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Radiological Weapons Still Under the Radar, According to Those Working on Threat By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — The potential for a radiological attack on the United States continues to receive less attention in Washington than nuclear, biological and chemical threats, despite a widely held view that a radiological attack is more likely than the others, officials and experts said here yesterday (see GSN, July 11). During a discussion at the Center for American Progress, panelists and audience members variously blamed Congress, President George W. Bush’s administration and policy institutes for giving too little attention to the “dirty bomb” threat. “Why isn’t there a sponsor — a champion for this?” asked Garry Tittemore, who directs the Global Radiological Threat Reduction Office in the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Tittemore, speaking from the audience at the panel discussion, questioned why the radiological threat has not spawned the creation of subject-specific nongovernmental organizations of the sort that are devoted to the dangers posed by nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. In a survey released last month by Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a founder of the U.S. nuclear threat-reduction program, 85 leading officials, diplomats, scientists and experts in the field deemed a major radiological attack on a city more likely to occur in the next five years than a major nuclear, biological or chemical strike. The group is “almost a who’s who in the arms control community,” Tittemore said (see GSN, June 22). Despite the concern, the director of international programs in Tittemore’s office, Ioanna Iliopulos, told the panel, “We don’t have any champions out there in the NGO and other communities.” Center for American Progress national-security analyst Andrew Grotto, a panelist, said programs to address nuclear, biological and chemical threats are a “legacy” of the Cold War but that “there is no real arms control community for” radiological sources. “On the Hill,” added another panelist, American Association for the Advancement of Science Senior Program Associate Benn Tannenbaum, “there are very few people who are active on this particular topic.” Budgets for such activities as tracking and securing industrial and medical radiation sources remain small in comparison to those devoted to combating nuclear and other WMD proliferation. The NNSA Global Threat Reduction Initiative is to receive $98 million in fiscal 2006, up from $94 million in 2005 and $69 million in 2004, according to NNSA figures. Within that initiative is Tittemore’s office, which participants at the discussion said is the only U.S. government program devoted to the radiological threat. That office includes Iliopulos’ international program, funding for which has decreased from $30 million in fiscal 2004 to $24 million per year in fiscal 2005 and 2006, and a domestic component, funded for fiscal 2006 at close to $13 million, or more than twice the 2004 figure. The administration attributes the cut in the international budget to falling costs for installation of equipment to secure radiological materials. By comparison, the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program — one of several U.S. programs focused on nuclear sources — annually receives more than $400 million. In a report released yesterday, Grotto criticized the Bush administration for failing to make the “clear” radiological threat a “high enough priority.” “Major gaps remain in efforts to control devices that house radiological materials,” he wrote. “There is no domestic mechanism for reliably tracking the location and condition of all radiological sources, and the situation is often worse in other countries. Efforts to identify and intercept illicit shipments need better coordination and more resources. The United States lacks the capacity to effectively respond to an attack.” In what Grotto called one of the “positive developments” in addressing the threat, members of Congress are seeking to increase the security of U.S. radiation sources. The current version of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which is reportedly on the verge of final congressional approval, contains provisions that would place new restrictions on radiation-source exports and require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to set up a tracking system for radiation sources in the United States.
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