Hearing of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity and Science and Technology - H.R. 2631, the Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-TX): I thank the chairman.

The detonation of a nuclear device in an urban area of this country would be catastrophic. Reducing the risk of nuclear or radiological terrorism requires a layered system of defenses that involves deterring, detecting, disrupting and recovering from terrorist attacks.

We spend a great deal of time in this Congress discussing DNDO's efforts to deploy radiation portal monitors at our nation's ports of entry. These monitors staffed by Customs and Border Protection officers are the nation's first line of defense against illicit trafficking of nuclear and radiological material. I would like to take this opportunity to commend DNDO on their achievements in this area.

Mr. Oxford, to me I've been very impressed that in only 18 months your organization has deployed radiation monitors which now screen 91 percent of cargo coming across the Northern border and 97 percent of cargo coming across the Southern border.

In the next several months, Secretary Chertoff is expected to make a decision on the certification of the advanced spectroscopic portal monitors. I hope this technology demonstrates a significant improvement over current radiation portal monitors, allowing Customs and Border Protection to improve accuracy while maintaining this high percentage of cargo screening.

But even with the best possible detection systems, the possibility remains that terrorists could beat the system and sneak something past one of our detectors or through a non-official port of entry. That is why defense against terrorism, especially nuclear terrorism, requires this multilayered approach.

Today we're here to discuss one of the layers in the government strategy to defend against nuclear terrorism, and that layer is the interagency program of technical and nuclear forensics and the role it plays in attribution. While forensics is only one component of attribution, it is a key part of ensuring the nation has a robust program to accurately and rapidly identify perpetrators of nuclear or radiological terrorism. The forensics program we have today includes programs in Defense, the intelligence community, law enforcement, Homeland Security and our national laboratories.

I look forward to hearing the progress DHS has made in coordinating this interagency program, and I also hope to hear the role each department plays in the acquisition, analysis and characterization of radiological and nuclear material that would be necessary in the case of a successful nuclear attack.

The main concern of this committee is the pipeline of qualified people into the fields associated with nuclear forensics. In recent years, the number of young people entering scientific fields has decreased. The nuclear fields in particular are suffering, especially in fields relevant to nuclear forensics, which may have no commercial counterpart. I'm very interested to know the panel's thoughts on this issue as well and what is in store for technical programs such as this one if this trend continues.

I thank the panels for being here, and I yield back my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. MCCAUL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This raises a lot of serious issues that -- this committee is always involved with very serious issues. But when you look at the world today, when you look at Pakistan, the A.Q. Khan network, Pakistan has the capability. We have Musharraf in power. But there are a lot of hostile forces to him, and the thought of that capability being turned over to more extreme forces gives me great pause.

You have Iran on the quest for a nuclear weapon, North Korea. You have the former Soviet Union, and not quite sure if we to this day have a handle or accountability of the nuclear weapons that they had.

So proliferation is a huge issue, and so detecting and deterring it is very, very important. I think the focus of this hearing, I guess, with forensics, is more after it is apprehended or, God forbid, after it's been detonated, where does it come from?

And so getting back to the database, because I share the chairman's concern about -- and I understand some of this could be in a different setting -- but the level of cooperation with many of these suspect countries I assume is very limited, if zero.

So it raises the issue of the effectiveness of us in the United States, the administration and the IAEA to effectively put some teeth into developing a database so that we can truly trace back where this comes from if, God forbid, it happens.

And if this has already been answered, I apologize, but it's just a question I think is worth asking again in terms of any pressure that can be put on the IAEA or the United Nations to expand the database and have more cooperation throughout the world.

And that's for anybody on the panel.

MR. GRANT: I'll just answer one element of that that I think will provide you a little insight.

Recently, in fact, Pakistan has decided to volunteer database material to the Illicit Trafficking Database. Now, that's one of the only and few, really, standing databases where they can, if you will, demonstrate their cooperation for this issue. Also, just in the last couple months, Pakistan has also become a Global Initiative partner and we expect them to participate in our Global Initiative activities on this particular issue.

Again, these are very modest beginnings, but I think in that particular space, recognizing the concerns for that country, along with the others who also participate, that is showing important steps forward for sharing our support and interest in this area.

REP. MCCAUL: Is there anything we in the Congress can be doing?

And Mr. Oxford, I'll let you answer that, and in addition to that question, anything that we in the Congress can be doing to apply leverage?

MR. OXFORD: First of all, to get to your latter question, I think just having this hearing and raising this subject is an important step. The interagency has been working hard the last year to identify what the gaps and capabilities are that we need to proceed with.

Getting back to what Mr. Grant was saying, when the announcement of the Global Initiative first took place there was a modest number of countries -- I think there were about 13 that first subscribed to that initiative. The number of countries now subscribed in the Global Initiative is 55.

So we're seeing a willingness to at least start the dialogue. As Mr. Grant says, there's a lot of work yet to be done, but forensics is part of the work package that is being brought under the Global Initiative and we think that's encouraging.

REP. MCCAUL: It certainly is.

Dr. Burns, just a specific question for you. The training of talent and expertise in this issue or on this area of expertise is very challenging, I think. Can you speak to the level of the work force in this area and also to retirements? Because I think most people that had a lot of experience in nuclear forensics -- we don't have that young talent that I think we need to have in this country.

MS. BURNS: There's been some information that was self-professed by the laboratory, so this is self-reporting data now, that indicates if you try and identify the number of people who spend most of their time working on technical forensics problems, it's probably on the order of 20 to 30 -- a small number.

Then if you look at the broader community within the laboratories that are spending a portion of their time working on technical forensics issues, it reaches to about 200. Now, if you look at the demographics associated with that, we find that in fact there is a challenge and that there's not -- of the people who are spending full time on the effort, those tend to be predominately over 50, and in fact, in some cases we have retirees staffing significant roles. So I think that's going to be -- that proves that over the next 10 years, we'll have a concern.

REP. MCCAUL: Any solution to that?

MS. BURNS: Well, part of the solution is to identify additional people we can bring in and perhaps some of the education will go on through our educational system, but something else perhaps we can in fact do is make sure that our senior staff are provided with some time working on the programs specifically to mentor younger staff.

That's very challenging financially for programs to support people who are largely serving in that sort of training function, but that knowledge transfer I think is going to be critical in the short term.

REP. MCCAUL: And I agree.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source