a
one-kiloton bomb that fit into a standard attache case."
New worries for NEST
Pakistan, America's newest ally in our war against terrorism,
has 30 to 80 atomic weapons of its own.
"These bombs, with explosive yields ranging from 1 to 15
kilotons, are at a missile complex about 250 miles from
Afghanistan," Blair said. "The ranks of the (Pakistani)
government and military are riddled with sympathizers of the
radical Islamic faction. This presents a real opportunity to spirit
away an atomic bomb or two for bin Laden or other terrorists."
Curtis, the former deputy energy secretary, shared the concern.
"Our government has got to understand the threat the limited
safeguards on these weapons really present," he said.
Not all the challenges for the NEST searchers come from outside
the border.
Radiological dispersal devices - known as dirty bombs - can be
constructed from waste from nuclear power plants wrapped in
conventional explosives. These would not produce a nuclear
explosion. But, depending on the size of the package, large
quantities of radioactive particles would be spewed into the
environment.
"Detonation of a dynamite-laden casket of spent fuel from a
power plant would not kill quite as many people as died on
September 11," Blair said. "But if it happened in Manhattan, you
could expect 2,000 deaths and thousands more suffering from
radiation poisoning."
Can NEST intercept and disable this litany of deadly devices
before they are used by terrorists?
The ease of detection depends greatly on the nuclear material
used. Some will emit alpha radiation, which can be shielded by
a single sheet of paper. Most beta rays won't make it through
wood or dry wall. It's the neutrons and gamma rays, which can
shoot out hundreds of yards, that offer the best bet for
detection while driving up a city street or walking through a
convention center, hotel or office building or flying low over a
community.
False alarms abound. The granite used in the Capitol and many
federal buildings as well as orange Fiesta Ware dinner plates
contain enough radioactivity to set off detectors. But new
sensing equipment and techniques are being developed for the
team members, and many new people are being rushed
through training to help.
Curtis said the teams are highly experienced "and there is a
high degree of confidence that if they locate the device, they
can disarm it."
Blair said that locating a device is the problem.
"The ability to find a smuggled nuclear weapon is going to be
between difficult and impossible unless there is good
intelligence to give these teams a clue. If you've got intelligence
and can pin the device down to a certain neighborhood or area,
bring in NEST and their gadgets, and they'll find it."
Reporter Andrew Schneider:\
E-mail: aschneider@post-dispatch.com\
Phone: 314-340-8101
First appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Oct. 21, 2001
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