Defense Officials Cite New Intelligence, New WMD-detecting Technologies RevealedNew warnings that al Qaeda is preparing for another attack on the United States, likely making use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), has spurred America’s scientific community to develop new technologies capable of detecting, tracking, and neutralizing these threats.
“The extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment recalibrating and reorganizing,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee on February 16, 2005. Rumsfeld’s warning comes as a newly released intelligence report highlighted the increased likelihood that a stolen or illicitly purchased nuclear weapon will be used against the United States within the next 15 years.
Stunning Report Issued by NIC
The National Intelligence Council report predicts that most terrorists will continue to employ conventional attacks with greater emphasis on exotic operational concepts - such as multiple and simultaneous attacks spanning larger geographic areas, “the most worrisome trend has been an intensified search by some terrorist groups to obtain weapons of mass destruction. Our greatest concern is that these groups might acquire biological agents or less likely, a nuclear device, either of which could cause mass casualties.” Because of “advances in the design of simplified nuclear weapons, terrorists will continue to seek to acquire fissile material in order to construct a nuclear weapon. Concurrently, they can be expected to continue attempting to purchase or steal a weapon, particularly in Russia or Pakistan.”
The NIC, the U.S. intelligence community’s center for mid-and long-term strategic thinking, concluded that, “given the possibility that terrorists could acquire nuclear weapons, the use of such weapons by extremists before 2020 cannot be ruled out.” Moreover, “the religious zeal of extremist Muslim terrorists increases their desire to perpetrate attacks resulting in high casualties. Historically, religiously inspired terrorism has been most destructive because such groups are bound by few constraints.”
In early February, federal investigators revealed that Saifullah Paracha - a 57-year-old Pakistani businessman operating an import company in New York - attempted to aid al Qaeda’s acquisition of 50 nuclear weapons for use against the United States, according to a United Press International report, February 14, 2005. Paracha, detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba since his arrest 19 months ago, told al Qaeda operatives he knew how and where to obtain nuclear weapons.
“Serious Flaws” in Russian Nuclear Security
Map of Georgia showing the Pankisi Gorge in the eastern part of the embattled state.
In the annual report to Congress on the Safety and Security of Russian Nuclear Facilities and Military Forces, released this past December, newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss stated that while security at Russian nuclear facilities has increased, “we remain concerned about vulnerabilities to an insider who attempts unauthorized actions as well as potential terrorist attacks.” The report reveals that since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Russian officials have acknowledged that, “terrorists have targeted Russian nuclear weapon storage sites ... [and] twice [Russia has] thwarted terrorist efforts to reconnoiter nuclear weapon storage sites.” Moreover, according to U.S. intelligence reports made public in the report, “we assess that undetected smuggling has occurred, and we are concerned about the total amount of material that could have been diverted or stolen in the last 13 years,” as “we find it highly unlikely that Russian authorities would have been able to recover all the material reportedly stolen.”
Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss.
Also mentioned in the report was that, “two Chechen sabotage and reconnaissance groups reportedly showed a suspicious amount of interest in the transportation of nuclear munitions. The groups were spotted at several major railroad stations in the Moscow region, apparently interested in a special train used for transporting nuclear bombs.”
A report issued to the Russian Parliament by the Russian governments’ Federal Inspectorate for Nuclear and Radiation Safety in March 2003, stated, “The analysis of inspections carried out last year shows that there are serious flaws in the physical protection of nuclear risky facilities in the industry ... the system of accounting, control, storage and transportation of radioactive materials is not fully operational yet. As a result, the unauthorized use of radioactive materials and their theft cannot be ruled out.”
Saifullah Paracha
When Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman John Rockefeller (D-WV) asked Goss if he could assure Americans that no nuclear materials from Russia have fallen into terrorist’s hands, Goss replied, “No, I can’t make that assurance. I can’t account for some of the material.” Not only does the United States face an increasing threat from a terrorist strike using a weapon of mass destruction, according to the NIC, but efforts to thwart such attacks are becoming increasingly complicated and more difficult.
“Major advances in the biological sciences and information technology will probably accelerate the pace of BW (bio-weapon) agent development, increasing the potential for agents that are more difficult to detect or to defend against.” In addition, the research required to defend against such threats currently exceeds the capabilities of any single nation, according to Dr. Sal Bosco, Deputy Director for Science and Technology at the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Speaking at the three-day “Decon Downunder” conference on chemical and biological contamination held this February in Melborne, Australia, Dr. Bosco warned that not only does the threat of a chemical or biological attack exist, but there is also a major shortfall in scientific research designed to formulate an effective response - including the ability to verify that de-contamination efforts are successful.
“We need to ensure the public has confidence in the results (of any clean up efforts) and the advice that we’re giving is accurate and correct,” Dr. Bosco said, according to the Australian Associated Press, February 14, 2005. “There are multi-national venues that you [can] get a consortium of nations together to discuss these problems.”
“No Entitiy in the World” Prepared for Biological Attack
Interpol Chief Ronald Noble
One such opportunity took place in Lyons, France earlier this month. Interpol hosted a two-day conference in which 400 police officers and world health officials - representing at least 120 nations - reportedly attended. The conference was designed to promote the exchange of information among international law enforcement officials to prevent a biological terrorist attack. “The number of terrorist attacks that have occurred around the world and the evidence that has been seized revealing the kind of planning that al Qaeda has done in the area of biological weapons or chemical weapons ... is enough evidence for me to be concerned about it,” Chief of Interpol Ronald Noble said. “Anyone who is honest about this has to admit that if al Qaeda launches a spectacular biological attack which could cause contagious disease to be spread, no entity in the world is prepared for it, not the U.S., not Europe, not Asia, not Africa,”
Noble warned, according to Reuters, March 3, 2005. “There is no criminal threat with greater potential danger to all countries, regions, and people in the world than the threat of bio-terrorism and there is no crime area where the police generally have as little training than in preventing or responding to bio-terrorist attacks.”
Also at the Interpol gathering, French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin stressed the need to “redouble” efforts against the bio-terror threat. “We know today that certain terrorist groups have tried to obtain chemical or biological agents. The threat should therefore be taken seriously,” Villepin said, according to Agence France Presse, March 2, 2005. He suggested the creation of an international database, “mapping sensitive labs, with an alert network for thefts, disappearances and suspect transactions, as well as a list of groups and individuals subject to special vigilance because they have tried to acquire sensitive materials,” and erecting an integrated European reaction plan describing vaccine types and quantities throughout the continent.
According to the March 10 Eurasia Security Watch, a weekly publication of the D.C.-based American Foreign Policy Council, Villepin also revealed that al Qaeda terrorists are producing chemical and biological weapons in the Pankisi Gorge, a rebel-controlled area of Georgia. After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, al Qaeda cells relocated to the Pankisi region to produce biological agents including anthrax, ricin, and botulism toxins, Villepin stated.
A series of meetings and conferences - all closed to the media - were scheduled to follow the opening remarks by Villepin and Noble. The roundtable discussions will focus on individual countries’ current response plans and capabilities to a bio-terror attack. Additional workshops are scheduled to take place in South Africa at the end of 2005, in Chile in 2006, and China the following the year.
Chem/Bio Contamination Tests Under Way in Major U.S. CitiesAdditional efforts to detect, prevent and limit the fallout-effects of a WMD attack continue to progress. Sometime between March 7 and March 21, New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) will release a series of benign gasses around Madison Square Garden to study how air might flow through the city in the event of a terrorist attack with chemical, biological, or radiological agents. Mounting wind-sampling devices throughout the rooftops and sidewalks of midtown Manhattan, the OEM hopes to develop accurate models capable of tracking and forecasting the likely path a wind-driven toxic plume would take should a WMD device be detonated in New York. The study is being conducted with the Urban Dispersion Program - a $10 million dollar project sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Defense Department (DoD), and the Department of Energy (DoE).
“Our aim is to begin to understand how atmospheric dispersion occurs,” said Tony Fainberg, an official at the Directorate for Science and Technology - a division of the Department of Homeland Security, in an interview with the New York Times, February 11, 2005. “And we believe that if you can figure out this complicated phenomena for New York City, with its deep urban canyons and its unpredictable air flows, then you can figure it out anywhere.”
“For example, if a tanker truck carrying [a] toxic [gas] crashes downtown or a terrorist releases anthrax in the air, you want to be able to start predicting the places that are downwind,” Fainberg added. “With computer modeling you can start to figure out whether to tell people to get off the streets immediately or to stay inside. You can also start figuring out where to send the ambulance, police, and fire department.” Finally, “you can avoid having people running into the plume instead of away from it.”
More than 900 NYPD officers already carry pager-seized devices designed to detect radioactivity and New York City has an extensive system of monitors in place to sense airborne biological agents, Paul J. Browne, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, told the New York Times. Additional tests are scheduled for August of 2005 and March of 2006 in which a larger area of New York City will be tested, including monitoring the air exchange between indoor and outdoor air.
An innovative air filtration system that can destroy both chemical and biological agents has been developed by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNLL) located in Washington State. The system uses plasma - or ionized gas - instead of a more traditional high efficiency particulate air - or HEPA - filter. Although little detail is given regarding the actual process, PNNL claims the filter, originally developed for the military, as more reliable, longer lasting, and less cumbersome than traditional HEPA systems. Moreover, the Hybrid Plasma Filtration System (HPFS) is able to filter WMD-related chemicals and biologics including hydrogen cyanide and sarin - the deadly gas released in the 1995 terrorist attack on Tokyo’s subway system. Eventually, HPFS may come to the commercial market.
Hundreds of Radiation Detectors Installed at U.S. Border CrossingsThe terrorist attacks of September 11 accelerated the race to develop WMD-detecting devices that were just beginning to be installed at U.S. borders and port facilities. Since May 2000, over 400 radiation-detecting devices have been installed at such cross points and vehicles and cargo containers have triggered approximately 10,000 radiation hits - all harmless - according to testimony given by Robert Bonner, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, before a Senate subcommittee on Homeland Security, in early March. “We are deploying nuclear and radiological detection equipment to include personal radiation detectors, radiation portal monitors, and radiation isotope identifier devices,” Bonner said. But many question the ability to detect often-shielded plutonium or uranium that could be smuggled into the United States. New technologies developed by Los Alamos Laboratories, however, may be able to sniff out even heavily shielded nuclear materials.
A team of scientists from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory announced the development of a prototype radiation detector that can quickly and accurately screen cargo containers and vehicles for nuclear materials. Using naturally occurring cosmic radiation, mostly muons - a type of proton - the device is capable of identifying dense materials like plutonium and uranium - even if they are shielded behind thick lead plates. Muons are capable of passing through almost anything they encounter but dense materials that are rich with protons - like uranium and plutonium - interrupt the muons from their linear course. By placing two muon-producing scanners directly above and below a target, the number of muons deflected by dense materials can be mapped and, using a series of sophisticated algorithms, translated into a three-dimensional image for inspectors.
Next Generation of WMD Detectors Coming Soon“Existing radiographic methods are inefficient for detecting shielded nuclear materials and present radiation hazards to inspectors and vehicle passengers,” Chris Morris, a physicist at Los Alamos, said during the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington D.C., according to the Agence France Presse, February 21, 2005. “We believe we’ve worked through all the major obstacles to building a prototype system for a range of security scenarios,” Rick Chartrand, also of Los Alamos, added.
In recent tests, 800 grams of plutonium in a lead box surrounded by 12 tons of iron parts was detected, according to the Associated Press, February 21, 2005. So far, the new detection system has an unprecedented false-positive rate of less than three percent and a $1 million muon-detection machine is able to scan most vehicles and shipping containers in less than 20 seconds.
