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Edited by Christian Lowe | Contact

Last Best Reminder

m_cloud.jpgAnybody see Last Best Chance last night? Newsweek's Johnathan Alter caught the nuclear terror docu-drama:

It lacks special effects (too expensive) and a satisfying ending (too unrealistic), but effectively offers an all-too-plausible scenario of how a Russian scientist desperate for cash could provide highly enriched uranium through middlemen to Arab jihadists. “So, American Hiroshima begins,” says one terrorist.

I couldn’t get my kids to watch it. My daughter said it was “Too much of a downer,” which about describes the attitude of policymakers. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said early this year there was “no huge problem” with the security of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. But Lee Hamilton and Thomas Kean, co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, which studied the issue at length, strongly disagree. They believe nuclear terrorism is a “distinct possibility...”

Of all the varieties of incompetence in this, the Age of Incompetence, the most deadly involves the potential of nuclear terrorism. After years of foot dragging, Presidents Bush and Putin have finally agreed at summit meetings this year that it is the single most serious threat in the world today—far more likely than a nuclear exchange by superpowers. And yet they and their governments are not following through quickly enough to secure loose nukes at their source. At the pace we’re going, it will be 13 years—2018—before all of them are recovered and deactivated, by which time even the most sober analysts believe terrorists will likely have blown up and contaminated some city forever.

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Bunker busters won't work. The yield-to-depth ratio is not a one-to-one ratio, but rather a power function. It would be like burning down the neighborhood in order to kill a roach. As for determining the source (legacy) of a nuke--there are a number of methods, but the easiest would probably be through use of cluster analysis of the nuclear debris (fallout). Each nuke has its own signature spectrum of over 125 radioisotopes. Careful analysis of these can tell us where the thing came from. Couple that with old-fashioned detective work and we could probably ID the perpetrators within a week or so. But, as my earlier post notes, we had better get our monitoring stations up and running first.
rmiller@legis.com

Posted by: R. Miller at December 21, 2005 03:33 AM


I apologize for being late on this. Let's suppose someone phoned the WashPost or NYT and says this: "Hello. Two weeks ago we detonated a dirty bomb containing 1 kg Am241 from a balloon 20,000 ft above western Wyoming. The material then contaminated a 1000 mile wide swath of the United States in a trajectory that took it over New York City five days after detonation. Have a nice day." What would the appropriate response be? Ask the EPA to look for Am241? Well, they have 50 monitoring sites around the U.S. but these sites are staffed by volunteers (that's right)---and there's nothing that says the trajectory would take the nuke cloud past an air monitoring site. But it wouldn't matter anyway, because the time between sample acquisition and analysis is about a week (they *mail* the samples to the EPA lab in Montgomery, Alabama). One other thing---they don't analyze for Am241--a radioisotope that can be purchased on the open market (it is used to make smoke detectors.)

Back to the response: What should the US do? Look for evidence of the detonation? Look for sales of helium? (What about methane, ethane or even propane?) Try to isolate the possible trajectory? Look for evidence on the ground (remember how difficult it is to find evidence of Am241--primarily an alpha emitter). What?

Last year I sent an extended version of this scenario to the Dept of Homeland Security along with a proposal for a nationwide nuclear monitoring net that would respond to this potential problem. I also suggested that, by using clustering statistics would could analyze fallout to determine the legacy of a nuclear detonation (for example, fallout debris that included Be7 would likely have come from a stockpile, while fallout containing no Be7 but with an abundance of Pb203 and Co60 might suggest a cruder device.

As yet no word from Homeland Security.

R.Miller
Author: US Atlas of Nuclear Fallout Vol I, III, V, Under The Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing

Posted by: R Miller at December 21, 2005 03:09 AM


To All,

I really don't think who the country of retaliation would make much difference if the U.S. took a direct attack. Like it or not this is the box that the Terrorists have put the United States into.

For any country, be it Iran, Pakistan, Iraq or any other who worked with a Terrorist Organization to develope and or helped deploy a explosive nuclear devive that was used against the United States it would be an act of state suicide.

If the weapon came from with in, I have no doubt that Islam in the United States would be over.

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"Stewart's Platoon"

Posted by: Byron Skinner at October 19, 2005 11:59 PM


What if the country is pakistan?

Posted by: Aaron at October 19, 2005 09:42 PM


What if that country is Iraq?

Posted by: Chris Alemany at October 19, 2005 05:46 PM


"The most likely target(s) for U.S. retaliation(s) would be the country(s) who faciliated the creation and use of said nuclear device by the terrorists."

So... the Soviet Union? They don't exist.

And what if the radioactive material is of American origin (as portrayed in the The Sum of All Fears)...

Or are "we" just going to pick some 3rd world country that is the base-of-operations-of-the-day?

I don't mean these questions in an argumentative way.. simply, I believe valid questions given where nuclear technology actually comes from and who is responsible for its' spread and security.

Posted by: Chris Alemany at October 19, 2005 05:45 PM


It's been kinda quiet around here the past week or so, maybe this will get a little action started. I will endeavor to upset everyone.

One of President Bushe's security measures that I don't disagre with is maintaining the nuclear arsenal at a ready level. In the past during the Cold War MAD served to neutralize the use option on both the major sides. The minor players were in effect frozen out of the nuclear game.

Now we have a different set of players. They have no country, no assets that they treasure or even their own lives that they consider worth perserving. The consequences of the use of nuclear weapons is of little or no concern to them.

In that light the only option avaible to the United States in the event of a nuclear attack/strike on American soil would be retaliation in kind to any third party that would offered safe harbor or support to the group(s) who committed the act.

It makes no difference who is President Republican or Democrat there would be no other option as in the Cold War.

The current move to develope smaller yeld weapons like a 5Kt. war head or the bunker busting B85 are steps in the right direction. If nuclear weapons must be used, it is to everyone benefit to see that the most percise and lowest yeld weapons possable are used for a retaliatary strike.

To wipe out a country or a civilization in retaliation for a single act against or with in the United States is not the American way. The use of nuclear weapons y the United States would be judicious but it would happen, make no mistake about that.

The increasing boldness and desperation on the part of terrorits groups/organizations along with opportuntistic nations who will peddle both the technologly and the resources to construct and deliver a nuclear device says that these county(s) would be the target(s) of a U.S. strike(s).

The most likely target(s) for U.S. retaliation(s) would be the country(s) who faciliated the creation and use of said nuclear device by the terrorists.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
"Stewart's Platoon"

Posted by: Byron Skinner at October 19, 2005 02:55 PM


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