Page 284 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism
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Nuclear Terrorism———263
The project to build the first U.S. nuclear weapons produced a situation where material may be at risk.
in World War II was a massive undertaking requiring There have been enough reports of thefts of small
the full resources of a powerful nation. Could terror- quantities of fissionable materials from Russia to indi-
ists do it? What is the probability that they have both cate that the problem is a real one. The United States
the skills and technology needed to take the next and other nations have responded to this threat by pro-
step? Could they make a fission bomb or perhaps viding assistance to Russia to improve facility secu-
even a thermonuclear weapon? We can consider sev- rity and provide more employment support for
eral possible scenarios. weapons scientists. It has also arranged to purchase
fissionable material from Russia and Kazakhstan that
might otherwise have been diverted from legitimate
A TERRORIST THREAT ASSESSMENT custody. Those aid programs continue today. Plans to
dispose of surplus plutonium have proceeded slowly
We can say with complete confidence that it would be
because of policy arguments within and between the
nearly impossible for a terrorist organization that did
Russian and U.S. governments, but the administration
not have the support of a government to produce the
of U.S. president George W. Bush appears to have set-
fissionable uranium or plutonium for a fission bomb
tled on a plan to use plutonium from surplus nuclear
from raw materials. Nor is it possible that such a
weapons to make reactor fuel that the Russians will
group of non-state actors could take irradiated nuclear
probably find satisfactory.
fuel from a reactor and extract plutonium from it. The
technologies involved are too complex, dangerous,
and expensive for a small group to master. TERRORIST THEFT OF
Suppose, however, that terrorists could somehow INTACT NUCLEAR WEAPONS
obtain the fissionable uranium or plutonium in either
metallic or powder form through theft, purchase, or Of course, if terrorists obtained a functioning nuclear
bribery. In that case, a group that had access to scien- weapon through force, theft, or bribery, that would
tific and engineering expertise including nuclear pose an immediate threat of the greatest magnitude.
physicists, electrical engineers, skilled machinists, Nuclear weapons themselves are kept under very high
and explosives experts could probably make a nuclear security conditions in all countries possessing them.
device with an explosive yield approaching that of the They are also equipped with various safety and
weapons used against Japan. Such a device would security features to keep them from being used by
probably not be small enough to be dropped from unauthorized persons. Information regarding their
any aircraft that terrorists could commandeer or be locations, and the security procedures associated with
launched as a missile warhead, but it would be deliv- them, is highly classified.
erable by truck, railcar, or container transported There is relatively little public information available
by ship. from countries other than the United States about any
The threat posed by the existence of many tons of tests that have been conducted to penetrate security
uranium and plutonium in the stockpiles of nuclear screens and seize an intact weapon. National authori-
weapon states is one of the most dangerous ones ties in declared nuclear weapon states assert that their
faced by governments attempting to block terrorist weapons are under tight control. During the 2001 war
acquisition of nuclear weapons. Such stockpiles are in Afghanistan, however, press reports circulated sug-
heavily guarded, but in tests carried out in the United gesting that U.S. officials were poised to intervene in
States, highly trained paramilitary strike forces suc- Pakistan in the event that fundamentalist groups
ceeded in about 50 percent of the trials in penetrating aligned with terrorists succeeded in overthrowing the
security barriers at national laboratories and produc- Pakistani military government and threatened to seize
tion facilities to seize dangerous quantities of nuclear Pakistan’s small nuclear weapon stockpile. The unoffi-
materials. cial Pakistani response was that its government was in
The problem of fissionable material stockpile no danger and that its nuclear weapons were under
security is particularly acute in Russia, where low tight control.
salaries, poor morale among scientific workers, and The United States and Russia once possessed
deteriorating physical security systems at weapons stockpiles of small nuclear weapons, sometimes called
laboratories such as Sarov and Zelenogorsk have “suitcase bombs,” that could be carried by one or