Chapter 12

CHALLENGES AHEAD

OCTOBER 22, 2006, was the final day in Mecca of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month. It was also, according to a message posted on the Internet on October 12, the day when seven National Football League (NFL) stadiums, including fields in New York, Seattle, Houston, and Miami, were to be hit with truck-delivered dirty bombs—attacks for which, the message predicted, Osama bin Laden would claim credit. The posting projected a death toll approaching a hundred thousand from the initial detonations. The author of the threats, who identified himself as “javness,” promised that “in the aftermath civil wars will erupt across the world, both in the Middle East and within the United States. Global economies will screech to a halt. General chaos will result.”¹

The Department of Homeland Security notified local authorities, stadium owners, and the NFL, although from the beginning, it viewed the threat with “strong skepticism.” A spokesman for the department revealed that there was no intelligence indicating that an attack was imminent, and explained that the alert was the result “of an abundance of caution.” Within a week, FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko was able to tell the press, “This is a hoax.”²

The FBI also knew that the hoaxer was Jake J. Brahm, a twenty-year-old grocery clerk from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, whose threat was the result of a “writing duel” with a man from Texas who had the good sense, or good luck, not to post any threats. According to another bureau agent, “Brahm put out this threat thinking it was preposterous that no one would take it seriously. Unfortunately, he was wrong.” As a result of that miscalculation, Brahm found himself facing a possible five-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine. In late February 2008, Brahm pleaded guilty in response to a one-count indictment which charged him with willfully conveying false information that the stadiums would be the targets of an attack by terrorists with radiological dispersal devices. Brahm was sentenced in June 2008 to six months in federal prison.³

For some, while the threat of nuclear terrorism may be more serious than a hoax from the imagination of a twenty-year-old grocery clerk, neither is it a looming catastrophe that requires a major national and international effort. John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University, dismisses as “fantasy” the fear that a new nuclear power will pass one or two bombs to friendly terrorists to deliver against some common enemy. He finds little reason to be concerned about the contacts between bin Laden and Pakistani scientists or the material recovered from Al-Qaeda facilities dealing with nuclear weapons. The prospect that a terrorist group will obtain an atomic bomb “seems to be vanishingly small,” he observed in early 2008. Military analyst William Arkin poses the question, “Could terrorists really obtain sufficient materials and put together all of what would be needed to manufacture a nuclear weapon?” He also provides an answer: “not after 9/11.”⁴

Also among the skeptics is Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for nonproliferation at the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Only about eighteen pounds of highly enriched uranium, not enough for even a single bomb, had leaked into the international black market, Fitzpatrick told reporters at an institute meeting in June 2007. Fitzpatrick’s colleague, Robin Frost, argues that “the risk of nuclear terrorism, especially true nuclear terrorism employing bombs powered by nuclear fission, is overstated, and the popular wisdom on the topic is significantly flawed.” Frost goes on to question that wisdom with regard to Russian nuclear weapons, the nuclear black market, improvised nuclear devices and dirty bombs, and potential state sponsors of nuclear terrorism.⁵

Others would argue that the threat is all too real and time is short. As noted earlier, Graham Allison, the director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, believes that “based on current trends, a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States is more likely than not in the decade ahead.” Allison’s colleague Matthew Bunn points to the November 8, 2007, attack on the South African nuclear facility at Pelindaba—where hundreds of pounds of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium are stored—as one among several causes for concern. Before the one group of intruders was chased off by a security force, another group disabled the detection systems at the site’s perimeter, entered without setting off an alarm, and shot a worker in the emergency control center. After forty-five minutes inside the second perimeter, the intruders left via the hole they had cut in the fence. Another pessimist is Gen. Eugene E. Habiger, who is in the “not if, but when” camp. The main title of a November 2007 statement presented by an official of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to a Senate committee on the subject of dirty bombs was “Not a Matter of ‘If’, But of ‘When.’ ” IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei characterized the nuclear material falling into the hands of extremists as an imminent threat.⁶

But while acts of nuclear terrorism may not be inevitable, or have a better than 50-50 chance of taking place, they may still be considered a serious threat and worth significant attention, because even if the probability of such an attack is low, the costs would be very high. A 2006 RAND study examined the likely costs in lives, property, dollars, and disruption following the detonation of a ten-kiloton device smuggled into the Port of Long Beach in a shipping container. Sixty thousand lives and six hundred thousand homes would be lost. One billion square feet of commercial property would be destroyed while three million people would be evacuated for three years. The financial costs associated with all those consequences, when added to the costs of the damage to the port and surrounding infrastructure and worker’s compensation claims, would total about $1 trillion.⁷

It might indeed be possible for a terrorist group—whether it be Al-Qaeda, Aum Shinrikyo, or another organization—to raise the money, recruit the personnel, assemble the machinery, and acquire the HEU to build an improvised device. Or in some circumstances, efforts to deter a regime from passing on its nuclear weapons to a terrorist group might fail. Events that prevent deterrence from being effective could include the impending defeat and dismantlement of a nuclear-armed rogue regime or the complete collapse of a government’s authority combined with a military sympathetic to terrorists’ cause.⁸

And although the damage from a dirty bomb attack—the type threatened in Jake Brahm’s hoax—would be significantly less than that from a nuclear detonation, it would still be significant. Indeed, according to one former NEST member, the issue of a dirty bomb has been considered “more sensitive” than the threat of a stolen or improvised nuclear device because a dirty bomb is so much more likely to occur. It requires material that is more plentiful and less securely held than weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium. Just as important, the task of building a dirty bomb is dramatically easier than constructing a device to produce a nuclear yield—the former being well within the ability of solitary individuals.⁹

Certainly, it is the judgment of the U.S. Intelligence Community that Al-Qaeda remains interested in inflicting nuclear devastation on the United States. In February 2007, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “reporting continues to indicate that non-state actors, specifically al-Qaida, continue to pursue CBRN options.” In May, FBI chief Robert Mueller told an interviewer that bin Laden desperately wanted to obtain nuclear devices and explode them in American cities, especially New York and Washington. That July, the authors of a national intelligence estimate, The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland, wrote that “al-Qa’ida will continue to acquire and employ, chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.” Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the head of the Energy Department’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, is one of those convinced that Al-Qaeda is trying to acquire a nuclear bomb. In April 2008 he told a Senate committee, “Today, al-Qa’ida’s nuclear intent remains clear.”¹⁰

Seconding the U.S. assessment was a Russian security officer, who in October 2007 told an international conference of security experts that terrorists were increasing their efforts to obtain the raw materials to produce a dirty bomb.¹¹

The assessment of American and Russian intelligence analysts that Al-Qaeda remains interested in weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear or radiological weapons, is backed up by the words and actions of the terrorist group’s leadership and members. In a September 2006 audiotape, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir (aka Abu Ayyub al-Masri), the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, called on experts in “chemistry, physics, electronics . . . and all other sciences—especially nuclear scientists and explosive experts”—to join his group’s war against the West. “We are in dire need of you,” he said. He also promised professional satisfaction. “The field of jihad can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases [in Iraq] are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty.”¹²

In November 2007, an alleged Al-Qaeda operative and two supporters were put on trial in Germany. According to the German prosecutor, the thirty-two-year-old leader of the group trained in a camp in Afghanistan and fought against U.S. and allied troops during their post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. Subsequently, he moved to Germany on bin Laden’s orders. Once there, the prosecutor charged, he searched for supporters to finance Al-Qaeda activities as well as obtain radioactive material for a dirty bomb.¹³

Preventing Al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group or nuclear extortionist from obtaining a nuclear weapon or producing a dirty bomb can be achieved by a variety of measures. In some instances, one approach might be sufficient. In other cases a combination of counterterrorist activities might prove successful in preventing a mushroom cloud from forming over Manhattan or the explosive dispersal of radioactivity across parts of Washington.

Officially, the “First Line of Defense” is the Materials Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) activity, the assistance given to Russia, Pakistan, and other nations to improve their ability to inventory and maintain control over their nuclear weapons as well as fissile and other nuclear material. Another component of the effort to prevent nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands is to assist nations to locate radioactive sources, such as the radioisotope thermoelectric generators distributed across Russia. Arranging the transfer of HEU or plutonium from insecure to secure locations and diluting it into a useless form are other elements of the effort. One manifestation of this continuing effort is the agreement signed in November 2007 by Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman and the director of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency. The agreement will result in thirty-four tons of surplus uranium from Russia’s weapons program being converted into mixed oxide fuel, which would then be irradiated in a reactor at the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant.¹⁴

In order to enhance the U.S. ability to conduct such programs, the Nuclear Materials Information Program (NMIP) was established on August 28, 2006, when President Bush signed NSPD 48/HSPD 17. The program is an interagency effort managed by the Energy Department’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. Its goal is to consolidate information from all sources concerning worldwide holdings and security status of nuclear materials.¹⁵

The effort to establish radiation detectors and detection systems at foreign border crossings, airports, and port areas (under the Megaports Initiative) constitutes the Second Line of Defense Program. In December 2005, the United States and Israel signed an agreement to install detection equipment at the Israeli seaport of Haifa. Initial operations of radiation detection equipment began in January 2008. As of November 2007, the United States and Russia agreed to equip all of Russia’s border crossings, a total of 350 sites, with radiation detection systems by the end of 2011. Radiation detection equipment was also being installed in Greece, Slovakia, and a number of former Soviet republics. In December, the National Nuclear Security Administration agreed to provide the Cypriot Customs Service with an upgraded radiation-monitoring portal for the Port of Limassol. Two months later, in late February, the NNSA and Malaysia agreed to install radiation detection equipment at Port Klang and the Port of Tanjung Pelepas. Approximately seventy-five ports across the world are to be equipped with equipment to screen cargo containers for nuclear or radioactive material.¹⁶

Closer to home is the deployment of similar detection systems at U.S. ports, border crossings, and airports, reminiscent of the 1950s initiative that followed the Panofsky report. By May 2005, the Department of Homeland Security had installed more than 470 radiation portal monitors at sites throughout the United States. It had deployed 670 portal monitors by the end of that year and intended to install a total of 3,035 by September 2009—at twenty-three international mail and package handling facilities, 205 land border crossings, 106 seaport terminals, and international airports. The monitors in place by February 2006 gave the United States, according to Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection directorate, the ability to screen about 32 percent of all seaborne shipments carried in containers, 90 percent of commercial trucks and 80 percent of private vehicles entering from Canada, and approximately 88 percent of all commercial trucks and 74 percent of all private vehicles entering from Mexico. In December 2007, the department reported that it had deployed more than a thousand radiation detection devices to U.S. land and sea ports of entry. In addition, according to a Homeland Security press release, 100 percent of cargo containers crossing the southern border are scanned for radiation, 91 percent of cargo at the northern border is scanned, and more than 97 percent of vehicles are scanned at U.S. seaports.¹⁷*

And Colorado Springs is not the only city to have radiation detectors placed at assorted locations within or around it. In early 2007, the New York Times reported that the federal government, as part of the Securing the Cities experiment, planned to install an elaborate network of radiation detectors on some of the bridges, tunnels, roadways, and waterways that carried traffic into New York City, creating a fifty-mile zone around the city.¹⁸

Meanwhile, in late 2007, the Homeland Security and Energy departments (almost certainly including NEST) were working with Chicago law enforcement officials to equip helicopters with gamma radiation detection equipment. The city would be able to use such helicopters to conduct aerial surveys to map current and legal sources of radiation, such as those employed in medical facilities. But they would also have another use, the deputy undersecretary for counterterrorism, Steven Aoki, told a Senate committee. They could give the Chicago police a NEST-like capability to support the hunt for an individual or group with a dirty bomb or other radioactive source. While the city’s police could be assisting the FBI in their on-the-ground investigative efforts, the helicopters could be assisting NEST in its search for radioactive signatures.¹⁹

Two years earlier, the New York Police Department, which had a $30 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security to develop a regional radiological detection and monitoring system, had requested that the Department of Energy measure background radiation and locate hot spots in all five boroughs by helicopter. The effort, which consumed about four weeks and over a hundred flight-hours, was completed in the summer of 2005, at a cost of approximately $800,000. According to a Government Accountability Office report, NYPD officers, in the course of conducting the survey, were “accompanied by DOE scientists and technicians” (in other words, NEST members) and identified over eighty locations with unexplained radiological sources. Each of the hot spots, most of which turned out to be medical isotopes located at medical facilities, was investigated. Knowledge of the locations will allow the NYPD to separate real threats from false alarms—and reduce the chance of an unnecessary NEST deployment.²⁰

A less publicized effort to keep terrorists from detonating a nuclear device in an American city was launched in June 2003, when President Bush signed NSPD 28, “Nuclear Weapons Command, Control, Safety, and Security.” One component of the directive was the instruction to the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories to develop technology that would make any new U.S. nuclear weapon virtually impossible to use if it were to fall into terrorists’ hands. In response, scientists are working on technology that would cause the destruction of every component inside—including the plutonium and uranium—if anyone tampered with the weapon.²¹

The man in charge of much of the effort to provide radiation detection capabilities, both overseas and in the United States, is Vayl Oxford, a graduate of West Point and the Air Force Institute of Technology who became a professor of aeronautics at the Air Force Academy. Oxford went on to become director for counterproliferation at the Defense Nuclear Agency and Defense Special Weapons Agency (1993–1998) and then the National Security Council. In between, he served as deputy director for technology development at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.* Reportedly a protégé of Vice President Dick Cheney, who was unhappy with Homeland Security’s progress in developing radiation detectors, Oxford, in September 2005, was handed the reins of a newly created office in Homeland Security, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office or DNDO (pronounced “din-doe”), established by a presidential directive that April.²²

The directive assigned the new office responsibility for developing and deploying nuclear and radiological capabilities and enhancing those capabilities through “an aggressive, expedited, evolutionary, and transformational program of research.” DNDO’s installation of state-of-the-art portals and distribution of handheld radiation detection equipment represented its attempt to fulfill the first part of that mandate.²³

Three programs, if they are successful, would satisfy the second part of the mandate. The Advanced Spectroscopic Portals (ASP) program is one. Current detectors cannot distinguish between naturally occurring radioactive material, such as that in granite tiles, and materials associated with a nuclear device or dirty bomb. A successful ASP program would produce detectors that can distinguish between the two. The Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System (CAARS) program is to produce an imaging system that can detect, within cargo, high-density material—providing a warning sign that something in the cargo might be shielding threatening materials from the ASP detectors. The third transformation program is the Mobile and Human Portable Radiation Detection Systems effort, intended to produce radiation detection systems capable of being held by hand (five pounds) or carried in a backpack (fifteen or twenty pounds) for law enforcement. An improved capability for detection and identification of isotopes is an intended feature.²⁴

The assorted efforts to keep nuclear material out of the hands of international criminals and terrorists, as well as to increase the chance of detecting nuclear smugglers who might try to move their contraband across international borders or ships containing nuclear cargo, have produced a number of successes and advances. Many Russian nuclear weapons sites are more secure than they were a decade ago, weapons-grade uranium or plutonium has been either blended into less dangerous substances or moved from vulnerable locations, and nuclear reactors have been converted so they employ low-enriched uranium fuel, which cannot be used to make nuclear bombs.²⁵

But commentary and criticism, from outside experts as well as government auditors, suggest that the mission of creating an architecture that would eliminate the prospect of nuclear terrorism, or at least reduce the probability of such an event to the lowest level feasible, is far from accomplished. Thus, the congressional Government Accountability Office noted the progress made in enhancing security at Russian nuclear sites, but questioned whether the upgrades can be sustained in the long run. The office has also questioned the priorities assigned by the Department of Energy in securing radiological sources, particularly the emphasis on securing medical facilities rather than waste storage facilities and radio thermal generators, where “the most dangerous sources” are to be found.²⁶

DNDO has been the subject of criticism in several GAO reports. In March 2007, the congressional office charged that the office’s assessment of the advanced spectroscopic portals did not fully support the detection office’s procurement decision and that DNDO had not made sufficient effort to understand the strengths and limitations of the current portals. Then in September, the accountability office issued a report alleging that federal program managers had rigged testing of the portals to certify that the equipment was reliable, noting that contractors had been allowed to collect data about the types of radioactive material to be used in the tests of the portals. The contractors were then able to set the portals’ detection capabilities to maximize their ability to detect those specific types of materials. As a result of the allegations, the program was halted in late 2007. Outside experts questioned whether the objectives of Oxford and DNDO’s transformational research are even theoretically feasible, and suggested that Oxford “is fighting the laws of physics.”²⁷*

A mid-2008 review by the Government Accountability Office concluded that while DNDO had taken positive steps to develop a global nuclear detection architecture, it lacked “an overarching strategic” plan to guide its path to a more comprehensive architecture. A review by the Congressional Research Service, published at the same time as the GAO report, noted a potential problem as a result of the office’s heavy reliance on detailees or liaison personnel from other government agencies and contractors—a loss of institutional memory that could make long-term efforts difficult to sustain.²⁸

False alarms, even with equipment that works as promised, can be a serious problem. One of those with firsthand experience is Glen Neilson, a Customs and Border Protection officer who was working at Pier A at the Port of Long Beach in 2007 when he heard his computer’s voice announce, “Gamma Alert!” It was the fifth alert in the previous five minutes, one of about five hundred experienced at the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports each day, and was apparently triggered by a rusty yellow container. Neilson ordered the truck hauling the container to a secondary inspection station and checked the container’s shipping manifest. The container was supposed to contain window shutters from China.²⁹

At Neilson’s orders, officers used a four-foot bolt cutter to open the container. They then used a handheld isotope scanner to see if they could locate the source of the radiation. It took ten minutes before they discovered that the source was not a nuclear device, a dirty bomb, or an inanimate object of any kind. It was the big-rig driver, who had received a dose of medical radiation, leading him, he complained, to “[set] off radiation monitors all over the port.”³⁰

More than one observer has noted the ease with which narcotics, including large shipments of marijuana, are smuggled into the United States by land, sea, and air, as well as the ability of people to cross into the United States from its northern or southern neighbors. The ability to evade security systems has also been noted, along with the lapses of security personnel and equipment. In March 2006, the Associated Press revealed that a study conducted for the Department of Homeland Security found that lapses by private firms at foreign and American ports, aboard ships, and with respect to trains and trucks “would enable unmanifested materials or weapons of mass destruction to be introduced into the supply chain.” Cargo containers, the study revealed, could be opened secretly while in transit to allow items to be inserted or removed.³¹

Even more dramatic and disturbing was another Government Accountability Office report in March 2006, which revealed that undercover investigators were able to slip radioactive material, sufficient for two dirty bombs, across U.S. borders in Texas and Washington State in December 2005. The good news was that alarms at the sites were triggered when the radiation detectors picked up the small quantities of cesium-137, a prime candidate for use in a dirty bomb, that the investigators were trying to bring into the country. The bad news was that customs agents allowed the investigators to enter the United States because the agents were duped by counterfeit Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents which authorized the individual named to receive, possess, and transfer radioactive material.³²

While various measures to prevent nuclear terrorism can be visualized as successive layers, with the first (security of foreign nuclear facilities) being the most distant from the U.S. homeland, the second being closer (foreign border crossings), and the third still closer (U.S. points of entry), there are other measures that do not quite fit into such a sequential framework. One of those is intelligence.

In the wake of 9/11, preventing another terrorist attack on the United States, particularly a nuclear terrorist attack, is the primary objective of the sixteen-member U.S. Intelligence Community. Some of the members are more crucial to attaining that objective than others. There are the analysts responsible for sorting through and making sense of the voluminous data gathered by several agencies. Those analysts work for the National Counterterrorism Center (subordinate to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence), the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Department of the Treasury, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence in the Department of Energy, as well as Z Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Key agencies providing them with data are the National Security Agency, which intercepts communications and other electronic signals; the National Reconnaissance Office, the developer and operator of the nation’s spy satellites; the CIA, which recruits and runs spies as well as engaging in technical collection operations; and the Defense HUMINT Service, a part of the Defense Intelligence Agency that also recruits and runs spies. In addition, a multitude of foreign intelligence and security services, through liaison arrangements with the United States, share intelligence on a wide variety of targets, including terrorists’ targets.

The intelligence they provide can be relevant to each aspect of preventing nuclear terrorists from building or stealing a nuclear device or dirty bomb and then detonating it at the location of their choice. Intelligence operations may identify foreign nuclear installations and provide data on the level of security, allow analysts to assess the effectiveness of border security for countries of interest, detect illicit nuclear trafficking, disclose transfers of terrorist funding, or provide information on the attempts by terrorist groups to build or buy a nuclear device or dirty bomb.

Thus, the CIA was eventually able to penetrate the nuclear trafficking operation of Pakistan’s A. Q. Khan, a penetration that ultimately led to the unraveling of the network. The agency reportedly was able to recruit an employee of the Scomi Precision Engineering (SCOPE) corporation, a Malaysian-based company established by associates of Khan, ostensibly to produce high-tech components for use in the oil industry. The employee actually supervised production of centrifuge components, which were loaded on a ship, the BBC China, headed for Libya—information he apparently provided the CIA. The ship was intercepted by agents from the United States and the other countries. The interception led in part to Libya ending its nuclear program and providing the United States with intelligence about its nuclear suppliers, including Khan.³³

Intelligence operations might also reveal terrorist plots in time to stop them. The interrogation of Abu Zubaydah led to the identification of would-be dirty bomber Jose Padilla. Communications intercepts have led to the disruption of a number of non-nuclear terrorist plots as well as the apprehension of key terrorists. Pre-9/11 successes due in whole or in part to communications intelligence include a planned Al-Qaeda attack on American overseas diplomatic or military establishments, including the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia (1998), a planned attack on U.S. military installations in Saudi Arabia (June 2001), and a planned attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Paris (about June 2001).³⁴

Post-9/11 communications intelligence successes with regard to terrorism include the location and arrest of Abu Zubaydah, along with nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives (March 2002); the arrest of Sheikh Ahmed Salim, wanted for his role in the 1998 embassy bombings (July 2002); the arrest of Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the Al-Qaeda planners for 9/11 (September 2002); and the arrest of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (March 2003).³⁵

An attempt to produce an improvised nuclear device might certainly be subject to detection by America’s spies. According to Peter Zimmerman, if an IND plot is in motion, “you might see it when it sticks its nose above the parapet.” Such a plot would require, as Zimmerman and Lewis noted, a supply organization, land (such as the Australian ranch purchased by Aum Shinrikyo), shipping and purchasing activity, and a contingent of people to build the device, conceivably as many as one hundred. And then there is the problem of moving money to pay suppliers, including the supplier of fissile material.³⁶

Of course, not only can intelligence help prevent a nuclear terrorist attack, but also in the event one occurs, it may be able to identify the entity responsible for the attack (assuming that entity doesn’t claim credit) and those who contributed, particularly by providing a bomb or components. The same can be said for nuclear forensics, an activity that might help scientists determine whose arsenal a bomb came from or where the nuclear material for an improvised device or a dirty bomb originated—a determination known as attribution. Attribution can provide the justification for retribution as well as the demand for restitution. It can thus serve to deter those who might wish to aid a terrorist attack but only if they can count on their role going unnoticed.

The U.S. nuclear forensics effort is mandated by NSPD 17, “National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction,” signed by President Bush in 2002. The unclassified version of the directive states that “an effective response requires rapid attribution.” With the intention of providing a means of centralizing planning and integrating nuclear attribution efforts that are spread across the federal government, DNDO established its National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center in 2006. Entities with nuclear forensics capabilities include Lawrence Livermore (its Forensic Science Center), other national labs, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.³⁷

Nuclear forensic techniques used to determine the responsibility of a nuclear detonation on U.S. or allied territory overlap U.S. efforts to gather intelligence about the design, fissile material, and other characteristics of foreign nuclear weapons. In the unlikely event that a detonation were to occur in a remote part of the United States, its precise location could be determined by a number of U.S. satellites, including the Defense Support Program and Global Positioning System satellites, which are equipped with nuclear detonation detection packages. Any nuclear debris emitted into the atmosphere, a highly likely consequence of a terrorist detonation since the blast would almost certainly be above ground, would be key evidence to settling a variety of questions about the characteristics of the bomb. However, in all but one case (the 1979 Vela incident),* determining the entities (nations) that have detonated devices has never been an issue since they have been detonated within territories controlled by the state responsible for the detonation. Also, for detonations on its own or allied soil, the United States would have access to debris from the point of detonation and to the territory immediately around ground zero, access the U.S. government did not have when the Soviet Union or China detonated a device.³⁸

The possibility of attribution stems from the fact that every nuclear weapon has distinct signatures. These include physical, chemical, elemental, and isotopic properties that provide clues as to what material was in the weapon and its construction. The shape, size, and texture of the nuclear material would determine the bomb’s physical signatures. The bomb’s unique molecular components would determine the device’s chemical signatures. Alternative reprocessing techniques leave behind trace amounts of specific organic compounds or elements that suggest certain technical approaches were employed. Isotopic signatures of the material can reveal whether it has been in a nuclear reactor, and serve as a fingerprint for the type and operating conditions of a given reactor. They can also assist in determining the age of the material, which would provide additional clues about its origins.³⁹

The signatures detected can help analysts ascertain the type of reactor from which the plutonium came, or indicate the likely enrichment process that produced the uranium. By comparing the results of the initial analysis to a database of known reactor types or of samples of HEU produced by different enrichment processes, forensic workers might determine the origin of the material or at least narrow the field of viable suspects, eventually pinning the blame on the culprit with the assistance of additional intelligence and data.⁴⁰

In addition, analysis of debris scooped out of the air by specially equipped aircraft might allow nuclear forensic analysts to estimate bomb efficiency. That information could reveal who built it. Current computer programs can assist in debris analysis by estimating the predetonation isotopic mixture, which when combined with data on the isotopic mixture after the detonation might make it possible to infer the efficiency of the bomb and its design. Knowledge of the bomb’s design can narrow down the weapon’s possible origins. As Ted Taylor argued, and it remains true today, it would be extremely unlikely for a terrorist group to build its own hydrogen or boosted implosion weapon (using tritium and deuterium) without state assistance. On the other hand, if the source of debris were determined to be a crude, gun-type uranium bomb, that would indicate the serious possibility that the device was made without assistance.⁴¹

A number of organizations can provide previously acquired data such as samples to be used as part of the attribution process. Included would be the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Air Force Technical Applications Center, which operates the U.S. Atomic Energy Detection System, the national laboratories (including Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore), Z Division, and NEST, with its database of known weapons designs.

But there is no guarantee that America’s attribution capability would be sufficient to deter some groups, partly because attribution can be a prolonged process with no guarantee of success, especially if the samples that would match those from a device’s debris might not be in the hands of the United States or any of its allies. Confidence that the United States does not have samples of a country’s nuclear DNA might make that country willing to provide terrorists with a bomb or nuclear material. Thus, while a robust attribution capability might reduce the probability of a terrorist operation to detonate a bomb in the United States, it does not preclude such an operation.⁴²

If efforts by the United States and other nations fail to safeguard nuclear weapons and material, to prevent illicit trafficking, and to prevent nuclear material or a complete weapon from entering the country, whether through radiation detection at foreign and U.S. borders or via satellites and spies, there is a last line of defense. It includes the secret soldiers of the Joint Special Operations Command, the military’s explosive ordnance disposal units, the FBI, and NEST.

NEST faces a number of challenges in ensuring that it is prepared to deal with extortionists or nuclear terrorists. One is that NEST and its various elements, whether the Search Response Team or the Lincoln Gold Augmentation Team, stay in practice. Deployment for national special security events is one means of doing so. As noted earlier, twenty-seven such events occurred between 1998 and February 2007. Continued participation in exercises such as the yearly Topoff is another. The most recent version of Topoff, Topoff 4, which was conducted concurrently with the U.S. Northern Command’s Vigilant Shield’ 08 exercise, took place over five days in mid-October 2007 in Arizona, Oregon, and Guam—which fall in the Northern and Pacific Commands area of responsibility. The exercise, which involved fifteen thousand participants, centered around a series of dirty bomb threats and incidents, including the prevention of such an attack—the prime rationale for NEST’s existence.⁴³

Beyond practice, the exercises also provide an opportunity for NEST and the multitude of other government agencies involved in nuclear counterterrorist operations to learn to work with each other. In addition to the considerable number of organizations that have been involved in one or more aspect of such activities for several years—NEST, other elements of the Energy Department, components of the Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency—there are newcomers, such as the Department of Homeland Security and its nuclear detection office. Thus, even if existing organizations have established a smooth working relationship, new exercises can help integrate the newer organizations into the operational environment.

NATIONAL SPECIAL SECURITY EVENTS 1998–2007

EVENT	LOCATION	DATE
World Energy Council Meeting	Houston, Texas	Sep. 13–17, 1998
NATO 50th Anniversary Celebration	Washington, D.C.	Apr. 23–25, 1999
World Trade Organization Meeting	Seattle, Wash.	Nov. 29–Dec. 3, 1999
State of the Union Address	Washington, D.C.	Jan. 27, 2000
International Monetary Fund Spring Meeting	Washington, D.C.	Apr. 14–17, 2000
International Naval Review (OpSail)	New York, N.Y.	July 3–9, 2000
Republican National Convention	Philadelphia, Pa.	July 29–Aug. 4, 2000
Democratic National Convention	Los Angeles, Calif.	Aug. 14–16, 2000
Presidential Inauguration	Washington, D.C.	Jan. 20, 2001
Presidential Address to Congress	Washington, D.C.	Feb. 27, 2001
United Nations General Assembly 56	New York, N.Y.	Nov. 10–16, 2001
State of the Union Address	Washington, D.C.	Jan. 29, 2002
Super Bowl XXXVI	New Orleans, La.	Feb. 3, 2002
Winter Olympic Games	Salt Lake City, Utah	Feb. 8–24, 2002
Super Bowl XXXVII	San Diego, Calif.	Jan. 26, 2003
State of the Union Address	Washington, D.C.	Jan. 20, 2004
Super Bowl XXXVIII	Houston, Texas	Feb. 1, 2004
Sea Island G8 Summit	Sea Island, Ga.	June 8–10, 2004
President Reagan State Funeral	Washington, D.C.	June 11, 2004
Democratic National Convention	Boston, Mass.	July 26–29, 2004
Republican National Convention	New York, N.Y.	Aug. 30–Sep. 2, 2004
Presidential Inauguration	Washington, D.C.	Jan. 20, 2005
State of the Union Address	Washington, D.C.	Feb. 2, 2005
Super Bowl XXXIX	Jacksonville, Fla.	Feb. 6, 2005
Super Bowl XL	Deetroit, Mich.	Feb. 5, 2006
President Ford State Funeral	Washington, D.C.	Jan. 3, 2007
Super Bowl XLI	Miami Gardens, Fla.	Feb. 4, 2007

Source: Shawn Reese, Congressional Research Service, National Special Security Events, November 6, 2007.

NEST also faces an environment in which radiation detection activities are far more diffused than in earlier years, even more than a decade ago. In addition to the federal government’s monitoring, local governments such as Colorado Springs, Washington, New York, and Chicago, as mentioned earlier, have radiation detection capabilities. This diffusion presents both opportunities and problems for NEST. The multiple efforts can provide earlier warning than in the past, and NEST might be able to call on trained personnel from these localities to assist in searches. But there is also a greater chance of false alarms, which could cause completely unnecessary NEST deployments.

NEST faces other challenges as well, beyond patrolling the area near Super Bowls, participating in exercises, working in cooperation with other federal agencies, and possibly having to respond to locally generated false alarms. Many of those challenges were noted in the Sewell report a dozen years ago. One consistently mentioned by NEST veterans is the need to recruit qualified personnel, a challenge made more difficult by a lack of U.S. weapons design efforts. The veterans worry that it will be impossible to maintain a cadre of individuals who are technically equipped to deal with the challenges NEST faces, from understanding the design of weapons to figuring out how to dismantle them. NEST veteran Alan Mode commented that as a result, the younger generation at the labs “wouldn’t have a clue what a bomb looked like” and people with real experience are aging. As far back as 1996, the Energy Department was warned of a growing talent shortage because nuclear scientists were retiring. Congress’s cancellation of a new nuclear warhead program in December 2007, however justified it might be on other grounds, certainly doesn’t help.⁴⁴

It is also important to maintain qualified personnel who can evaluate the credibility of any communicated nuclear threats, whether they be issued by a twenty-year-old grocery clerk or a group or individual more likely to be serious. Today, the central authority for the assessment of such threats is the NAP Communications and Coordination Center, the successor to the Department of Energy’s Communicated Threat Credibility Center at Lawrence Livermore. Assessments are performed by personnel at Livermore and Los Alamos as well as by behavioral scientists on the East Coast.⁴⁵

Another challenge facing NEST is to maintain a sufficiently large arsenal of detection equipment—handheld devices, attache cases equipped with detectors, vans, and aircraft—so that it can carry out its mission, possibly in multiple locations, when called upon. But as of mid-2003, NEST had only four helicopters and three fixed-wing aircraft at Nellis and Andrews air bases. The Energy Department’s inspector general warned that the team’s top aircraft sometimes were unavailable to carry out missions, and contingency plans were lacking.⁴⁶

At the same time, various national laboratories have been working on extending NEST’s capabilities in a variety of ways. Over the last several years, scientists at Los Alamos, to assist NEST in understanding and disabling such weapons, have developed a catalog of crude designs that a terrorist group might use to build a nuclear weapon.⁴⁷

The labs have also been working on extending detection capabilities. Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory developed a small portable detector whose heart is a small wafer of gallium arsenide, which when coated with boron or lithium can detect the neutrons emitted by fissile material. Raymond Klann, head of the group at Argonne that produced the new detector, noted that “the working portion of the wafer is about the diameter of a collar button, but thinner.”⁴⁸

Then there is the handheld Cryo3 detector, developed in a collaborative effort between Lawrence Berkeley, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore laboratories. The device, based on the radiation-sensitive element germanium, detects the gamma-ray “fingerprints” of radioactive materials. In addition, Los Alamos scientists developed a detector that can see through lead and other heavy shielding in truck trailers and cargo containers to detect uranium, plutonium, and other dense materials. The technique, muon radiography, is far more sensitive than X-rays, with none of the radiation hazards of the X-ray or gamma-ray detectors in use at U.S. borders.⁴⁹

Another handheld device is the RadNet detector. It combines a cellular telephone, a personal digital assistant with Internet access, and a global positioning system locator with a radiation sensor. Data collected by the units can be transmitted and plotted to a geographic map, allowing NEST or other users to determine the exact location of high-radiation signals from possible clandestine nuclear materials or devices. The detector is also able to eliminate false alarms due to background radiation emitted by food, medical devices, soil, or other nonthreatening radiation sources.⁵⁰

In September 2007, Scientific American reported that Los Alamos had developed a method to search for heavy elements such as uranium via muons, subatomic particles from space formed from the collision of cosmic rays with molecules in the upper atmosphere. By 2008, “ ‘muon tomography’ might be guarding U.S. borders”—and be available to members of the NEST search teams. Each minute, approximately ten thousand muons reach each square meter of the earth’s surface and can penetrate tens of meters into rocks and other matter before attenuating owing to absorption or deflection by other atoms. Such scattering is most extensive when they come in contact with dense substances such as uranium and plutonium.⁵¹

Another recent instrument that NEST might be able to put to good use is the large area imager developed by a trio of scientists at Livermore. The device, which can be carried on the back of a small truck or trailer, relies on gamma rays, produced through radioactive decay, to detect radiation sources, which can include uranium or bananas. The extreme penetrability of gamma rays makes it possible to detect radioactivity even if the radiation source is shielded by concrete, dirt, or a few centimeters of lead.⁵²

In addition, in early 2008 the National Nuclear Security Administration reported that it planned to provide the FBI with a way to disrupt the detonation of an improvised nuclear device, a means developed by one of the national laboratories. The bureau would be able to employ the tool to put the device in a standby mode, giving more time for NEST’s Joint Technical Operations Team and military explosive ordnance disposal teams to permanently disable the bomb.⁵³

Hopefully, even if NEST successfully meets such challenges, its deployments will be limited to exercises, uneventful national special security events, and the search for the remnants of satellites that crash into remote regions of the world. For even with the best technology and most skilled personnel, NEST would face a difficult task.

Improved detection equipment may not be enough without good, indeed very good, intelligence—at least with regard to an improvised or stolen nuclear device. University of Maryland physicist Steven Fetter, who has examined the use of radiation detection capabilities in identifying bombs and warheads, observed that a dirty bomb made with cesium-137 or cobalt-60 would be “hot as gangbusters” and that a large detector carried on a low-flying helicopter would have a good chance of detecting the device.⁵⁴

But when it comes to a nuclear device, he believes that to characterize the problem as one of finding a “needle in a haystack” understates the difficulty. He also notes that while people in the field talk about “transformational” research and development, such as detection relying on anti-neutrinos, “the laws of physics are what they are.” Thomas Cochran, a nuclear physicist and nuclear weapons expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “It’s probably largely a waste of money, unless they have good intelligence on a specific scenario.” And the Mirage Gold after-action report acknowledges that “it is a drastic mistake to assume that NEST technology and procedures will always succeed, resulting in zero nuclear yield.”⁵⁵

But like many forms of insurance or protection that may never be needed or may not protect against all threats, NEST is a capability that, had it not been established in 1974, would have been considered essential to create in 2001.

---

*According to two scientists with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the radiation monitors at U.S. ports (as well as ones planned for the future) are not a reliable means for detecting highly enriched uranium. See Thomas B. Cochran and Matthew G. McKinzie, “Detecting Nuclear Smuggling,” Scientific American, April 2008, pp. 98–104.

*The Defense Nuclear Agency became the Defense Special Weapons Agency in 1996. In 1998, the newly created Defense Threat Reduction Agency absorbed the Defense Special Weapons Agency, the Defense Technology Administration, and the On-Site Inspection Agency. See Joseph P. Harahan and Robert J. Bennett, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Creating the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, January 2002, pp. 9–10, 82.

*The ASP Independent Review Team, chaired by an official of the Homeland Security Institute and whose members were drawn from a variety of the Energy Department’s laboratories and former Defense Department operational test and evaluation officials, found that the “ASP could—if it performs in the field as intended . . . reduce some key uncertainties in the nation’s ability to counter the threat of nuclear smuggling.” In testimony before Congress, Vayl Oxford stated that the team concurred with the Government Accountability Office that some tests were “not designed to measure the range of ASP performance” but did not agree with the GAO that ASP testing had relied on “biased test methods that enhanced the performance of the ASPs.” See George F. Thompson, Homeland Security Institute, “Nuclear Smuggling Detection: Recent Tests of Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) Monitors; Final Report of the ASP Independent Review Team (IRT),” Statement before House Committee on Homeland Security, March 5, 2008, p. 7; Vayl S. Oxford, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, “Nuclear Smuggling Detection: Recent Tests of Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) Monitors,” Statement before House Committee on Homeland Security, March 5, 2008, p. 8.

*On September 22, 1979, an Air Force Vela nuclear detonation detection satellite registered a double light flash that seemed to indicate the detonation of a nuclear weapon somewhere in the South Atlantic. Despite suspicion that either South Africa or Israel (or both) had tested a nuclear device, the United States was unable to gather any nuclear debris, and the issue of whether a device was actually tested has not been determined definitively—at least as far as what is known publicly. See Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), pp. 283–316.

APPENDIX

U.S. NUCLEAR EXTORTION THREATS EVENT LIST: 1970–1993

	DATE	PLACE	THREAT
1.	Oct. 27, 1970	Orlando, Fla.	Hydrogen Bomb
2.	Sep. 14, 1971	Borough of Manhattan, N.Y.	Nuclear Device, 20–25 Kilotons
3.	Oct. 20, 1972	Washington, D.C.	“Atomic Device”
4.	Mar. 16, 1973	Chicago, Ill., and Brussels, Belgium	Atomic Bomb Threat
5.	Apr. 1974	United States	Seven Atom Bombs
6.	May 1, 1974	Boston, Mass.	Plutonium Bomb, 500 Kilotons
7.	May 1974	San Francisco, Calif.	Four Plutonium Dispersal Devices
8.	May 1974	Washington, D.C.	Nuclear Bomb
9.	Aug. 1974	Unidentified Big City	Nuclear Bomb, 10+ Kilotons
10.	Oct. 2, 1974	Lincoln, Neb.	Nuclear Bomb
11.	Dec. 19, 1974	Jacksonville, Fla.	Four Radioisotope Bombs
12.	Dec. 24, 1974	New Orleans, La.	H-Bomb
13.	Jan. 4, 1975	Dallas, Texas	Plutonium Bomb
14.	Jan. 31, 1975	Los Angeles, Calif.	Hydrogen Bombs, 5 Megatons
15.	Feb. 17, 1975	Chicago, Ill.	Nuclear Device (Atomic Bomb)
16.	Mar. 6, 1975	Philadelphia, Pa.	A-Bomb Castings
17.	Mar. 16, 1975	Moscow, Peking, and Washington, D.C.	Three Atomic Bombs
18.	Mar. 18, 1975	Washington, D.C.	Nuclear Device, 1 Megaton
19.	Apr. 8, 1975	Ohio	Plutomium Nuclear Devices
20.	Apr. 11, 1975	California	Nuclear Bomb; $300,000
21.	Apr. 28, 1975	Unidentified Big City	Atomic Bomb
22.	July 7, 1975	Unidentified Big City	Nuclear Bomb; No demand.
23.	July 10, 1975	Manhattan Island	Atomic Bomb
24.	Aug. 1975	Boston, Mass.	Atomic Bomb; No demand.
25.	Aug. 1975	Unidentified ERDA Site	Atomic Bomb; No demand.
26.	Oct. 10, 1975	Springfield, Mass.	Atomic Bomb (Plutonium)
27.	Oct. 25, 1975	New York, N.Y.	Radioactive Dispersal Bomb
28.	Nov. 4, 1975	Los Angeles, Calif.	Nuclear Device, 20 Kilotons
29.	Nov. 17, 1975	Twelve Unidentified Cities	Twelve Atomic Bombs
30.	Nov. 18, 1975	New York, N.Y.	Two Nuclear Bombs
31.	Jan. 1, 1976	New York, N.Y.	Twenty-five Bombs Nuclear Radioactive
32.	Jan. 4, 1976	Raleigh, N.C.	Bomb, 25 Megatons
33.	Jan. 6, 1976	Washington, D.C.	Atomic Bomb
34.	Jan. 30, 1976	Denver, Colo.	Nuclear Device
35.	Feb. 3, 1976	Columbia, S.C.	Bomb, 100 Megatons
36.	Mar. 10, 1976	Columbus, Ohio	Atomic Device
37.	July 27, 1976	Unidentified	Atomic Bomb
38.	Aug. 14, 1976	Eight Unidentified Cities	Bomb Threat
39.	Aug. 16, 1976	Phoenix, Ariz.	Atomic Bomb
40.	Aug. 26, 1976	Los Angeles, Calif.	Nuclear Device; $1,500,000
41.	Nov. 1, 1976	Milford, Conn.	Thermonuclear Mines
42.	Nov. 23, 1976	Spokane, Wash.	Ten Radioactive Dispersal Bombs
43.	Feb. 7, 1977	Seattle, Wash.	Nuclear Device
44.	Mar. 1977	St. Louis, Mo.	Atomic Bomb; No demand.
45.	Mar. 21, 1977	Washington, D.C.	Nuclear Bomb (Small, Armed, and Ready to Fire)
46.	Apr. 1, 1977	Five Unidentified Countries	Contaminate All Fresh
47.	Apr. 15, 1977	Chicago, Ill.	Anti-Matter or H-Bomb
48.	Apr. 28, 1977	Boulder, Colo.	Unconventional Low-Yield Device
49.	Nov. 18, 1977	Galveston, Texas	Atomic Bomb; $500,000
50.	Sep. 26, 1978	Manhattan, N.Y.	Radioactive Dispersal
51.	Dec. 28, 1978	Albuquerque, N.M.	Implied Nuclear Threat
52.	Jan. 30, 1979	Wilmington, N.C.	Uranium Threat
53.	Mar. 2, 1979	Hilo, Hawaii	Nuclear Bomb
54.	Mar. 12, 1979	Boston, Mass.	Radioactive Dispersal
55.	Apr. 3, 1979	St. Louis, Mo.	Nuclear Bomb
56.	Apr. 9, 1979	Sacramento, Calif.	Radioactive Dispersal
57.	Apr. 24, 1979	Cedar Rapids, Iowa	Radioactive Dispersal
58.	Jan. 2, 1980	San Francisco, Calif.	Low-Yield Nuclear Bomb
59.	Jan. 3, 1980	Buffalo, N.Y.	Nuclear Bomb
60.	Jan. 4, 1980	Indianapolis, Ind.	Nuclear Explostion, 5 Megatons
61.	Jan. 7, 1980	Iran	Three Atomic Bombs, 20–25 Megatons
62.	Jan. 11, 1980	Unidentified Location	Nuclear Bomb
63.	July 16, 1980	Chicago, Ill., Plus Several Unidentified Cities	Nuclear Bombs
64.	Jan. 9, 1981	Reno, Nev.	Plutonium Dispersal
65.	Jan. 26, 1981	San Francisco, Calif.	Atomic Device
66.	June 26, 1981	San Francisco, Calif.	Nuclear Bomb
67.	May 16, 1982	Twelve Unidentified U.S. Cities	Nuclear Warheads
68.	June 14, 1982	Boston, Mass.	Nuclear Device
69.	July 2, 1982	Washington, D.C.	Radioactive Device
70.	Oct. 8, 1982	Las Vegas, Nev.	Atomic Device, 10 Kilotons
71.	Oct. 19, 1982	Los Angeles, Calif.	Thermonuclear Detonation
72.	Feb. 2, 1983	Tampa, Fla.	Radioactive Dispersal
73.	Feb. 13, 1984	Hill Air Force Base, Utah	Atomic Bomb
74.	July 29, 1984	Covina, Calif.	Nuclear Device
75.	July 30, 1984	Los Angeles, Calif.	Atomic Bomb
76.	Oct. 18, 1984	Detroit, Mich.	Nuclear Device
77.	Nov. 7, 1984	Unspecified Location	Hydrogen Bomb
78.	Nov. 16, 1984	Fairfax County, Va.	Small Nuclear Device
79.	Mar. 14, 1985	Chicago, Ill.	Nuclear Device, 5 Kilotons
80.	Apr. 4, 1985	New York, N.Y.	Plutonium Dispersal
81.	Nov. 22, 1985	Albuquerque, N.M.	Three Nuclear Devices
82.	Apr. 4, 1986	New York City–Murmansk	Two Atomic Devices
83.	May 6, 1986	Reno, Nev.	Nuclear Device
84.	Sep. 22, 1986	Wisconsin	Nuclear Device
85.	Oct. 8, 1986	Westminster, Calif.	Thermonuclear Device
86.	Oct. 17, 1986	Concord, Calif.	Nuclear Device, 6 Megatons
87.	Nov. 13, 1986	Bethlehem, Pa.	Americlum-241 Dispersal
88.	Jan. 30, 1987	Indiana	Nuclear Device
89.	Nov. 27, 1987	Indianapolis, Ind.	Nuclear Device
90.	June 4, 1988	Washington, D.C., and Moscow, USSR	Atom Bombs
91.	Jan. 28, 1989	Somewhere in the United States	Three Nuclear Bombs
92.	Apr. 20, 1989	Washington, D.C.	Atomic Bomb
93.	Jan. 27, 1990	Denver, Colo.	Nuclear Device
94.	Apr. 13, 1990	El Paso, Texas	Nuclear Weapon
95.	Oct. 5, 1990	Sunnyvale, Calif.	Atomic Bomb
96.	Oct. 19, 1990	Washington, D.C.	Nuclear Device
97.	Nov. 12, 1990	Bethesda, Md.	Plutonium Dispersal
98.	Nov. 28, 1990	Somewhere in the United States	Two Atomic Bombs
99.	June 14, 1991	New York and Washington, D.C.	Nuclear Bombs
100.	Mar. 27, 1992	Nine U.S. Cities	Nuclear Weapons
101.	Nov. 10, 1992	Unknown Cities	Nuclear Devices
102.	Dec. 23, 1992	Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem	Two Atom Bombs
103.	Apr. 9, 1993	Germany and Vatican City	Three A-Bombs

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

AEA	Atomic Energy Act
AEC	Atomic Energy Commission
AEDS	Atomic Energy Detection System
AFTAC	Air Force Technical Applications Center
AMAN	Intelligence Branch, Israeli Defense Forces
AMOS	Air Force Maui Optical System
AMS	Aerial Measurement System
ARG	Accident Response Group
ARMS	Aerial Radiation Measurement System
ARMS	Aerial Radiological Measuring System
ASP	Advanced Spectroscopic Portals
ATOM	Automated Tether-Operated Manipulator
BKA	Bundeskriminalamt
BMEWS	Ballistic Missile Early Warning System
BND	Bundesnachrichtendienst (German Federal Intelligence Service)
CAARS	Cargo Advanced Automated Radiography System
CAIR	Council on American-Islamic Relations
CBRN	Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear
CFB	Canadian Forces Base
CIA	Central Intelligence Agency
CIRG	Critical Incident Response Group
CPX	Command Post Exercise
CURV	Cable-Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle
DCI	Director of Central Intelligence
DEST	Domestic Emergency Support Team
DIA	Defense Intelligence Agency
DNDO	Domestic Nuclear Detection Office
DOD	Department of Defense
DOE	Department of Energy
DSP	Defense Support Program
DST	Direct Support Team
DTRA	Defense Threat Reduction Agency
EACT	Emergency Action Coordinating Team
EG&G	Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier
EOD	Explosive Ordnance Disposal
ERDA	Energy Research and Development Administration
ESO	Energy Senior Officer
FBI	Federal Bureau of Investigation
FEMA	Federal Emergency Management Agency
FEST	Foreign Emergency Support Team
FIDLER	Field Instrument for Detection of Low Energy Radiations
FORSCOM	Forces Command
GAO	Government Accountability Office
GE	General Electric
GRU	Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye (Chief Intelligence Directorate, Soviet General Staff)
HEU	Highly Enriched Uranium
HRT	Hostage Rescue Team
HSPD	Homeland Security Presidential Directive
HUMINT	Human Intelligence
IAC	Intelligence Advisory Committee
IAEA	International Atomic Energy Agency
IDF	Israeli Defense Forces
IND	Improvised Nuclear Device
IRIS	Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
JCSM	Joint Chiefs of Staff Memorandum
JNACC	Joint Nuclear Accident Coordinating Center
JSOC	Joint Special Operations Command
JTOT	Joint Technical Operations Team
KGB	Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Soviet Committee for State Security)
LGAT	Lincoln Gold Augmentation Team
LLL	Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
LLNL	Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
MINATOM	Ministry of Atomic Energy (Russia)
MPC&A	Materials Protection, Control, and Accounting
MS	Mara Salvatrucha
NAA	North American Aviation
NAP	Nuclear Assessment Program
NASA	National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NAST	Nuclear Accident Support Team (Canada)
NATO	North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NAVSPUR	Naval Space Surveillance System
NDHQ	National Defence Headquarters (Canada)
NEST	Nuclear Emergency Search Team (1974–2002)
NEST	Nuclear Emergency Support Team (2002–present)
NIE	National Intelligence Estimate
NIO	National Intelligence Officer
NMIP	Nuclear Materials Information Program
NNSA	National Nuclear Security Administration
NORAD	North American Aerospace Defense Command
NRAT	Nuclear/Radiological Advisory Team
NRC	Nuclear Regulatory Commission
NSA	National Security Agency
NSAM	National Security Action Memorandum
NSC	National Security Council
NSDD	National Security Decision Directive
NSPD	National Security Presidential Directive
NSSE	National Special Security Event
NSSM	National Security Study Memorandum
OTA	Office of Technology Assessment
PAL	Permissive Action Link
PBX	Private Branch Exchange
PDD	Presidential Decision Directive
PINSTECH	Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology
PLO	Palestine Liberation Organization
RAP	Radiological Assistance Program
RDD	Radiological Dispersal Device
REECo	Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Corporation
RERT	Radiological Emergency Response Team
RORSAT	Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite
RORSATOM	Russian Atomic Energy Agency
RTG	Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator
SA	Special Agent
SAC	Special Agent-in-Charge
SAC	Strategic Air Command
SADM	Special Atomic Demolition Munition
SANDS	Surveillance Accident and Nuclear Detection System
SCOPE	Scomi Precision Engineering
SIED	Sophisticated Improvised Explosive Device
SKKP	System for Monitoring Cosmic Space (Soviet Union)
SLD	Second Line of Defense
SNIE	Special National Intelligence Estimate
SSA	Senior Scientific Advisor
Topoff	Top Officials
TsKKP	Center for Monitoring Cosmic Space (Soviet Union)
UCS	Union of Concerned Scientists
UNSUB	Unknown Subject
UTN	Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (Reconstruction of the Muslim Ummah)
WMD	Weapons of Mass Destruction

TERMINOLOGY

alpha particles: a highly ionizing form of radiation emitted by radioactive nuclei such as uranium or radium.

attribution: the assignment of origin to nuclear material.

background radiation: radiation that comes from natural sources such as granite, soil, and bananas.

beta particles: high-energy, high-speed electrons emitted by certain types of radioactive substances.

cesium-137: a radioactive isotope formed mainly by nuclear fission that is extremely toxic, even in small amounts.

cobalt-60: a highly radioactive substance used for industrial, medical, and other commercial purposes.

gamma rays: radiation emitted by a nucleus when it transitions to a lower energy level.

highly enriched uranium: uranium that contains 20 percent or more of the uranium-235 isotope.

implosion weapon: a weapon that detonates when an arrangement of explosives rapidly compresses one or more pieces of fissile material into a supercritical mass.

Improvised Nuclear Device: a nuclear weapon assembled by a terrorist or criminal organization.

isotope: atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons and thus different atomic masses, such as uranium-235 and uranium-238.

isotopic signature: the fingerprint of an element characterized by the types and amounts of isotopes it contains.

muon: a naturally occurring elementary particle produced when cosmic rays strike air molecules in the upper atmosphere.

muon radiography: the use of detectors to monitor the change in muon trajectory before and after muons interact with an object, thereby constructing a three-dimensional image of that object.

neutron: a subatomic particle with no net electric charge.

neutron radiography: a nondestructive detection technology that uses a neutron beam to penetrate an object and, by measuring how the neutrons are affected, produces information about its interior structure and composition.

nuclear forensics: methods that analyze radioactive debris or intercepted nuclear material to determine its origins, transportation route, and possible applications.

passive gamma-ray detection: a method that detects nuclear material by spotting its naturally emitted gamma radiation.

plutonium: a heavy, radioactive metallic element produced artificially in reactors by bombarding uranium with neutrons. Plutonium, in the form of the plutonium-239 isotope, is one of the two types of fissile material used to produce a nuclear detonation.

radioactivity: material which has an unstable nucleus that decays spontaneously and emits particles.

shielding: material that surrounds a radiation source and reduces the amount of radiation emitted.

uranium: a naturally occurring metal whose rare uranium-235 isotope is one of the two types of fissile material used to produce a nuclear detonation.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is an extension, a rather large extension, of an article I wrote for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists several years ago. The opportunity to write that article provided a base of knowledge for further research into the history and activities of the Nuclear Emergency Support Team.

That research has been augmented in several ways. A number of colleagues have provided information, documents, and photographs. Included are Robert Windrem of NBC News, William Burr of the National Security Archive, Asiq Siddiqi, William Arkin, and Dwayne Day.

In addition, a variety of valuable documents have been released in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the Department of Energy and its components in the field, including the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories and the Nevada Site Office. Other federal agencies that have provided documents in response to FOIA requests include the Central Intelligence Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Departments of State, Energy, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security. I appreciate the work of the FOIA officers of those organizations and those who reviewed materials for release.

Public affairs officers Steven Wampler of Lawrence Livermore and Kevin Rohrer of the Nevada Site Office provided assistance in obtaining photographs and information. Roger Strother of the National Security Archive provided research assistance, and the Archive provided support in a variety of ways.

My greatest debt is to those, including several NEST veterans and other knowledgeable individuals, who took the time to speak with me about the organization and the problems of nuclear detection. This group includes Adm. Charles Beers, Dino Brugioni, William Chambers, Steven Fetter, Victor Gilinsky, Carl Henry, Robert Kelley, Allen Mode, William Nelson, and Peter Zimmerman. Bill Chambers also read a number of chapters.

Thanks also go to my editor, Leo Wiegman, Jennifer Cantelmi, and the others at W. W. Norton who helped turn my manuscript into a book.