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DON’T FEAR THE DIRTY BOMB

AL MAURONI OCTOBER 16, 2015 COMMENTARY

 

At the recent Democratic presidential debate, the candidates were asked to identify the biggest threat the

U.S. national security. Hillary Clinton, the candidate on stage with the most federal government

experience, stated that she most worried over “nuclear material that can fall into the wrong hands.” She

continued, “I know the terrorists are constantly seeking it, and that’s why we have to stay vigilant, but

also united around the world to prevent that.” Clinton’s answer came on the heels of an Associated Press

report about a criminal organization in Moldova that tried to sell nuclear material to an Islamic State

group. Predictably, the story received a lot of media attention.

The general public is afraid of radiation. It’s an irrational fear, driven by the imagination of what high

levels of uncontrolled radiation might do to our bodies or to our children, and spurred by high-pro�le

accidents in the nuclear energy business. However, no one died from radiation poisoning or acute

diseases as a result of the radioactive releases at Three Mile Island or Fukushima. Even at Chernobyl, less

than 30 people died within a few months from radiation sickness. Another 130 su�ered high doses of

radiation poisoning, most of whom recovered over a number of years. Cancer rates for those near

nuclear accidents are in line with those of the general population. But we’re terri�ed of invisible

radiation waves, despite being bombarded every day from a variety of natural and man-made sources of

radiation.

The panic over low-risk radiation exposure is bad enough. Nuclear terrorism raises the specter of fear

several notches, with the idea that some terrorist group might obtain �ssile material from somewhere in

the world and bring it to a United States city — someday. We don’t have any speci�cs as to who is

pursuing the material, where loose piles of material exist, or which cities are vulnerable, but other than

that, it could happen, right? This is not a partisan issue — both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack

Obama have warned of nuclear terrorism, the latter saying in 2010 that “The single biggest threat to U.S.

security … would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon.” I disagree,

considering there is more than one nation that could launch some seriously large-yield nuclear weapons

at the United States today, and that the aspects of probability and consequence has to be included in any

risk assessment. But I digress.

What I want to focus on is the deliberate manipulation of this public fear of radiation by people who

know better, but do so to advance their organizations’ agendas. These people do not di�erentiate between

radioactive and �ssile material. They want to put warnings about “dirty bombs” — otherwise known as

radiological dispersal devices — and nuclear weapons in the same op-ed, giving readers the impression

that immediate steps are necessary today to stop numerous terrorist groups from exploding a nuclear

bomb in New York City or Los Angeles like something out of 24.

Former Sen. Sam Nunn and Andrew Bieniawski are leaders within the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a

non-pro�t organization that wants to reduce the risk of use or proliferation of nuclear, biological, or

chemical weapons. Just two months ago, they warned in a Washington Post op-ed that the United States

was vulnerable to a “disaster posed by dangerous radiological materials,” that these materials could

wreak havoc and cause billions of dollars of damage unless the U.S. government took immediate steps to

secure dangerous radioactive material or replace commercially used isotopes with alternative

technologies. “It is nothing short of a miracle that we have not yet seen a dirty bomb terrorist attack,”

they say. And yet it isn’t. Yes, radioactive cesium, cobalt, iridium, americium, thorium, barium, tritium,

and many other isotopes are widely used in commercial practices and could be appropriated by a

determined thief who wasn’t too worried about getting severe radiation poisoning. Yes, there are

hundreds of cases of lost or stolen radioactive material every year, though overwhelmingly not highly

enriched uranium or plutonium. And yet there has never been a detonated dirty bomb in history. Ever.

Joe Cirincione is a little blunter than Nunn or Bieniawski, saying that it’s “just a matter of time before

ISIS — or some other terrorist group — gets some radioactive material.” These terrorists will “go nuclear,

hoping to deter our attacks,” and “short of a nuclear explosive bomb, a dirty bomb may serve the same

function.” But this logic does not hold together. The U.S. government has been �ghting Islamist terrorist

groups for decades, and — if one is to be optimistic — we’ve been pretty good in decimating al Qaeda,

probably the most determined terrorist group to seek unconventional weapons. So all of a sudden, now

terrorists are going to go nuclear in an e�ort to push the United States back? Iraq had decades to develop

a nuclear program — dedicated resources, personnel, infrastructure — and never built a bomb, but

somehow we’re supposed to be afraid that the self-proclaimed Islamic State is going to go nuclear, simply

because it has a territory to defend and we’re supporting the Iraqi government in e�orts to retake that

land? Cirincione knows there is a di�erence between nuclear weapons and dirty bombs, and he readily

admits that a dirty bomb will not kill many (if any) people. But he warns that “a few grams” of cesium or

americium in a dirty bomb could “contaminate tens of square blocks, making them uninhabitable for

weeks.”

That’s ridiculous. Let’s get past the impossible physics in which a heavy metal powder in the form of a

few grams gets dispersed miles from the point of a ground explosion. We have atmospheric dispersion

models and guidance to �gure these things out. What Cirincione means (but doesn’t say) is that public

o�cials, panicking because of the perception of radioactive dispersal in their city, will order the

evacuation of people from the contaminated area to include a healthy bu�er area further out, not because

of the actual public health risk of a few millicuries of radiation exposure every day, but because they

don’t want to be �red as a result of not being reactive enough. There was no rational basis for the U.S.

government to order all Americans living within 50 miles of Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear

plant to evacuate, other than fear. All that order did was spur the public’s panic and make Japan’s job of

dealing with its millions of citizens in the same area more di�cult. For a serious examination of the

threat of nuclear terrorism, I recommend reading Michael Levi or Brian Jenkins, both of whom do a

much better job on this serious issue.

So why does Andrew Bienawski tell the news media that “the threat is real” despite the utter lack of any

past terrorist use of dirty bombs and despite the fact that no state has ever lost control of a nuclear

weapon to a sub-state group. Why do arms control experts want to tell us about terrorist capabilities and

intentions regarding nuclear and radiological material? To be clear, there are some media sources who

�nd experts to o�er di�erent conclusions. VICE reached out to a Chatham House professor and a Stratfor

analyst who pointed out that the groups such as the Islamic State already had access to commercial

radioactive sources, rather than needing to go to criminal organizations. Richard Brown of King’s

College London points out the high cost of obtaining radioactive material and assesses that the return on

investment for terrorist groups would be poor.

The reason that Cirincione and his fellow arms control analysts want to beat the drum about the risk of

nuclear terrorism is that it feeds the public fear of nuclear weapons. We have lived with tens of thousands

of nuclear weapons for decades, and despite dramatic drops in the number of operational nuclear

weapons since 1991, the disarmament community would like to see the number go to zero. As long as

nuclear weapons exist in government arsenals, they reason, there’s the possibility that a terrorist

organization could get one. Similarly, environmental groups who oppose the building of nuclear reactors

will exaggerate the e�ects of radiation. Some science reporters will exaggerate the nuclear threat just

because it sells articles. Scaring the public about nuclear terrorism — even if it’s just in the form of a

dirty bomb — bene�ts their agendas.

I am delighted to see that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is working overseas with other nations’ law

enforcement agencies to interdict smuggling of radioactive material. I am convinced that our Intelligence

Community has an appropriate level of insight into this situation. I am supportive of the Department of

Energy’s e�orts to secure and lock down �ssile material across the globe. But as long as we have public

o�cials proclaiming that they cannot sleep at night because of the threat of nuclear terrorism, we cannot

have a serious and reasoned approach to this issue. The fact remains that the overwhelming threat from

terrorist groups will stem from their use of high-yield explosives, automatic ri�es, and kidnappings that

lead to executions, despite countless analysts who insist that terrorists are on the verge of having

doomsday devices, nuclear or otherwise.

I don’t trust an arms control expert to tell me how terrorists are going to employ unconventional

weapons. And I don’t trust a terrorist expert to tell me how a few grams of cesium in a car bomb will

”close down New York for months,” as Bob Baer recently suggested on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. Our

policymakers need to tone down the rhetoric about the threat of terrorists using radiological and nuclear

material, because the threat isn’t as probable as some make it out to be, and we really do have a good

amount of government resources against this challenge. Let’s talk about this issue in the larger context

of terrorist intentions and capabilities, rather than through this gut reaction to the primal fear of

radiation. When we do, I suspect that our policymaking will be a lot more rational and in balance with the

actual threats against the United States.

Al Mauroni is the Director of the U.S. Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies. The opinions, conclusions,

and recommendations expressed or implied within are those of the author and do not necessarily re�ect the views of the

Air University, U.S. Air Force, or Department of Defense.

COMMENTARY

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