More Nuclear Detectives Needed in Crisis, Groups Say

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

BOSTON — The United States does not have nearly enough “atomic detectives” to deal with a crisis involving a nuclear device, two science organizations said in a report issued Saturday (see GSN, Oct. 11, 2007).

U.S. national laboratories now have between 35 and 50 nuclear forensics specialists who would provide crucial expertise in tracking the source of a nuclear weapon before or after it is detonated. 

At least 10 more scientists are needed under any circumstances and the existing corps would have to be two to three times larger to provide adequate field and laboratory support during an emergency, an experts’ panel said in a document issued jointly by the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“We found that while the people involved were the best in the world, there were too few of them in case of an emergency,” working group leader Michael May, former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, said Saturday during the annual AAAS meeting.

An emergency would encompass the detonation of a nuclear device, interception of an operational weapon or discovery of a sufficient amount of material to produce a weapon, one AAAS spokesman said today.

Nuclear forensics is “the analysis of nuclear materials recovered from either the capture of unused materials, or from the radioactive debris following a nuclear explosion,” the report says.  It uses a host of disciplines, including nuclear engineering and radiochemistry, to uncover age, provenance and other details of atomic matter.

Forensics is one component of a larger program of intelligence-gathering intended to indicate the origin of nuclear material — which is regularly found floating loose — or an entire nuclear weapon — none of which are yet known to have gone missing (see GSN, Feb. 19).

Concerns regarding the U.S. forensics corps are not limited to its existing size.  Up to half of the scientists now on the job are expected to retire in the coming 10 to 15 years, while others are likely to move onto other positions in the next decade, the report says.  The pipeline of new scientists receiving the necessary education is also running dry, with a shrinking number of universities offering programs in radio and nuclear chemistry.

In order to bring staffing to needed levels, 35 trained scientists must be placed at the national laboratories over the next decade.  That requires long-term funding for university radiochemistry programs and initiatives to increase connections between academic institutions and the national laboratories, according to the report.

The panel also urged governments to push past using the existing but limited databases of nuclear material in favor of a larger shared system that would allow quick access by scientists searching for a possible match to material left by a nuclear detonation.  They acknowledged, though, the difficulty of persuading governments or commercial operations to make sensitive information widely available.

International technical and operational cooperation would also be key following a nuclear strike, the report says.

It calls for a program to develop improved forensics technology both for field investigations and for U.S. laboratories.  The final recommendations promote training exercises to prepare for the response to a nuclear detonation and establishment of groups to review the exercises and to provide expert advice on forensics findings.

“In terms of the United States, we believe that international cooperation is vitally important and we would also argue that nuclear forensics helps provide in essence a first line of defense,” said David Smith, a senior nuclear forensics adviser at Lawrence Livermore.  “We would rather not respond to a horrific act of an explosion by emphasizing security of nuclear materials at their source and using nuclear forensics to make sure that they’re not leaking from those sources.”

Forensics has a role in a system of deterrence against an act of nuclear terrorism, the report says.  While the risk of being identified might not be enough to prevent terrorists from setting off a nuclear weapon, it could prove more effective in giving second thoughts to states likely to provide the material for an attack, intermediaries who would help facilitate a strike, and the engineers or other technicians needed to make sure it comes off, according to the experts.

“Each of these groups has a different motivation and can be stopped by different means,” the report says.

The document also posits roles for forensics following an attack, including helping to prevent additional strikes and in identifying the supply chain that allowed for the first incident.

May said officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration and other relevant agencies attended meetings of the working group as it prepared the report (see GSN, Feb. 5).  Panel members hope to brief lawmakers and congressional staffers on the findings, he said.

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