Announcement

**chequita guevara** · February 26, 2003, 02:40

I saw it. It confirmed a lot of what I already knew (which we were told about during the days of the anthrax attacks). I spent a lot of time wondering what the hell the idiots in the USSR thought they were doing, scattering nuclear material all around the USSR and not keeping track of it.

I was disappointed the 2nd show didn't talk about Japan's Unit 731.

**Urban Ranger** · February 26, 2003, 02:46

Oh, IJA Unit 731, biological warfare, stationed in Manchuria during WWII. AKA "Black Sun."

**Mr. President** · February 26, 2003, 02:53

I didn't see the show (because we don't get NOVA here) but I recall from my readings that the armies in World War I found that chemical weapons like nerve gas were rather unreliable. Suppose you deploy your gas, but the wind changes. It will be blown away from the people who are supposed to be inhaling it - possibly back to you. Nasty.

Biological weapons have a different problem. The ideal biological weapon is an organism that is very contagious, acts quickly to either kill or incapacitate its victims, and is easy to deliver. Now, there are very few species of bacteria and virus that meet all these criteria. Anthrax is easy to deliver, but easy to treat. Black plague is highly contagious and quite deadly, but the antibiotics that treat it have been available for a very long time. Even smallpox, the most likely biological weapon of the modern era, could be stopped by effectively-administered vaccination.

The biological weapons of the 21st century, then, would have to be genetically-tailored retroviruses, that spread by touch, by air, and by food and water, that destroy their host extremely quickly. In other words, they would have to be bred to be weapons, not viruses. I really don't know if such a thing will ever be possible.

The biggest problem, of course, with biological weapons is the same as the biggest problem with chemical weapons: What happens if they get back to the friends and relatives of the people who unleashed them?

**chequita guevara** · February 26, 2003, 03:05

The USSR's take on such weapons is that they should be so horrible that the US would never want to attack the USSR. The US's approach on such things is that they should be easy to deliver, but shouldn't be contageous. The US liked Anthrax for this reason, while the Soviets went in for stuff like Smallpox.

I spent a lot of time in both of those shows wonder just what the hell went on in the minds of the Soviets.

**Urban Ranger** · February 26, 2003, 03:07

Originally posted by Mr. President
Biological weapons have a different problem. The ideal biological weapon is an organism that is very contagious, acts quickly to either kill or incapacitate its victims, and is easy to deliver.

On the contrary, you want the contagion to make people sick, not dead or incapacitated. Sick enough not able to do serious work (e.g. combat duty or full-time job), but not sick enough so these people can't wander about.

**DuncanK** · February 26, 2003, 03:46

I was suprised that the USSR was so far ahead of the US in biotechnology. Some of the bioscientists from the former USSR now work in the US biotechnology industry finding ways to defend us against a biological weapon.

**Skanky Burns** · February 26, 2003, 07:16

If designing a biological weapon, you don't want it to kill too quickly either - the longer the virus is in its incubation period, the more people the carrier will unwittingly infect.

I found a program called "Wildfire" years ago that demonstrated a virus outbreak amongst a population of 100 people and also allowed you to design your own virii to infect the people with. Despite how the stats of my first virus looked (sick one day, dead the next), that virus was a complete failure. Each outbreak killed the initial person before they were able to pass it on very far.

Kudos to anyone who can find it. I couldn't.

**Panag** · February 26, 2003, 09:11

Dirty Bombs: Response to a Threat
Henry Kelly testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 6, 2002 on the threat of radiological attack by terrorist groups. This excerpt is taken from the text of his written testimony, based on analysis by Michael Levi, Robert Nelson, and Jaime Yassif, which can be found by clicking here.

Surely there is no more unsettling task than considering how to defend our nation against individuals and groups seeking to advance their aims by killing and injuring innocent people. But recent events make it necessary to take almost inconceivably evil acts seriously. Our analysis of this threat has reached three principle conclusions:

Radiological attacks constitute a credible threat. Radioactive materials that could be used for such attacks are stored in thousands of facilities around the US, many of which may not be adequately protected against theft by determined terrorists. Some of this material could be easily dispersed in urban areas by using conventional explosives or by other methods.
While radiological attacks would result in some deaths, they would not result in the hundreds of thousands of fatalities that could be caused by a crude nuclear weapon. Attacks could contaminate large urban areas with radiation levels that exceed EPA health and toxic material guidelines.
Materials that could easily be lost or stolen from US research institutions and commercial sites could contaminate tens of city blocks at a level that would require prompt evacuation and create terror in large communities even if radiation casualties were low. Areas as large as tens of square miles could be contaminated at levels that exceed recommended civilian exposure limits. Since there are often no effective ways to decontaminate buildings that have been exposed at these levels, demolition may be the only practical solution. If such an event were to take place in a city like New York, it would result in losses of potentially trillions of dollars.
Background
Significant amounts of radioactive materials are stored in laboratories, food irradiation plants, oil drilling facilities, medical centers, and many other sites. Cobalt-60 and cesium-137 are used in food disinfection, medical equipment sterilization, and cancer treatments. During the 1960s and 1970s the federal government encouraged the use of plutonium in university facilities studying nuclear engineering and nuclear physics. Americium is used in smoke detectors and in devices that find oil sources.

With the exception of nuclear power reactors, commercial facilities do not have the types or volumes of materials usable for making nuclear weapons. Facility owners provide adequate security when they have a vested interest in protecting commercially valuable material. However, once radioactive materials are no longer needed and costs of appropriate disposal are high, security measures become lax, and the likelihood of abandonment or theft increases.

We must wrestle with the possibility that sophisticated terrorist groups may be interested in obtaining these materials and with the enormous danger to society that such thefts might present. Significant quantities of radioactive material have been lost or stolen from US facilities during the past few years and thefts of foreign sources have led to fatalities. In the US, sources have been found abandoned in scrap yards, vehicles, and residential buildings.

If these materials were dispersed in an urban area, they would pose a serious health hazard. Intense sources of gamma rays can cause acute radiation poisoning, or even fatalities at high doses. Long-term exposure to low levels of gamma rays can cause cancer. If alpha emitters, such as plutonium, americium or other elements, are present in the environment in particles small enough to be inhaled, these particles can become lodged in the lungs and damage tissue, leading to long-term cancers.

Case Studies
We have chosen three specific cases to illustrate the range of impacts that could be created by malicious use of comparatively small radioactive sources: the amount of cesium that was discovered recently abandoned in North Carolina, the amount of cobalt commonly found in a single rod in a food irradiation facility, and the amount of americium typically found in oil well logging systems. The impact would be much greater if the radiological device in question released the enormous amounts of radioactive material found in a single nuclear reactor fuel rod, but it would be quite difficult and dangerous for anyone to attempt to obtain and ship such a rod without death or detection. The Committee will undoubtedly agree that the danger presented by modest radiological sources that are comparatively easy to obtain is significant as well.

The impact of radioactive material release in a populated area would vary depending on a number of factors, such as the amount of material released, the nature of the material, the details of the device that distributes the material, the direction and speed of the wind, other weather conditions, the size of the particles released (which affects their ability to be carried by the wind and to be inhaled), and the location and size of buildings near the release site. Uncertainties inherent in the complex models used in predicting the effects of a radiological weapon mean that it is only possible to make crude estimates of impacts; the estimated damage we show might be off by an order of magnitude.

In all three cases we have assumed that the material is released on a calm day (wind speed of one mile per hour) and that the material is distributed by an explosion that causes a mist of fine particles to spread downwind in a cloud. People will be exposed to radiation in several ways.

They will be exposed to material in the dust inhaled during the initial passage of the radiation cloud, if they have not been able to escape the area before the dust cloud arrives. We assume that about twenty percent of the material is in particles small enough to be inhaled. If this material is an alpha emitter, it will stay in the body and lead to long term exposure.
Anyone living in the affected area will be exposed to material deposited from the dust that settles from the cloud. If the material contains gamma emitters, residents will be continuously exposed to radiation from this dust. If the material contains alpha emitters, dust that is pulled off the ground and into the air by wind, automobile movement, or other actions will continue to be inhaled, adding to exposure.
In a rural area, people would also be exposed to radiation from contaminated food and water sources.
The EPA has a series of recommendations for addressing radioactive contamination that would likely guide official response to a radiological attack. Immediately after the attack, authorities would evacuate people from areas contaminated to levels exceeding those guidelines. People who received more than twenty-five times the threshold dose for evacuation would have to be taken in for medical supervision.

In the long term, the cancer hazard from the remaining radioactive contamination would have to be addressed. Typically, if decontamination could not reduce the danger of cancer death to about one-in-ten-thousand, the EPA would recommend the contaminated area be eventually abandoned. Several materials that might be used in a radiological attack can chemically bind to concrete and asphalt, while other materials would become physically lodged in crevices on the surface of buildings, sidewalks and streets. Options for decontamination would range from sandblasting to demolition, with the latter likely being the only feasible option. Some radiological materials would also chemically bind to soil in city parks, with the only disposal method being large scale removal of contaminated dirt. In short, there is a high risk that the area contaminated by a radiological attack would have to be deserted.

Example 1:
Cesium (Gamma Emitter)
Two weeks ago, a lost medical gauge containing cesium was discovered in North Carolina. Imagine that the cesium in this device was exploded in Washington, DC in a bomb using ten pounds of TNT. The initial passing of the radioactive cloud would be relatively harmless, and no one would have to evacuate immediately. However, residents of an area of about five city blocks, if they remained, would have a one-in-a-thousand chance of getting cancer. A swath about one mile long covering an area of forty city blocks would exceed EPA contamination limits, with remaining residents having a one-in-ten thousand chance of getting cancer. If decontamination were not possible, these areas would have to be abandoned for decades. If the device was detonated at the National Gallery of Art, the contaminated area might include the Capitol, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress, as seen if Figure 1.

Attached Files

**Panag** · February 26, 2003, 09:12

Example 2:
Cobalt (Gamma Emitter)
Now imagine if a single piece of radioactive cobalt from a food irradiation plant were dispersed by an explosion at the lower tip of Manhattan. Typically, each of these cobalt "pencils" is about one inch in diameter and one foot long, with hundreds of such pieces often being found in the same facility. Admittedly, acquisition of such material is less likely than in the previous scenario, but we still consider the results, depicted in Figure 2. Again, no immediate evacuation would be necessary, but in this case, an area of approximately one-thousand square kilometers, extending over three states, would be contaminated. Over an area of about three hundred typical city blocks, there would be a one-in-ten risk of death from cancer for residents living in the contaminated area for forty years. The entire borough of Manhattan would be so contaminated that anyone living there would have a one-in-a-hundred chance of dying from cancer caused by the residual radiation. It would be decades before the city was inhabitable again, and demolition might be necessary.

For comparison, consider the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, in which a Soviet nuclear power plant went through a meltdown. Radiation was spread over a vast area, and the region surrounding the plant was permanently closed. In our current example, the area contaminated to the same level of radiation as that region would cover much of Manhattan, as shown in Figure 3. Furthermore, near Chernobyl, a larger area has been subject to periodic controls on human use such as restrictions on food, clothing, and time spent outdoors. In the current example, the equivalent area extends fifteen miles.

Recommendations
A number of practical steps can be taken that would greatly reduce the risks presented by radiological weapons. Since the US is not alone in its concern about radiological attack, and since we clearly benefit by limiting access to dangerous materials anywhere in the world, many of the measures recommended should be undertaken as international collaborations.

1. Reduce access to radioactive materials
Measures needed to improve the security of facilities holding dangerous amounts of these materials will increase costs. In some cases, it may be worthwhile to pay a higher price for increased security. In other instances, however, the development of alternative technologies may be the more economically viable option. Specific security steps include the following:

Fully fund material recovery and storage programs. Hundreds of plutonium, americium, and other radioactive sources are stored in dangerously large quantities in university laboratories and other facilities. In all too many cases they are not used frequently, resulting in the risk that attention to their security will diminish over time. At the same time, it is difficult for the custodians of these materials to dispose of them since in many cases only the Department of Energy (DoE) is authorized to recover and transport them to permanent disposal sites. The DoE Off-Site Source Recovery Project, which is responsible for undertaking this task, has successfully secured over three-thousand sources and has moved them to a safe location. Unfortunately, the inadequate funding of this program serves as a serious impediment to further source recovery efforts. This program should be given the needed attention and firm goals should be set for identifying, transporting, and safeguarding all unneeded radioactive materials.

Review licensing and security requirements and inspection procedures for all dangerous amounts of radioactive material. Human Health Services, the DoE, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other affected agencies should be provided with sufficient funding to ensure that physical protection measures are adequate and that inspections are conducted on a regular basis. A thorough reevaluation of security regulations should be conducted to ensure that protective measures apply to amounts of radioactive material that pose a homeland security threat, not just those that present a threat of accidental exposure.

Fund research aimed at finding alternatives to radioactive materials. A research program aimed at developing inexpensive substitutes for radioactive materials in functions such as food sterilization, smoke detection, and oil well logging should be created and provided with adequate funding.

2. Early Detection
Expanded use of radiation detection systems. Systems capable of detecting dangerous amounts of radiation are comparatively inexpensive and unobtrusive. The Office of Homeland Security should act promptly to identify all areas where such sensors should be installed, ensure that information from these sensors is continuously assessed, and ensure adequate maintenance and testing. High priority should be given to key points in the transportation system, such as airports, harbors, rail stations, tunnels, highways. Routine checks of scrap metal yards and land fill sites would also protect against illegal or accidental disposal of dangerous materials.

Fund research to improve detectors. A program should be put in place to find ways of improving upon existing detection technologies as well as improving plans for deployment of these systems and for responding to alarms.

3. Effective Disaster response
An effective response to a radiological attack requires a system capable of quickly gauging the extent of the damage, identifying appropriate responders, developing a coherent response plan, and getting the necessary personnel and equipment to the site rapidly.

First responders and hospital personnel need to understand how to protect themselves and affected citizens in the event of a radiological attack and be able to rapidly determine if individuals have been exposed to radiation. There is great danger that panic in the event of a radiological attack on a large city could lead to significant casualties and severely stress the medical system. While generous funding has been made available for this training, the program appears in need of a clear management strategy. Dozens of federal and state organizations are involved, and it is not clear how materials will be certified or accredited.

Research into cleanup of radiologically contaminated cities has been conducted in the past, primarily in addressing the possibility of nuclear war. Such programs should be revisited with an eye to the specific requirements of cleaning up after a radiological attack.

Conclusion
The events of September 11 have created a need to very carefully assess our defense needs and ensure that the resources we spend for security are aligned with the most pressing security threats. The US has indicated its willingness to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to combat threats that are, in our view, far less likely to occur than a radiological attack. This includes funding defensive measures that are far less likely to succeed than the measures that we propose in this testimony. The comparatively modest investments to reduce the danger of radiological attack surely deserve priority support.

In the end, however, we must face the brutal reality that no technological remedies can provide complete confidence that we are safe from radiological attack. Determined, malicious groups might still find a way to use radiological weapons or other means when their only goal is killing innocent people, and if they have no regard for their own lives. In the long run our greatest hope must lie in building a prosperous, free world where the conditions that breed such monsters have vanished from the earth.

Attached Files

**Panag** · February 26, 2003, 09:16

February 17, 2003

Fallout
By Michael Levi
If you watched the Super Bowl in Washington, D.C., you may have seen an ad warning that war with Iraq could end with the use of nuclear weapons. The spot, produced by the antiwar group MoveOn.org, is a remake of Lyndon Johnson's famous 1964 campaign commercial, which implied that Barry Goldwater might lead the United States into nuclear war. Like Johnson's ad, which was pulled after running only once, the spot indulges in more than a bit of hyperbole but still contains a troubling kernel of truth.

Since taking office, President George W. Bush has dangerously and unnecessarily blurred the line between conventional and nuclear weapons. Prodded by nuclear weapons scientists and a few narrow-minded ideologues--such as Wayne Allard, chair of the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, and Curt Weldon, number two on the House Armed Services Committee--the administration has been groping since early 2001 to find military missions for tactical nuclear weapons. In the past few weeks, administration officials have made not-so-veiled threats that the United States might use nuclear weapons against Iraq. These threats have alarmed the public and hurt America's image--and for no good reason: Tactical nuclear weapons have little if any military value.

For much of the cold war, American strategists planned to use nuclear weapons to repel superior Soviet conventional forces. During the Gulf war--despite possessing overwhelming conventional power--military planners considered using nuclear weapons to incinerate Iraqi stockpiles of biological weapons; they eventually settled on high explosives. Indeed, the Gulf war experience convinced many hawkish military thinkers that tactical nuclear weapons had become obsolete. Under the Clinton administration, the preemptive use of nuclear weapons was not official policy. Yet some analysts remained attached to a few niche roles for battlefield nuclear bombs. Two missions topped their lists: destroying underground bunkers and neutralizing the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons they often contain. Last March, these activists got a boost from the Bush administration's classified Nuclear Posture Review, which argued that "nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand nonnuclear attack (for example, deep underground bunkers or bioweapon facilities)." Forced to choose between nuking Saddam Hussein and leaving him be, they asked, which would you pick?

Given the immense power of nuclear weapons, it's natural to imagine them easily obliterating underground hideouts. Saddam, for example, is believed to have several underground command centers, though the United States is unlikely to know the details of these bunkers well enough to be able to penetrate them all with explosives. Nuclear bunker-busters, though, are far less effective than most suppose. The Little Boy bomb dropped over Hiroshima--20,000 times larger than Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bomb--destroyed everything within one mile of ground zero. Yet the same bomb detonated against a granite-walled bunker would be at least 30 times less effective. Even the biggest nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal--the nine-megaton B-53--would leave some 200-meter-deep bunkers intact.

And that's the good news. To destroy underground bunkers and chemical or biological agents, nuclear weapons must be detonated at or below the earth's surface. Their radioactive products attach to bits of earth and rock, falling back to the ground within minutes or hours, before their radioactivity has had time to decay. For all their physical destructiveness, the nuclear weapons that exploded 1,000 feet over Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced little lingering fallout; people entering the cities immediately after the attacks were unharmed. In contrast, radioactive fallout from a Hiroshima-sized bomb detonated at ground level would kill civilians as far as 30 kilometers downwind; for our nine-megaton bomb, that distance would be increased more than tenfold. That bomb, if dropped in western Iraq, could contaminate cities as far away as Tel Aviv. American troops would have to avoid contaminated zones, complicating battlefield strategy and tactics.

Fortunately, the hypothetical choice presented by nuclear weapons proponents such as Weldon--nuke Saddam or leave him alone--is a false one. Since before the Gulf war, American engineers have been developing an array of techniques and technologies specially designed to attack underground bunkers. While some work has focused on bruteforce solutions--building conventional bombs with bigger blasts and high-speed missiles that penetrate deeper underground--the scientists have also made great strides in learning to disable enemy bunkers without physically destroying them. By collapsing entrance tunnels, severing power lines, bombing communications antennae, and closing ventilation ducts, American forces can "functionally" destroy underground facilities. Special forces, featured in Afghanistan, could play a critical role. In contrast with physically destroying facilities, this strategy would allow American troops to enter bunkers later and collect vital intelligence.

Biological and chemical targets present a different challenge since a U.S. attack could spread deadly agents across the countryside. Indeed, a typical bomb detonated against a facility holding a substantial amount of anthrax could, depending on the conditions, kill as many people as a small nuclear weapon. But again, the apparent choices--incinerate the anthrax with a nuclear bomb but spread radioactive fallout, or spread live anthrax but avoid nuclear fallout--are not the only ones. The United States has developed thermobaric bombs that generate high temperatures in closed spaces, neutralizing exposed spores. Air Force laboratories are also developing potent payloads that chemically neutralize agents on contact. And, if chemical or biological agents are accidentally dispersed, American troops can defend themselves with protective gear. In contrast, special clothing cannot provide complete protection against the radioactive fallout from friendly nuclear fire.

America's greatest weakness is in intelligence, not explosive power. Osama bin Laden survived in Afghanistan not because our bombs were too small but because we could not find him. Most of Saddam's bioweapons survived the Gulf war unscathed not because we feared collateral damage but because we did not yet know Saddam's stockpiles existed; even today, inspectors are unable to find Saddam's biological weapons. And, even if we choose to attack North Korea's nuclear program, we will be unable to destroy its uranium-enrichment facilities, not for lack of weaponry but because we do not know where these sites are.

Political fallout from the use, or even threat, of nuclear weapons elevates this discussion beyond mere technical quibbling. The Bush administration seems oblivious to the irony in using nuclear weapons to fight a war against nuclear proliferation. Certainly, the nuclear taboo is not a panacea--Kim Jong Il and Saddam care little about international norms--but it is still valuable. By needlessly claiming that we need nuclear weapons to fill military holes, we confirm all the worst international stereotypes about a trigger-happy Bush administration, undermine our argument that others should forego them, and weaken our coalitions. We weaken our coalitions by undermining global regimes, such as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, that our allies strongly support.

The administration's "clarifications" are only making things worse. Following a Los Angeles Times revelation of nuclear contingency-planning against Iraq, the White House sent Chief of Staff Andy Card to "Meet the Press" to explain. After bumbling through a technical discussion of Iraq's nuclear program, Card asserted unhelpfully that the United States would neither rule in nor rule out nuclear attacks. Two days later, responding to reporters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Elizabeth Jones--a strange choice for handling this issue--remarked, "Will the United States use limited nuclear weapons in Iraq? The answer is 'No.'" Her carelessly worded comment was promptly interpreted as ruling out limited nuclear strikes (Associated Press), all nuclear strikes (Agence France-Presse), and strikes using nuclear weapons of limited power (Russia's TASS).

Despite the administration's bungled pronouncements, some of its most hawkish backers are getting the right picture. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday" just before Andy Card's interview, Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle argued, "I can't think of a target of interest in a conflict with Iraq that could not be dealt with effectively by conventional weapons, non-nuclear weapons. ... I can't see why we would wish to use a nuclear weapon." The Prince of Darkness isn't about to campaign to ban the bomb, but, like most others, he knows that tactical nuclear weapons aren't very useful. It's time Bush learned the same.

**Sandman** · February 26, 2003, 14:11

Bah. This is a copycat thread. My thread had a much better pun as a title.

**Boris Godunov** · February 26, 2003, 14:14

Originally posted by Sandman
Bah. This is a copycat thread. My thread had a much better pun as a title.

But this one is spelled correctly.

**DuncanK** · February 26, 2003, 14:23

Originally posted by Sandman
Bah. This is a copycat thread. My thread had a much better pun as a title.

Sorry Sandman, but I wasn't sure if that one was an exact match. I didn't participate in that one much.

**chequita guevara** · February 26, 2003, 14:28

What NOVA said is that the major danger behind both types of weapons isn't the amount of death they cause. Both would be rather low. However, in order to keep those deaths low, there would be a massive disruption of the economy, etc.

For example, some theives stole a box containing a vial of radioactive cesium. The amount of radiotactive material was very small. But the clean up required the better part of a city to be scooped up and carted away, IIRC, 200,000 metric tons of debis for a vial.

Announcement

Weapons of Mass Disruption?

Weapons of Mass Disruption?

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment