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U.S. Vulnerable to Catastrophic Attack, Congress Told NewsMax.com WiresDespite the federal government's expensive efforts to prevent terrorists from smuggling a nuclear weapon into the U.S., the nation remains extremely vulnerable to a catastrophic attack, experts have warned a House committee. Highly enriched uranium, a crucial ingredient in a nuclear device, could be shielded with less than a quarter-inch of lead, making it "very likely to escape detection by passive radiation monitors," Benn Tannenbaum, a physicist and senior program associate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, testified at the June 21 hearing of the Homeland Security subcommittee. Story Continues Below
Committee members were told that the monitors, now installed at ports and border stations, can't distinguish between naturally occurring radiation from everyday items like ceramic tile and the dangerous enriched uranium. What's more, less than a quarter of the radiation devices needed to check all goods crossing U.S. borders have been installed, federal officials told the committee. Bethann Rooney, manager of security for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, testified that none of the cargo moving through the largest ship terminal or goods leaving the port by rail or barge are inspected for radiation. She added that the facility receives about 150 false alarms a day from its 22 radiation portal monitors. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said he was worried that the high number of false alarms has prompted some agents to lower the sensitivity of the detectors, making them less effective in spotting real danger. The radiation detection systems installed across the U.S. are "quite limited in their capabilities and, in general, are insufficient to the task," said physicist Richard L. Wagner Jr., chairman of the Defense Department task force on preventing a clandestine nuclear attack. Said Rep. Pascrell: "I am not too hopeful about this situation." In a related development, a survey of experts predicted that the likelihood of an attack with a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world in the next 10 years could be as high as 70 percent. Most of the 85 experts who took part in the survey – commissioned by U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar - believe that one or two new countries will acquire nuclear weapons in the next five years, and as many as five will get them during the next decade. The survey found that the most significant risk of a WWD attack was from a radiological weapon, a so-called "dirty bomb" that combines radioactive material with a conventional explosive device. The next highest risk was an attack with a chemical or biological weapon, with a nuclear attack less likely, according to the experts, who included retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and former CIA Director James Woolsey. The probability of an attack with any form of WMD was estimated at as high as 50 percent over the next five years, increasing to as high as 70 percent in 10 years.
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