Hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee - Nuclear Terrorism: Assessing the Threat to the Homeland

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SEN. SUSAN M. COLLINS (R-ME): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The consequences of a nuclear attack on one of our major cities are nearly unimaginable. If a 10-kiloton nuclear device were detonated at noon in Manhattan's Times Square, half a million lives would be instantly extinguished. All buildings within a half-mile radius would be destroyed. The economic and psychological impacts would also be devastating.

Yet the threat of terrorists acquiring and using such a weapon is very real. Given their goal of causing as much death and destruction as possible, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups continue to seek to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction.

To be sure, our terrorist enemies have many other weapons more readily at their disposal -- improvised explosive devises, the terrorists' weapon of choice, have killed thousands and continue to threaten our troops and civilians around the world. Chemical weapons such as sarin gas have been directed against targets such as the Tokyo subway system. Dirty bombs using readily available radiological waste could also have serious consequences over a far more limited area than a nuclear blast.

Still, the concentrated force of a nuclear explosion, the radioactive contamination of the target and surrounding areas and the psychological and economic impact of such an attack place nuclear terrorism in a category all its own. That is why we're holding this hearing to examine closely the scope and nature of this threat.

More than 30 years ago the Federal Office of Technology Assessment concluded that, quote, "A small group of people, none of whom have ever had access to the classified literature, could possibly design and build a crude nuclear explosive device," end quote. That is, with a machine shop and less than 100 pounds of enriched uranium, terrorists conceivably could assemble an atomic bomb that could deliver about two-thirds the explosive force of the bomb that devastated Hiroshima in 1945.

Of course, even determined and resourceful terrorists face significant challenges in obtaining the material to be used to construct a bomb, in assembling the device, in transporting it and in successfully detonating it. Terrorists could avoid some of these difficulties by procuring an existing weapon, which is why nonproliferation and nuclear security efforts are so important. Moreover, our nation has taken many actions to decrease their chances of success even further. For example, we have installed radiation detection monitors in the nation's 22 largest seaports.

The probability may be low that terrorists could successfully stage a nuclear attack. Indeed, their current plans likely include much less technologically difficult options. But a nuclear attack would fulfill al Qaeda's goal of a spectacular attack, and it is a possibility that we cannot ignore. As one of our witnesses has written, "Nuclear terrorism remains a real and urgent danger."

Our efforts must include robust intelligence initiatives to identify those groups like al Qaeda that may be planning such attacks and to disrupt their operations before they can succeed. Close interagency cooperation and information sharing with our allies can help to counter this threat. We must also plan as effective a response as possible to such a devastating attack.

The National Response Framework provides the foundation on which DHS, FEMA, the Department of Defense and other critical agencies coordinate their resources to deal with the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear attack, but we know already that they would confront overwhelmed or obliterated local response capabilities, mass casualties, evacuations and demands for food and shelter. This committee therefore continues to assess the adequacy of preparation and response capabilities.

Today's witnesses will help us take the measure of the threat. That judgment, in turn, can guide our thinking on the adequacy of the intelligence, diplomatic, technical and other measures that we use to secure nuclear weapons and to prevent theft and black market sales, detect radioactive shipments, penetrate terrorist networks, discourage nuclear proliferation and otherwise counter this threat.

Today's hearings, as well as those to follow, will help us ensure that our choices, our policy options are grounded in the best information and analysis that we can muster. I commend the chairman for convening this hearing, and I join him in welcoming our distinguished witnesses.

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SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.

Mr. Mowatt-Larssen, I'm going to follow up on the questions that the chairman just asked you. Obviously, keeping nuclear weapons or material from being stolen is a very important tool for preventing nuclear terrorism. Our next witness, Mr. Bunn, also wrote in an analysis last fall that the myriad routes across the world's scantily protected borders makes nuclear smuggling almost impossible to stop. Let me ask you two questions which flow from the conversation you've had with the chairman, as well as Mr. Bunn's column.

First, does the United States government have a comprehensive list assessing which facilities around the world pose the most serious risks of nuclear theft?

MR. MOWATT-LARSSEN: Senator Collins, yes. We have a program called the Nuclear Materials Information Program. It was created in August 2006. It is in development. It is not at that comprehensive level yet to give you the assurance that we have this problem in hand. By no means am I suggesting that. We do have a plan. We are working the plan. We have prioritized this program to focus on countries and facilities that we regard in the intelligence community to be of the highest risk. So we have in fact identified the high-risk sites. We have identified what type of material is there. We have an assessment, an ongoing assessment, it's being updated every day, on the status at the highest priority level. It's a work in progress. It's going to take a number of years to complete, but I would say we have a plan. But I would not disagree with Mr. Bunn's assertion that we've got a long way to go to feel good about smuggling of nuclear material.

SEN. COLLINS: Second, in general terms, where are the sites that pose the highest risks of nuclear theft today? I'm trying to get a sense of whether the risks are more concentrated in a country like Pakistan, or nuclear weapons in Russia, or whether the problem is domestic, as well as perhaps college campuses that have nuclear reactors for research purposes and may not have them as secure. Give us your assessment of where, in general, the sites posing the most concern are located.

MR. MOWATT-LARSSEN: Well, clearly we know that every country, every state with nuclear material takes the security of the material utmost seriously, including the governments of Pakistan, Russia, the United States and other countries. That said, obviously our biggest concern are states that potentially are less stable or where there is a greater interest by terrorists to acquire the material, and of course we pay our -- we prioritize and pay most attention to those countries. We also, in our scope of how we look at nuclear materials globally, we of course include the United States in that category. We don't exclude the possibility that the problem could happen at home, whether it's the expertise or material. But yes, we have a very clear prioritization. I'd be happy to get into more details on the progress we're making in the next session.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.

Mr. Allen, the well-documented proliferation activities of the former Pakistani chief nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, have highlighted the increased threat of nuclear terrorism.

To what extent is the intelligence community concerned about the past activities of A.Q. Khan or other similarly knowledgeable scientists who might be willing to collaborate with terrorist organizations?

MR. ALLEN: That's a good question, Senator, and having someone who followed A.Q. Khan as my friend Rolf did over a period of years, we believe that there are still issues yet to be resolved with the A. Q. Khan network. Fortunately, that network was severely disrupted, and most of the people are no longer able to conduct that kind of activity. It was really becoming sort of the one-stop shopping for the provision of nuclear designs and centrifuges, as it's been well publicized. I believe that the threat -- there are at times, and we might talk a little about it -- there are scientists around the world who may hold radical views, the insider threat, who might take materials or other kinds of hard, very complex equipment, like centrifuges. I think this -- again, we have to have a regimen that's not only here in the United States, which we do have, but worldwide to prevent these kinds of scientists who really become the rogue scientists , and A.Q. Khan became an extraordinary rogue scientist who reached around the world globally, not only in the Middle East but in East Asia, as you are well concerned. A.Q. Khan, I think, is something we want to stop in the future, and it's got to take great cooperation with all civilized countries.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.

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SEN. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just have two more questions that I'd like to ask our witnesses today.

Mr. Allen, starting again where the chairman left off, I'd like to get a better sense of how the analysis of the threat that you do and other intelligence agencies do influence the investment decisions of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, DNDO. In other words, there is obviously communication that you give on the threat, on intelligence, but I'm unclear how this threat information and advice actually influences the investment decisions of DNDO.

Could you talk to us about that?

MR. ALLEN: Well, I think it's not only our assessments but, as you know, there's some very powerful analytic capabilities within other agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Counterterrorism Center, and I believe in the classified session you'll have Mr. Leiter there. But the combination of this, and as we look out strategically at what this country will face I think has a profound effect on decision making not only of the secretary but of the director and his staff at the DNDO as far as looking at more advanced systems to avoid false positives, to make sure our equipment can really detect materials.

We face some very serious challenges in shielded materials and there's technology being looked at to try to defeat those who would shield the materials as they're brought into the country.

So I think we have a direct influence, but we do it in partnership particularly with the Department of Energy.

SEN. COLLINS: Mr. Mowatt-Larssen, in your statement, you discuss how the 20th century was defined by a nuclear arms race between states and that the 21st century will be defined first by the desire and then by the ability of non-states to procure, develop crude nuclear weapons. Now in the Cold War scenario, the ability to attribute an attack to a state actor was fairly straightforward, and thus that served as a powerful deterrent from one nation attacking another with nuclear weapons. But that appears to no longer be the case, given the complex nature of the threat posed by terrorist groups.

To what extent does the ability to attribute the nuclear material used by -- that would be used by a terrorist group in constructing a weapon serve as a deterrent to a state that might provide the material?

MR. MOWATT-LARSSEN: Senator Collins, I think that's an excellent question. Certainly it is one of the most complex problems we have is to define the attribution issue, preferably before the event in terms of whether it happens in the context of intelligence information or interdiction or information that a group has obtained this kind of material or we get a sample from, say, an agent or these kinds of things.

In the event of an attribution, we are working to do the basics right now to ensure we pull all these things together so we can find what we know. And I can address this in more depth in the next session.

I would also add that we shouldn't, in my view, give up on the notion of deterrence applied to this problem. It's going to be different than mutually assured destruction perhaps, but one aspect of it is -- the weapon -- a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist group will only be useful if the group can fulfill -- believes it can fulfill its aims with those weapons. I believe we have a chance to deter, whether it's al Qaeda, even change in the longer term to the extent that it is unpalatable for any faith, any country, any individual in the world to believe that a nuclear weapon can solve our problems.

So there's -- we often talk about nuclear weapons in the hands of a terrorist as being undeterrable; if they have it, they'll use it. I would just suggest here that we need to think real hard and do a lot more work in devising a strategic doctrine that will govern how we respond, whether it's in attribution context or the deterrence.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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SEN. COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Bunn, let me begin by thanking you for your comments on the effectiveness of the 100 percent scanning of cargo containers. I believe that Congress made a real mistake in going in that direction last year. I thought the risk-based layered security approach of the Safe Ports Act was far more effective and a better targeting of resources.

So I very much appreciate your comments on that.

I asked our previous witness about some comments that you made in your very good report of last September about whether the United States government is compiling a comprehensive prioritized risk-based list of troubling sites across the globe and the witnesses indicate that work has begun on that. Could you give us your assessment, to the extent that you are aware of what they're doing, of how far along we are in what seems to be a very important process to guide our work?

MR. BUNN: Well, let me begin my answer to that by saying my clearances haven't been active for some time, so that constrains greatly the detail of my knowledge of what Rolf and his colleagues are doing, but within that constraint, I'm very enthusiastic about what they're doing. I've been calling for creating, you know -- it's probably not a single database, it's probably a complex of knowledge, but something that would have everything we know about the quantity and quality of nuclear material and nuclear weapons at different places around the world, everything we know about how secure those facilities are, and then also everything we know about the threats that those facilities face, because you could easily imagine that a security system that was perfectly adequate in Canada wouldn't be adequate in Pakistan, because the jihadis can bring a lot more force to bear in Pakistan than they can in Canada.

And it's my understanding that they are putting that together right now, that they are doing it in a prioritized way so that a lot of the things that, you know, you would guess offhand would be the highest risk sites are already sort of deeply analyzed in their nuclear materials information programs.

So my hat's off to them. It's one of -- my Clinton-era colleagues don't like to hear this, but it is actually true now that the Bush administration has done greatly more than we managed to get done in the Clinton years on a variety of these programs, securing nuclear material and now to collect intelligence on it and so on, and I think we have to give credit where credit is due.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you.

MR. BUNN: I think there's a lot more yet to be done, but.

SEN. COLLINS: Right.

Mr. Ackerman, I was intrigued by your notion of the black swans because it brought to mind another memorable phrase, and that is the failure of imagination which the 9/11 commission pointed to as one of the problems with anticipating the attacks on our country in 2001. And your black swans are trying to help us think of unlikely but still possible events that could happen.

Now, one of the factors that would help facilitate nuclear terrorism that you identified is the advancement of technology that will inevitably make nuclear devices easier to design and build. What efforts can you undertake to counter advances in technology? That seems like a very difficult one. You obviously can't stop science. You can't stop the progression of technology. So how do you -- what suggestions do you have for dealing -- for mitigating that trend?

MR. ACKERMAN: That's an excellent question, Senator. In terms of the dangers posed by technology, it's not just the technologies themselves, but it's also how the adversaries will react to those technologies. Will they adopt them? Will they even be aware of them? Because we could create a very dangerous technology; if nobody's aware of it, it's okay.

There are no technologies -- and I can talk on this point in more detail but I'd rather not do it in the public setting on exactly which technologies, but there are no technologies that are currently mature enough to enable this, but there are candidate technologies that may one day be mature enough to look at this. I think that some of those technologies can be controlled. They don't have any other application but enriching nuclear material.

Other potential technologies might come from a completely different sector, from the health sector, from industrial sector. It might just be one of those things where somebody say, oh, you know, there's a way, nobody ever thought of doing this before, we can now do it. That's something I don't think -- once the genie's out of the bottle in today's -- you know, once the first paper is written on this or once the -- you know, once it arrives on the Internet, I think there's very little we can do.

What I do think we need to do is to look at that particular day and at least come up with contingencies with how we're going to -- because on that day, the securing of other fissile materials becomes a lot less central to the problem. It then becomes one part of a much larger problem. So I think that what we need to do is think creative here about how we'll deal with that. But there are no easy answers.

SEN. COLLINS: And there may be counter technologies that are also advancing that give us more means to detect, deter, prevent such an attack also.

Dr. Bunn.

MR. BUNN: I would argue that some of the near-term things in terms of the spread that Dr. Ackerman was talking about of more people having precision machining capabilities, more people having explosive engineering capabilities, I think that is, to some extent, inevitable, but to the extent that our broader counterterrorism efforts succeed, especially in sort of winning hearts and minds among technical experts who know a lot about explosives or who know a lot about machining or things like that -- then we can still, I think, hold the line or even reduce the ability of terrorist groups to get access to the people who know how to do the precision machining and the people who know how to do the explosives.

So I think there's an inevitable dispersion of that kind of knowledge, but it's not inevitable that it disperses into the hands of the most dangerous adversaries; at least, we can affect the rate at which that happens, I think.

SEN. COLLINS: Thank you. Excellent testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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