Posted on 10/05/2001 1:15:39 PM PDT by RoughDobermann
WASHINGTON -- America's 10 nuclear weapons research and production facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack and have failed about half of recent security drills, a non-government watchdog group has found.
U.S. Army and Navy commando teams penetrated the plants and obtained nuclear material during exercises designed to test security, according to the Project on Government Oversight report, being released Friday.
In a drill in October 2000 at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, "the mock terrorists gained control of sensitive nuclear material which, if detonated, would have endangered significant parts of New Mexico, Colorado and downwind areas," the report says.
In an earlier test at the same lab, an Army Special Forces team used a household garden cart to haul away enough weapons-grade uranium to build several nuclear weapons.
In another test at the Rocky Flats site near Denver, Navy SEALs cut a hole in a chain link fence as they escaped with enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs. They were discovered only as they left the facility.
Government security rules require the nuclear facilities to defend themselves against the theft of nuclear materials by terrorists or through sabotage.
A spokeswoman at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a branch of the Energy Department, declined Thursday to comment on the report.
The report is based on information provided by 12 whistle-blowers, according to Danielle Brian, the non-government watchdog group's director, as well as declassified Energy Department material that describes the security exercises.
The repeated security breaches are cause for serious concern, Brian said, because Energy Department employees were warned before each security exercise but still failed to stop would-be terrorists in more than half of the drills.
"These are tests where the security forces are necessarily dumbed-down so that they know the tests are coming," Brian said. "They are very restrictive tests [but] they're still losing half of the time.
"No one thought it really mattered, until two weeks ago," Brian added.
The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon have raised alarms about security concerns, from local community responses to chemical and biological weapons to the security at nuclear power plants.
Nine of the weapons facilities are within 100 miles of cities with more than 75,000 people. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is near the San Francisco metropolitan area, which has more than 7 million people. The Rocky Flats site is near Denver, home to 2.6 million people.
Eight of the 10 weapons plants contained a total of 33.5 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium. Experts say it takes only a few pounds of plutonium to craft a nuclear bomb.
The study has drawn the attention of the House Reform Committee, which has launched its own review of security measure at the nuclear weapons plants.
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chairman of a national security subcommittee in the House, declined to discuss the report. But he issued a statement indicating he was "deeply troubled" that the nuclear facilities failed security tests even though they had been alerted in advance.
"We want to know what DOE is doing to resolve this deficiency, both in the short term and in the long term," Shays' statement said.
Security tests at the nuclear weapons facilities are simulated on computers and run as drills between an invading terrorist force and the plant's security team. Participants strap on devices similar to those from a laser tag game.
When someone is "killed" by an opposing force, they must lie down and end their participation in the exercise.
OTOH, I've almost been shot having accidentally bypassed security and only been noticed when I tried to open a locked door and began looking around for other entrances (after shopping).
yep.
Say you are working some Plutionium, you will start with X amount. After you're done you weigh your finished piece, you weigh your chips and you do not always come up even. The difference is usually in the milligram range, but after tens of thousands of parts and forty years of work it will add up to an impressive total.
Well..
1. I'm only posting what the Chicago Tribune reported.
2. I'm pretty sure that any potential terrorists would already have this information, considering the complexity of the 9-11 attacks and the skill with which the were carried out.
3. Considering the above, no, it does not help them. It helps us in raising alertness. The more citizens hear about these events, the more likely they are to be vigilant and aggressive in responding to getting them corrected.
I'm not worried. A bomb containing 2.5 tons of plutonium would be kinda hard to fit into a suitcase...
That was then. This is now. Let's hope they have beefed up their security to make these plants impenetrable to terrorists.
How
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Rarely is the word "plutonium" published in a major news source without the adjective "deadly" nearby. Ralph Nader, noted activist and lawyer, once claimed that plutonium was "the most toxic substance known to mankind." Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each year in the United States doing studies of the characteristics of a site for long term geologic storage of spent nuclear fuel. Much of the money is aimed at ensuring that no material ever gets out of the storage area. The material that seems to cause the most concern is the small amount of plutonium found in the irradiated fuel assemblies. Some pundits have suggested that plutonium, even in quantities far too small for a nuclear weapon, could be used as a terrorist weapon to poison water supplies. It is said that such a use could cause thousands of deaths.
Exposure by IngestionOther writers and scientists, often with far less publicity, have published detailed analyses of these claims and used statistics and experience to prove them totally false. One man, Dr. Bernard Cohen, went so far as to volunteer to eat as much plutonium as Ralph Nader would caffeine in an attempt to demonstrate the folly of the severe toxicity claims.Mr. Nader refused the challenge. Many anti-nuclear groups now try to claim that Dr. Cohen is an unreliable source of information since he volunteered to expose himself to such a dangerous substance. Dr. Cohen, a tenured research professor at the University of Pittsburgh, stated that he had calculated his risk from the challenge as less than that of a typical draftee during World War II. Dr. Cohen feels that wise use of nuclear energy is as important as winning the war. He wanted to do his part in the battle to achieve public acceptance of the low level risk involved. An indication of the risk one would face from ingesting small amounts of plutonium, of the amounts postulated for accident scenarios at an operating plant (or fuel storage facility) is shown by the following story.
Accidental Ingestion StudiedDuring the Manhattan Project in 1944 and 1945, 26 men accidentally ingested plutonium in quantities that far exceeded what is now considered to be a lethal dose. Since there has been a consistent interest in the health effects of this brand new substance (first discovered by Glenn Seaborg's team at the University of California in 1940), these men were closely tracked for medical studies.
Forty Years LaterAs of 1987, more than four decades later, only four of the workers had died and only one death was caused by cancer. The expected number of deaths in a random sample of men the age of those in the group is 10. The expected number of deaths from cancer in a similar group is between two and three.The sample size is quite small; even during a crash wartime program, people normally handle plutonium with extreme care. Even people who work directly with the material in a manufacturing process that involves grinding and shaping can be adequately protected. It is, of course, possible that the differences between expected deaths and actual deaths is just a statistical aberration. With small sample sizes, it is likely that large variations in mortality rate will be seen. It has to be considered important, however, to know that at least 22 men have been able to live more than 40 years after ingesting "the most toxic substance known to man." It should make one question the motives and accuracy of Ralph Nader, a public figure who has actively promoted such an obviously inaccurate statement. One final thought. Glen Seaborg, Nobel Laurate, discoverer of plutonium, a man who spent much of his professional life determining its chemical properties, has recently been selected the honorary chair of the American Nuclear Society Special Panel on the Protection and Management of Plutonium. Dr. Seaborg is 83 years old and he still maintains an active schedule of committees and speaking. |
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Anyone know if Hazel O'Leary is still on the Board of Directors of the company that provides security at Rocky Flats?
I think Richardson took a lot of heat for the disasterous O'Leary years as Secretary of Energy. The woman turned the Department into just another welfare agency by doing such things as paying contractors in the weapons complex bigger bonuses for using minority contractors than for successfully accomplishing production or design work. Under her "leadership" the DOE Classification Office became the DOE Declassification Office (no kidding). Why she is not in jail is beyond me.
As much as I'd like to see Bubba take all the blame,this has been going on since the late 1960's. Maybe even earlier. I knew guys on a SF team back then that were going in these plants and robbing them blind on training exercises. Nobody "official" seemed to care very much.
It would fit nicely into the hold of a small cargo ship or even a fishing ship right off the harbor of a major US Naval base though,wouldn't it? Think about all the downsizing that has been going on over the last dozen years,with bases being closed and men and equipment from several bases being consolidated and moved to one base.
I wonder if the old expression about "putting all your eggs into the same basket" has ever been heard by the yahoos making these decisions?
Because she is black,because she is a woman,because she is a Dim,and finally,because Janet Reno and Janet Ashcroft head or headed-up the so-called Justice Dept.
Security is an annoyingly difficult thing to measure. Unfortunately, the only guys who can reliably measure one's security are his enemies, and they're often not "polite" in reporting their findings.
As long as there are planes in the sky and facilities like this need any material brought in, there's no such thing as perfect security. We need to know where the flaws are--or rather, the people in charge do. I'm not sure that broadcasting our weaknesses over the media is such a wise idea even if it titillates our curiousity bump.
Of course, we have no way of knowing which reported weaknesses are real and which ones are "bait". While advertising phony security weaknesses to bait those who would exploit them doesn't always work, it can nonetheless be a useful technique for catching crooks or terrorists.
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