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Experts cite electromagnetic pulse as terrorist threat
Associated Press / Las Vegas Review-Journal ^ | October , 2001

Posted on 10/03/2001 2:46:28 AM PDT by maquiladora

With the nation guarding against atomic, biological, chemical and hijacked airliner attacks, exerts see little protection from a weapon that could cripple computers and key electronic systems. The danger is from an electromagnetic pulse - a powerful, split-second wave of energy from a nuclear bomb. Some of the last full-scale nuclear weapons tests conducted in 1992 at the Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas were designed to protect or "harden" military systems against electronic failure in a nuclear exchange. However, little of that preventive technology has been applied to civilian equipment, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

"I don't think there has been any significant effort to harden the private sector against electromagnetic pulse," said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a defense and intelligence policy organization based near Washington, D.C.

Twice in the past four years, and as recently as 1999, Congress was warned that detonating a relatively small, 10-kiloton nuclear bomb over the U.S. would produce a burst of energy equal to 10,000 tons of TNT.

Such a burst, sometimes referred to as an EMP, could yield tens of thousands of volts of energy and cause widespread damage to computer chips and electronic equipment. The phenomenon could cripple an economy dependent on computer networks and electronic communication systems. The damage from burnout or overloads on electrical circuits would extend far beyond the area directly affected by the blast and radiation, government scientists have told Congress.

Officials with Nevada Power Co. and the Southern Nevada Water Authority, two key Las Vegas Valley public utilities, said their electrical systems have no protections against EMP. "We did not design our system with that in mind," Nevada Power spokeswoman Sonya Headen said. "To our knowledge, there isn't any utility in the country that was designed to withstand EMP."

Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration's Western Pacific Region Defense and the Threat Reduction Agency, which replaced some functions of the now-defunct Defense Nuclear Agency, did not immediately respond to Review-Journal inquiries about electromagnetic pulse protection. Pike said the risk to FAA systems from electromagnetic pulse is probably classified.

However, government scientists have discussed the issue of potential EMP damage on military and civilian systems during congressional meetings. Lowell Wood, a prominent physicist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, told a House Armed Services subcommittee in October 1999 that nuclear warheads on a kiloton scale can have a greater EMP threat than nuclear warheads on the megaton scale.

Two years earlier, Wood told the subcommittee that the threat to semiconductor-based U.S. power grids and communication systems have increased substantially since electromagnetic pulse was detected during nuclear testing four decades ago. He told the subcommittee in 1997 that civilian passenger jets are also at risk - particularly at night, when they could be lost without communications, landing beacons and runway lights.

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The list of weapons available to terrorists now ranges from passenger jets to atomic devices and biological and chemical agents. But the United States has made little progress in guarding against what might be its most devastating threat -- widespread damage to domestic electronic systems from a powerful, split-second wave of energy from a nuclear bomb.

Although some of the last full-scale nuclear weapons tests conducted in tunnels at the Nevada Test Site were designed to protect or 'harden' military systems against electronic failure in a nuclear exchange, little of that preventive technology has been transferred to civilian equipment, sources said Friday.

'I don't think there has been any significant effort to harden the private sector against electromagnetic pulse,' said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a defense and intelligence policy organization based near Washington, D.C.

Twice in the past four years, and as recently as 1999, Congress was warned that a relatively small, 10-kiloton nuclear bomb, which would produce energy equal to exploding 10,000 tons of TNT, would cause widespread damage to computer chips and electronic equipment if detonated over the United States. Called EMP, an acronym for electromagnetic pulse, the phenomenon from tens of thousands of volts of energy from a nuclear explosion could cause enough damage to cripple an economy dependent on computer networks and electronic communication systems. The damage from burnout or overloads on electrical circuits would extend far beyond the area directly affected by the blast and radiation, government scientists told Congress in 1999 and 1997.

But almost none of the technology to protect against EMP that was developed through Defense Department nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site as late as 1992 was put to use in the private sector.

Officials with two Las Vegas Valley public utilities said Friday their electrical systems have no protections against EMP. 'We did not design our system with that in mind,' said Nevada Power Co. spokeswoman Sonya Headen. 'I was also informed, to our knowledge, there isn't any utility in the country that was designed to withstand EMP.'

J.C. Davis, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, said water operations depend on electrical circuitry that is vulnerable to EMP. 'We do not have specific protections against electromagnetic pulses,' he said. Nevertheless, he said, 'We have backup and recovery systems. We have redundant systems at various locations throughout the valley to deal with things that are generally within the realm of our scope.' The Defense Threat Reduction Agency -- the agency that replaced some functions of the now-defunct Defense Nuclear Agency -- fielded questions Friday from the Review-Journal about EMP and making protective technology available for civilian use. But an agency spokesman did not offer an immediate response.

Likewise, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration's Western Pacific Region was asked whether the nation's air traffic control system has been hardened against EMP. He did not respond Friday.

Pike, however, said part of the nation's air traffic control system probably relies on less-vulnerable fiber optics that might be somewhat more resistant to EMP than a desktop computer. But the extent of the risk to FAA systems from electromagnetic pulse is probably classified, he said.

Inquiries to the North Las Vegas office of the National Nuclear Security Administration -- a branch of the Department of Energy that oversees operations at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- were forwarded to officials at national weapons laboratories in Livermore, Calif., and Los Alamos, N.M. But an administration spokesman said, 'Classification guidance prohibits detailed information from cleared individuals at both of the labs.'

Nevertheless, government scientists on at least two occasions discussed the issue of potential EMP damage on military and civilian systems at meetings of the House Military Research and Development Subcommittee. 'Special purpose nuclear warheads on a kiloton scale, can have much more EMP effect than ordinary nuclear warheads on the megaton scale. Warheads of less than 10-kiloton yields can put out very large EMP signals,' Lowell Wood, a prominent physicist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, told a House Armed Services subcommittee in October 1999.

Two years earlier, in July 1997, Wood told the subcommittee that since the EMP threats were realized at the onset of nuclear testing more than four decades ago, its potential effects on U.S. power grids and communication systems have increased substantially.

'There is reason to believe,' Wood said, 'that the semiconductor-based portions of our communication system, which is to say essentially all of it, would be extremely vulnerable.' Civilian passenger jets, as well, are at risk, Wood told the subcommittee in 1997.

'It is probably clear that if this attack occurred at night that most of the planes, most of the civilian airliners in the air, would be lost for obvious reasons,' he said. 'They simply won't be able to land. They won't have landing aids, probably no lights on landing strips and so forth. Those would be lost.'

Military experts say the cost of hardening their systems would be between 2 and 10 percent. Pike said how the cost of protective measures would translate to the commercial sector is unclear, but he imagines it would be substantial.

The late Rep. Sonny Bono, R-Calif., asked Wood and other scientists about specific threats. 'Like the war in the Middle East, could they pull out EMP and use that as an aggressive weapon, or as a defense weapon, to knock out some of the smart stuff we have?'

Wood replied that the scenario 'is one of very real concern because in those circumstances, very modest, very short-range rocketry could be used to loft a nuclear explosive over our forces ... and impose preferential EMP damage on our forces.

From the enemy's viewpoint, Wood said, 'You are not interested in covering an entire continent, but rather than stretching 4,000 kilometers (2,480 miles), you might only be interested in EMP damage over 400 kilometers (248 miles), which is a major theater of operations. And in those circumstances, quite modest nuclear explosives on very modest rockets, Scud-type rockets, would suffice to potentially impose very severe damage.' In addition to the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China and France, several other countries are believed to have nuclear capabilities. The list includes Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Israel.

According to Pike, American enterprise faces a substantial risk from EMP under existing conditions. 'Any country capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to an American city could be capable of detonating that weapon in space above the North American continent,' he said.


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To: George W. Bush
(A snippet from ---->  http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has280010.000/has280010_0.HTM)
 
 
 

 
    Let me summarize briefly by describing five common errors I have seen in doing testing and analysis of electromagnetic effects on military and other systems. There is some tendency to regard the item that is responding to the electromagnetic effect as the box rather than the box with all the conductors extending to it, even fiberoptic conductors, because those designed for outside use and designed to be pulled through conduits inevitably have steel or other conductive wires protecting the fiberoptics. So the antennas are the dominant pickup mechanism for EMP, not the box itself, and even though I have designed simulators for use on things like missiles, which don't tend to have a lot of wires on them once they are launched, use of those simulators for things like telephone switching systems is really not appropriate unless electromagnetic pulsers are attached to the cables. It is not a box response. It is a box plus antennas response issue.

    I have seen systems tested with power off, even though it is clear that having power on the system makes it much more susceptible than having it off, and power off versus power on is a major issue. Clearly, systems would be used with power on, and they should be tested with power on.

    I have seen systems tested in a quiescent state where they are not functioning, where subsystems are not exchanging data from one to another, and, therefore, the prospect of corrupting that data is small; whereas if a system is actually functioning, the data exchanges are taking place, and they are more susceptible to EMP.

    I have seen systems well-designed with shields, which are operated in the field with the shields open. This is particularly true with personnel access hatches, where you might have an excellent electromagnetic shielding door, but if the personnel find it more convenient to leave the door open, then much of the shielding has been lost, or if wires have been run through the open door, they act as antennas directly into the electronics.

    Finally, I have seen the issue of when a failure occurs, confuse EMP analyses, the most likely components to fail are first those near the outside world, near these EMP antennas, the conductors going into a system, and the components most likely to fail first are the weakest ones. I have seen tests where several components failed, and when they were replaced and tested again, they didn't fail, and people would say, well, this must have been a test anomaly. In fact, what they were doing was weeding out the weakest components near the interface and replacing them with statistically stronger components. Now, that is fine if all the operational systems you deploy in the field have also gone through this EMP trial and you have been able to weed out the weakest components as well, but generally that is not done, and, therefore, the weak components are left in the systems that are deployed in the field and will fail at the first high-level pulse.

    So even when tests and analyses have been run on systems, one has to look at the results very skeptically and with the benefit of experience that we have gained in testing systems over many years.

    I guess I would finally like to say that I have seen major military systems fail as low as in order of magnitude below the level that Mr. Jakubiak showed there, and not failed at all at the highest levels we could produce, depending on whether they had been hardened or not. Thank you.

.......and NOW you know!


21 posted on 10/03/2001 5:33:34 AM PDT by Elsie
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To: maquiladora
EMP is the basis of story line of a great sci fi tv show, Dark Angel. While the experts were speculating abt cyberterrorism, exotic technologies and the like, the real terrorists operated untouched using low tech. These terrorism and security experts should be fired. Todays FBI is definitely not the FBI of Scully and Mulder.
22 posted on 10/03/2001 5:37:41 AM PDT by Dialup Llama
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To: George W. Bush
>Just what could 18 determined men with knowledge of nuclear plant design do to such a plant if they took it by surprise and moved fast?

Fortunately Microsoft has not yet published their Nuclear Power Plant Simulator game to tell the terrorists how to do this. Also, the govt is not selling terrorsts time on their nuc simulators.

23 posted on 10/03/2001 5:40:21 AM PDT by Dialup Llama
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To: maquiladora
Ummm..I don't think you even need a nuclear bomb to generate an EM pulse anymore.

Does anyone remember a story that 20/20 ran a few years back? It detailed the development of EMP Weaponry that some nations, including of all places The Netherlands, had pretty much perfected. They showed footage of cars and computer screens bursting into flames after being "shot" with a crude-looking "EMP Cannon."

Apparently, the story went on to discuss how the things weren't THAT difficult or expensive to put together, just cumbersome, and how America had almost no developmental experience with these weapons.

I never heard a thing about them afterwards. I hate to say it, but we may need to worry about trains or planes being "Shot" with EM pulses. Not as sweeping or widespread as the wave generated by a nuke, but still very distressing...
24 posted on 10/03/2001 5:40:39 AM PDT by WyldKard
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To: Dialup Llama
Just what could 18 determined men with knowledge of nuclear plant design do to such a plant if they took it by surprise and moved fast?

Thankfully, it's now a LOT harder to hijack a plane in this country, which a terrorist might want to do to fly it into a nuke plant. A truck bomb wouldn't cut it (I hope...)
25 posted on 10/03/2001 5:44:57 AM PDT by WyldKard
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To: WyldKard
And, of course, the people making that film footage would NEVER use incendiary devices on the cars to make them burst into flames, would they? </sarcasm>
26 posted on 10/03/2001 5:45:40 AM PDT by Poohbah
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To: maquiladora
Two words, one answer: Vacuum Tubes!

Those of us who enjoy restoring old amateur radio and military equipment have known the resistance to EMP effects for years. One of the more funny stories about this was the defection of the Soviet pilot to Japan some years back, with a MIG (I forget which model it was). It was found to have a LOT of vacuum tube equipment, and at the time, we had a great time talking about the "backwardness" of the Soviet designers.

Once someone who had been there, done that, mentioned that vacuum tubes are EMP immune, the smiles and happiness faded quickly.

Keep em Glowing ;-)

Greg

27 posted on 10/03/2001 5:46:05 AM PDT by gwmoore
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To: Poohbah
And, of course, the people making that film footage would NEVER use incendiary devices on the cars to make them burst into flames, would they?

Well yeah, that was definately going through my mind too....
28 posted on 10/03/2001 5:49:29 AM PDT by WyldKard
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To: WyldKard
Thankfully, it's now a LOT harder to hijack a plane in this country, which a terrorist might want to do to fly it into a nuke plant. A truck bomb wouldn't cut it (I hope...)

I could well be mistaken, but it is my understanding that all nuclear reactors in the US are designed to withstand a direct hit from a 747. I'm assuming that whoever made this a requirement was thinking in terms of an accident, rather than an intentional attack. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

29 posted on 10/03/2001 6:00:23 AM PDT by rogers21774
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To: maquiladora
With the nation guarding against atomic, biological, chemical and hijacked airliner attacks, exerts see little protection from a weapon that could cripple computers and key electronic systems. The danger is from an electromagnetic pulse - a powerful, split-second wave of energy from a nuclear bomb.

What idiot editor let this in? If we are guarding against an atomic attack, then that would include a nuclear bomb.

30 posted on 10/03/2001 6:04:31 AM PDT by Rodney King
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To: WyldKard
Ummm..I don't think you even need a nuclear bomb to generate an EM pulse anymore.

That is correct. Popular Mechanics had an article on this very subject a couple of months ago. According to PM, an EMP bomb can be made without any nuclear material. In fact, with the proper expertise, PM claims an EMP bomb can be made for around $400.00 which will produce devistating results.

Basically anything with any electrical components would be rendered completely useless. From a technology standpoint, we would essentially be set back 200 years.

31 posted on 10/03/2001 6:08:44 AM PDT by rogers21774
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To: maquiladora
This will not be a popular statement here or elsewhere, but it should be said. There is only one effective weapon against these terrorists: complete, total fear of consequences if they dare to act. That means, unfortunately, doing things that most Americans could not stomach. That tactic finally shut down the Japanese in WWII, and it might be the only tactic that will gain the respect of certain Arab nations. (Note that I said "respect" and not "admiration." That was on purpose, but I doubt the CNN news floozies would understand that distinction.)
32 posted on 10/03/2001 6:14:56 AM PDT by MizSterious
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To: maquiladora
So it seems the best protection is to line your computer with tin foil? That has been suggested before.
33 posted on 10/03/2001 6:16:38 AM PDT by DugwayDuke
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To: George W. Bush
""

Security is incredibly high around the Nuke reactors and a team of 18 terroists wouldn't penetrate before reinforcements arrived......

NeverGore

34 posted on 10/03/2001 6:16:50 AM PDT by nevergore
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To: Lazamataz
"To: snooker I'm still scared. Hold me."

How about we do a GROUP hug? Make us all feel better.

35 posted on 10/03/2001 6:19:08 AM PDT by cibco
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To: maquiladora
This article is misleading WRT a nation-wide terrorist doomsday scenario. Before we go through any more tinfoil consider the issue of delivery.

While a threat might be slightly credible to a theatre of operations overseas due to the availability of SCUDs, etc., that option would not be available in the US. Such an attack with a single device in the US would have to rely on aircraft delivery. By definition that would limit the affected area to around 250 miles radius at most under almost perfect conditions.

While 100% effectiveness might cause hugh economic headaches, it is hardly an End Of The Republic and Christendom scenario. And the airliners-falling-from-the-skys-all-over-the-continent angle is true junk science.

Add up all the "ifs" and I'll save my tinfoil for the Thanksgiving turkey. If you want to worry about EMP, worry about a general strategic nuclear exchange (in which case EMP really ain't your biggest concern anyway ;-)

36 posted on 10/03/2001 6:19:52 AM PDT by LTCJ
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To: HiTech RedNeck
...when you go into a Chinese buffet do you eat everything simultaneously?

I just pull my chair up to it and make it my table.

37 posted on 10/03/2001 6:21:24 AM PDT by Lysander
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To: maquiladora
If the terrorists have a nuke, they won't use it at high-altitude for EMP. They'll use it at ground level, probably in DC, to cause maximum loss of life and damage to American prestige. The effects of EMP make lousy pictures and will have little PR effect on bin Laden's audience in Moslem countries.
38 posted on 10/03/2001 6:22:39 AM PDT by Restorer
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To: nevergore
Security is incredibly high around the Nuke reactors and a team of 18 terroists wouldn't penetrate before reinforcements arrived......
And airport security was considered very high prior to 9/11. I just hope you/re right. 18 men with machineguns and someone helping them from inside might be more effective than anyone currently imagines.
39 posted on 10/03/2001 6:23:09 AM PDT by George W. Bush
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To: Restorer
The effects of EMP make lousy pictures and will have little PR effect on bin Laden's audience in Moslem countries.

Bingo.

40 posted on 10/03/2001 6:27:02 AM PDT by LTCJ
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