The new "World at Risk" report from the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is an excellent and impressive document. But even though it contains more than 150 pages,and 50,000 words, of insight and advice, it does not do full justice to all the national/homeland security challenges that the U.S. faces.
Specifically, the Commission--using the catchy url PreventWMD.org--chooses to leave out the danger of a Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD), aka "dirty bombs" from its study. As the Commission explains on page 17:
While the mandate of the Commission was to examine the full sweep of the challenges posed by the nexus of terrorist activity and the proliferation of all forms of WMD—chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear—we concluded early in our deliberations that this report should focus solely on the two types of WMD categories that have the greatest potential to kill in the most massive numbers: biological and nuclear weapons.
In other words, dirty bombs are left out--not left out of terrorists' plans, but left out of the Commission's work. I don't think that this omission was intended to be a dismissal of the dirty bomb threat--the Commission seems plenty aware of the RDD threat, as we shall see below. Instead, I think that the Commission chose to keep its report "manageable," for audiences, perhaps, with short attention spans and limited "bandwidth." And that's an unfortunate choice.
Once again, I have great respect for this commission, and the work it has done, but I respectfully disagree with the RDD omission, and I am sure that my colleagues at the Radiological Threat Awareness Coalition (R-TAC) share in that opinion.
After all, it was the Government Accountability Office that concluded just a few months ago that some two million known potential sources for dirty bombs existed inside the United States. Repeat: Two million.
The vast majority of those sources--in medical offices, construction sites, and food processing facilities--are handled safely and securely. But if only one in a million of them are lost or let loose, by accident or by malevolence, well, as they say, "Houston, we have a problem."
Indeed, the Commission itself acknowledges that terrorist adversaries are fully aware of the devastating potential of an RDD. This chilling passage is found on page 34 of the Commission report:
On July 17, 2008, the Afghanistan National Police arrested Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman believed to have ties to al Qaeda, who reportedly had been acting suspiciously outside the governor’s compound in Ghazni province. Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at Brandeis University, where she earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience, she had been wanted by the FBI since 2004—the first woman sought by the law enforcement agency in connection with al Qaeda.
According to media accounts, when arrested she had in her possession a list of New York City landmarks, documents describing how to produce explosives, and details about chemical, biological, and radiological weapons. She was extradited to New York for trial on charges of attempted murder and assault of U.S. officers in Afghanistan.
And here's a further discussion of the dangerous situation in the Pakistan/ Afghanistan region, in which Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, the roster of planned attacks includes RDD in his list of serious concerns:
Al Qaeda’s Afghan safe haven was critical to its ability to plan and implement its attacks of September 11, 2001. Even then, Pakistan had a role as a transit country for some of the hijackers. But now it has become a key safe haven for al Qaeda, according to the most senior U.S. intelligence official. In February 2008, Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, testified to the House Intelligence Committee: “The FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] serves as a staging area for al Qaeda’s attacks in support of the Taliban in Afghanistan as well as a location for training new terrorist operatives for attacks in Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the United States.” A year previously, his office had published a National Intelligence Estimate asserting that al Qaeda “has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including: a safe haven in the Pakistan Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).” The National Intelligence Estimate added that “al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them if it develops what it deems is sufficient capability.” Another senior intelligence official responsible for dealing with terrorism recently affirmed that al Qaeda has strengthened its ties with Pakistani militants in the past year, replenished its mid-level lieutenants, enjoys in the FATA many of the benefits it enjoyed in Afghanistan before September 11, and remains the most serious terrorist threat to the United States. [page 95]
And finally, here's one are two more excerpts from the same report, detailing the concerns of two important world leaders, Robert Gates and Mohamed ElBaradei:
Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism
Every senior leader, when you’re asked what keeps you awake at night, it’s the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear. — Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
On October 28, 2008, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stood at the rostrum of the United Nations General Assembly and warned the world about nuclear terror.
“The possibility of terrorists obtaining nuclear or other radioactive material remains a grave threat,” said Dr. ElBaradei. A soft-spoken man, he let the power of his message make his case loudly and unmistakably—and it produced major news stories around the world. “The number of incidents reported to the Agency involving the theft or loss of nuclear or radioactive material is disturbingly high . . . ,” he said. “Equally troubling is the fact that much of this material is not subsequently recovered. Sometimes material is found which had not been reported missing.”
We live in a time of increasing nuclear peril. The number of states armed with nuclear weapons or seeking to acquire them is increasing. Terrorist organizations are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons or the material, technology, and expertise needed to build them. Trafficking in nuclear technology is a serious, persistent, and multidimensional problem. The worldwide expansion of nuclear power increases the
danger of proliferation. [p. 72]
The Commission has issued its report, and, once again, R-TAC applauds the Commission for its hard work. But we see serious omissions in the document, and we intend to continue calling attention to the security risks that continue to loom large--all the security risks. As the Commission said, "America's margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."
And that's no small matter, for me, for R-TAC, and for America.
