Nuke Forensics

Jay Davis, former director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, has an op-ed in the Washington Post today making the case for more effort to be applied in the area of nuclear forensics. Since it's inevitable that "the unthinkable" will happen, we need to be ready to track down the terrorists...

If a terrorist group were to detonate a nuclear weapon on U.S. soil, the FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security and the nation's national labs would race to track down those responsible and prevent any further detonations by that group.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the time between the fall of the twin towers and our response in Afghanistan was less than one month. But current U.S. nuclear forensics capability -- which involves analyzing nuclear radiation and isotopic signatures -- can't guarantee definitive information within a month of an attack.

Fibers, fingerprints, hair samples, a truck axle -- all standard forensics clues -- would have been vaporized in the explosion. Only two primary pieces of evidence would remain: radiation and isotopic signatures.

Radiation and isotopic signatures are the scents that nuclear forensics scientists use to hunt terrorists. Within a few hours, they would know whether the bomb was made of plutonium or uranium, a crucial first step in narrowing the investigation. Within hours to weeks, they would determine key details about the original nuclear material and then estimate the size, weight and complexity of the bomb. Over the next several months, they might be able to identify the source country and the terrorists' pathway into the United States.

But in our post-Sept. 11 world, we won't have months to respond. There would be enormous pressure to rapidly identify the terrorists and the chain of events leading up to the attack.

Yes, we certainly want to be sure of our evidence before we nuke Iran or North Korea. Wouldn't do to get the intelligence wrong - again. What bothers me is this idea that we need quicker nuclear forensics, not necessarily for attribution and quicker retaliation, but to stop the "second" nuclear bomb from going off days later. But from what I can tell, the classic al Qaeda technique is to synchronize their attacks - that is to say, if terrorists have not one, but two nuclear devices, won't they be set off relatively simultaneously? I just don't see a terrorist leader saying, "hey, that Los Angeles nuclear blast went well, let's make the Great Satan sweat for a few weeks before taking out New York City." And if that's the case, well, you don't really need quicker nuclear forensics. This "pressure" that Jay Davis refers to is based on political concerns and not security concerns.

I can't help but notice that, with more than a thousand known cases of illicit nuclear material smuggling identified (by Davis's count), there has been no terrorist "dirty bomb" or nuclear weapon attack against any country in the world, let alone the United States. So instead of all this fixation on deploying radiological detectors everywhere (which seem to be very good at identifying radioactive cats) and nuclear search teams (who find radioactive hot dogs in Las Vegas), why not focus on prevention instead of interdiction?

It's way past time that we secured all the loose radioactive sources within the United States, opened up Yucca Mountain for business (yeah I know, political hot potato), continued nuclear nonproliferation efforts overseas, and focus on "draining the swamp" that feeds terrorist groups. But I'm an idealist like that - wanting to actually stop the terrorists themselves and not just manage the consequences of the latest terrorist tactics...

Comments

[Maxtrue]

We might want to keep an eye on those attempting to make nuclear weapons. What ability do we have to identify nuclear material or an eventual weapon from countries we today say are not working on them?

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1823/janes-on-iranian-weaponization

I have been saying for some time that the Democratic Don Corleone concept of retaliation is based on our ability to identify the attacker. How many times have I said this? Identification will get harder, not easier.

You are right that we need to clean-up loose materials and work on anti-proliferation efforts. We cannot base our national security on the success of those important efforts. It would be a mistake to forget about detection and interdiction. Recent activities between FARC and Chavez have been exposed by Columbia as well as FARC's desire to get enriched uranium. Expect false flag operations in the future and new delivery systems that are cheap and without fingerprints. I doubt very much that we would nuke Tehran because a missile fired at Texas from a stolen barge off the Gulf Coast appeared to be the work of Latin militants possibly associated with Quds.

[Benn Tannenbaum]

Posting like this confuse me. You imply that having better forensics capabilities and securing extant nuclear material are mutually incompatible. Are they really? Why not do both? Or is the concept of a tiered defense not one to which you subscribe? The point, in my mind, is that if there are simple things that one can do to decrease the chance of "something bad" happening, why not do them? And remember, forensics doesn't help just in the post-detonation world. It also helps when intact devices or material is intercepted.

[CKR]

...Just for kicks, let's say the nuclear forensics point to Israel...What do we do then?

[Jason]

Benn I don't disagree that we ought to be doing both, everything that might benefit deterrence and defeat of nuclear terrorism. But we do have a nuclear forensics capability today - just not as fast as some would like to address a very improbable scenario - while we aren't funding and carrying out the tasks of securing nuclear material and exercising nonproliferation activities. that's my gripe.

[Raymond Lee]

For novices like myself in nuclear proliferation matters, there are global considerations such as the increasing potential for serious security breaches around the conveyance and availability of nuclear materials. March 2008:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf102.html
Over thirty countries are actively considering embarking upon nuclear power programs.
These range from sophisticated economies to developing nations.
Nuclear power is under serious consideration in over thirty countries which do not currently have it (in a few, not necessarily at government level).

In Europe: Italy, Albania, Portugal, Norway, Poland, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, Turkey.
In the Middle East and North Africa: Iran, Gulf states, Yemen, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco.
In central and southern Africa: Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia.
In South America: Chile, Venezuela.
In central and southern Asia: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh.
In SE Asia: Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand.

R.