GAO Lashes U.S. Radioactive Material Rules

By Jon Fox and Seamus Kraft
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON —  Undercover Government Accountability Office investigators posing as business operators were able to become licensed to buy enough industrial radioactive material to make a “dirty bomb,” according to a report on the investigation released today (see GSN, March 28, 2006).

Operating in West Virginia and Maryland, two states chosen for their proximity to Washington, D.C., the team of investigators attempted to obtain licenses to buy industrial equipment that contains radioactive sources.

In West Virginia, investigators received a license just 28 days after applying through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while more stringent requirements in Maryland led the GAO team to abandon the exercise there.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensed the phony West Virginia company after a few phone calls to undercover GAO investigators.  The investigators obtained the license “without ever leaving their desks” in Washington, D.C., according to the report.

Using widely available office equipment and software, the GAO team was then able to doctor the license to remove restrictions on the number of devices containing nuclear material it was permitted to buy.

The team was able obtain commitments from one supplier for 45 industrial moisture density gauges that contain americium and cesium isotopes that could be incorporated into a radiological dispersal device, or “dirty bomb” (see GSN, July 3).

While such a device might not kill a great number of people, the psychological and economic impact of such an attack in a dense urban area could be devastating, experts say.  The head of the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism efforts has called such an attack a “nightmare scenario.”

The Government Accountability Office abandoned the ruse in Maryland when it became apparent that obtaining the license there would take roughly seven months and that state officials would require a site visit to the nonexistent GAO business.

Maryland is one of 34 states that have received federal authority to conduct background checks on companies pursuing licenses in their jurisdiction.

“Given that terrorists have expressed an interest in obtaining nuclear material, the Congress and the American people expect licensing programs for these materials to be secure,” GAO investigator Gregory Kutz said in testimony today before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

While the investigators never actually bought the devices, the sting exposed what they called a failure of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to adequately take account of and protect against the threat of terrorists assembling a dirty bomb.

“In our view NRC has not been aggressive enough in licensing and tracking radiological sources of material that can be used in a dirty bomb,” said Eugene Aloise, who heads up nonproliferation and nuclear issues for the Government Accountability Office.  “We believe they need to be more aggressive in this area and we have for several years.”

Less than two weeks after the GAO team informed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its findings, commission officials issued additional screening criteria to help license examiners determine whether to require site visits or face-to-face meetings in evaluating applications.

While NRC Commissioner Edward McGaffigan acknowledged that practices must and have changed, he suggested that the dirty bomb threat has been over-hyped and that some of the sources people express concern about offer no more radiation than one would receive from a CAT scan to their chest.

Following GAO recommendations regarding the most dangerous industrial nuclear sources in 2003 — those the International Atomic Energy Agency has classified in categories 1 and 2, the most dangerous out of the five classifications — the commission took immediate action, McGaffigan told the Senate committee. The Government Accountability Office suggested then that the commission modify its licensing process by verifying the end use of the most dangerous of industrial radiation sources.

If GAO investigators had tried to obtain category 1 or 2 equipment, they would have been caught immediately, he said, while admitting the commission must make NRC licenses less susceptible to counterfeiting.  The licenses currently carry no safeguards such as watermarks or seals and GAO investigators suggested it would be as easy as cutting and pasting to alter them before faxing them to industrial suppliers.

The material GAO investigators arranged to buy would have landed within category 3 of the IAEA scale, but with more time, patience and money “we probably could have gotten up to category 2 levels,” Aloise said.

The operation was requested by Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), who said today that “it is clear that terrorists are interested in using dirty bombs to wreak havoc.”

“The fact is the dirty bomb is likely the worst terrorist threat we face as a nation today,” said Senator Thomas Carper (D-Del.).

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Coleman said, appears “to be more focused on the accident instead of the crime.”

“We are serious about this stuff,” McGaffigan said.  “Most people in the world regard us as a world leader,” he said, adding that the commission in considering bolstering safeguards around category 3 sources.

“I myself favor it,” he said.

Still, he called for a more robust dialogue regarding the dirty bomb threat and noted that even with 45 industrial gauges would-be terrorists would have the difficult job of extracting the americium from double-shielded containers. Without such protection, “you’ll kill yourself,” he said.

“Getting this material does not get you an effective dirty bomb,” McGaffigan said.

To an extent he faulted the industrial supplier for being willing to supply 45 gauges to a company no one had ever heard of.  That number would be enough to serve all the industrial applications not just in West Virginia but in the surrounding states as well.  “There should have been some bells going off,” he said.

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