By Jon Fox, Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Adequate planning for the aftermath of an act of nuclear terrorism could save hundreds of thousands of lives, but nearly five years after the attacks of Sept. 11 those contingency plans still do not exist, according to a report released last week by the Physicians for Social Responsibility (see GSN, May 25). Examining three scenarios — a nuclear blast in an urban area, an attack on a nuclear power plant and the detonation of a radiological “dirty bomb” in the heart of a city — the report says a quick decision to either evacuate or shelter downwind populations would be the most important factor in limiting deaths. Despite the importance of taking swift action, however, the United States still has no plan for determining whether to mount an evacuation or shelter residents, according to the report. The report warns the lack of such a plan could lead to hundreds of thousands of conceivably preventable deaths. The federal response last year to Hurricane Katrina “suggests there is no clearly designated individual or group to make the decision to evacuate or shelter and no clearly defined criteria for making that decision.” “The consequences of nuclear terrorism are unbelievable and unimaginable,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, who appeared with other representatives of Physicians for Social Responsibility to release the report in Washington. “It would make Katrina look like a rainstorm,” he said. Considering the case of a modest 12.5-kiloton explosion in lower Manhattan –—about the size of the weapon the United States dropped on Hiroshima during the final days of World War II — the group estimates about 52,000 people would be killed instantly by the heat and blast of the bomb. The authors estimate that an additional 238,000 people would be exposed to direct radiation from the explosion, basing their numbers on a 2002 study published in the British Medical Journal. There would likely be 44,000 cases of acute radiation sickness, with 10,000 of those ending in death. The deaths within the blast radius would be unavoidable, as would the immediate radiation exposure, but the authors argue that hundreds of thousands of deaths resulting from a massive radiation plume drifting across the New York metro area could be prevented. As many as 1.5 million residents could be exposed to radioactive debris drifting miles from the blast’s epicenter. Assuming a prevailing wind from the west, within two days a cloud of potentially lethal dust could drift well into Long Island, according to the report. The fallout could kill an additional 200,000 people and cause hundreds of thousands of cases of acute radiation sickness. By evacuating residents or advising them to find shelter during the most lethal period of exposure, authorities could prevent many deaths, according to the report’s authors. They caution that such widespread exposure to radiation, as well as related traumatic injuries, would almost certainly overwhelm the medical response capacity. In addition, many of the treatment facilities would likely be in areas affected by radiation. “Five years after Sept. 11 the United States remains dangerously unprepared to deal with the aftermath of nuclear terrorism attack,” said Ira Helfand, one of the report’s authors. “The Department of Homeland Security needs to simply do its job,” he said. “It needs to create an effective overall coordinated strategic response plan to guide us in the event of a nuclear terrorist attack.” Homeland Security maintains contact with between 50 and 60 medical organizations prepared to provide assistance in wake of a disaster. That is unlikely to be sufficient, Helfand said. The report’s recommendations include establishing a national disaster medical system that increases the number of medical assistance teams, allows for the rapid mobilization of existing military medical teams, and integrates volunteer medical professionals into the government response. The report also recommends positioning radiation protection and monitoring equipment in areas at a high risk for attack and establishing mobile field hospitals near such urban areas. The authors also stressed the importance of a central coordinating authority and a clear chain of command in the case of such a “megadisaster.” Redlener called the current response framework “just disorganized.” In Washington, D.C., where the report criticizes the lack of clearly marked road signs indicating evacuation routes, emergency plans have been in constant development since Sept. 11, 2001, said Sharon Gang, a spokeswoman for Mayor Anthony Williams. “Sept. 11 changed everything for everybody,” she said. Hurricane Katrina also made the city take another hard look at its plans. “We learn as we go,” she said. Following a terrorist nuclear strike, a decision to either evacuate or shelter would come from the mayor’s office, Gang said. The general advice, however, is for residents to shelter in place, she said. The city has an evacuation plan, which it tested on July 4 after downtown fireworks drew hundreds of thousands of spectators. Officials gave themselves a grade of “A-minus” for the exercise that included cooperation with agencies in Maryland and Virginia. Roads around the National Mall remained closed for half an hour after the fireworks to allow pedestrians to walk to their cars, and nearby traffic lights were retimed to stay green for longer periods. Police were also posted at critical intersections to keep traffic flowing. In Maryland and Virginia, officials also retimed lights to keep traffic moving smoothly into the suburbs. “We’ve made a lot of progress and we’ve institutionalized our relationships with our other counterparts in the region,” Gang said.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani have rescheduled for Saturday a meeting to discuss the potential for negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Sept. 6). Representatives from the world powers are scheduled to meet in Berlin today to coordinate policy. France, Germany and the United Kingdom, meanwhile, warned that Iran is using delaying tactics to divide the U.N. Security Council, the permanent members of which, along with Germany, put forth a compromise proposal in June. “The Iranian goal obviously is to split the international community,” says a confidential document apparently drafted by the European powers. The document says the council will have to weigh “further steps” if Iran continues to enrich uranium. It also accuses Tehran of hedging in response to the compromise offer. “The reply is along the lines of previous Iranian statements in that typically it neither accepts nor rejects outright” the proposal, the document says. It describes Iran’s response as “verbose and complicated, and ambiguous in many places” (Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7). Experts and diplomats said today’s meeting in Berlin is unlikely to lead to any decision on sanctions, Agence France-Presse reported today. “They’re going to talk about sanctions, and my guess is that they’re going to come up with not very much,” said nonproliferation expert Gary Samore. One Western diplomat said the summit was “not a decision-making meeting. It is the first conversation on where we go from here.” However, Robert Joseph, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said it was “essential” that the Security Council sanction Tehran and that a vote could be held this month. Joseph said he expected China and Russia to support the move since they had already signed on to a resolution “that is going to have an impact on their decision-making.” “The fundamental bargain has been struck,” he said (Michael Adler, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7). China today reaffirmed its support for a negotiated solution to the standoff, Reuters reported. “China advocates this issue be resolved through negotiation and dialogue in a peaceful way and this position remains unchanged,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters, Sept. 7). Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country wants a more detailed response from Iran regarding its position on the world powers’ compromise offer, AP reported today. “Iran offered a detailed response to the proposals of the sextet. We would like to receive clarification on several questions,” Lavrov said. “The situation is rather difficult in a technical sense. Expert analysis is necessary,” he said (Associated Press II/Mosnews.com, Sept. 7). Analysts said Tehran probably feels little pressure to compromise, given such factors as record-high oil prices, what it sees as U.S. overreach in the Middle East, and its fundamental belief in its right to an indigenous nuclear program, the Christian Science Monitor reported today. “Iran does not feel the need to compromise on this; they are creating facts on the ground (by efforts to enrich uranium),” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group. “If this argument was taking place in 2002, when oil was $25 per barrel and the Iraq war was not yet prosecuted, Iran’s calculations would be much, much different,” Sadjadpour said. “I don’t think in Washington there has been a recognition of the repercussions of the Iraq war — that it has essentially given new life to this regime in Tehran.” “The argument of nonproliferation experts (is) against enrichment, saying Iran will acquire the know-how to enrich that can be applied to a nuclear weapons program,” he added. “Iran is saying: ‘We already have that know-how. The genie is already out of the bottle. ... It’s a fait accompli.’” “Both Iran and the West are making a mistake by not beginning the negotiations,” said Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a political science professor at Tehran University. “Larijani will tell Solana: ‘Suspension (of uranium enrichment) should not be the precondition to begin negotiations, but the result of negotiations.” Hadian-Jazy added that, during Iran’s 2 1/2-year voluntary suspension of enrichment resulted in Iranian officials having to “almost beg” the European Union to schedule meetings. “The West was not under any pressure of time, and delayed the meetings,” he said. “But if this one cascade (of Iranian centrifuges, to enrich uranium) is running, then the West will be under the pressure of time, and the chances of finalizing a deal are much more” (Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 7). U.S. President George W. Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both scheduled to address the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19, the Financial Times reported today. The White House confirmed yesterday that Ahmadinejad would be granted a visa. Ahmadinejad had previously challenged Bush to a televised debate. “This will be the debate,” a U.S. official said (Guy Dinmore, Financial Times, Sept. 7).
Russia expects to complete security upgrades to its nuclear arsenal by the end of 2009, The Moscow Times reported today (see GSN, Aug. 18). “In the course of the next two to three years, we plan to complete the modernization of the security systems of nuclear weapons storage facilities,” Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev, who heads the Defense Ministry directorate responsible for Russian nuclear weapons storage and maintenance, told the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. All aspects of security at storage sites are covered under the program, he said. These include intruder detection, surveillance and access control systems. The directorate also seeks to make security personnel more professional, and has toughened the hiring criteria, Verkhovtsev said. He noted the rising threat of nuclear terrorism, the Times reported (The Moscow Times, Sept. 7).
The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration yesterday issued a list of its accomplishments in securing nuclear and radioactive material around the world to reduce the threat of atomic terrorism. The semiautonomous Energy Department agency has doubled spending on nuclear nonproliferation since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to an NNSA release. Since its inception in 2000, the agency has: —helped repatriate 502 pounds of Soviet-origin nuclear material (see GSN, Aug. 10 ); —repatriated 7,260 pounds of U.S.-origin nuclear material (see GSN, July 19); —ended use of highly enriched uranium at 43 research reactors around the world, and closed two additional reactors (see GSN, Aug. 23, 2005); —offered training on physical protection of nuclear sites to more than 500 foreign officials annually since Sept. 11; —monitored conversion of Russian highly enriched uranium that could have filled 11,038 nuclear weapons (see GSN, July 17); —eliminated nearly 200,000 pounds of surplus Russian highly enriched uranium; —enhanced security at more than 80 percent of Russian nuclear weapons material depots that were “of concern”; —enhanced security at Russian sites storing hundreds of nuclear warheads; —recovered more than 13,000 U.S. radioactive sources; —recovered radiological sources from 112 Russian sites; —enhanced security at 439 sites globally that contained vulnerable, high-risk radioactive sources, with work ongoing at another 245 sites in 40 nations; —worked to improve WMD and proliferation detection technology; —trained more than 4,500 U.S. Customs and Border personnel, and conducted more than 180 workshops for foreign officials, on recognizing WMD material and nonproliferation principles; —placed radiation sensors at international seaports in six nations, with implementation continuing in 14 other countries (see GSN, June 29); —placed radiation detection equipment at 88 Russian border, airport and seaport sites; and —created 4,400 jobs and engaged 12,000 or more former Soviet WMD scientists and engineers in peaceful work (National Nuclear Security Administration release, Sept. 6).
The United States plans to continue its drive to impose fresh sanctions on North Korea in response to its July missile tests, despite objections from some neighboring countries, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 6). China, Russia and South Korea fear that further penalties could push Pyongyang toward testing a nuclear weapon, according to AFP. Former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg warned yesterday that new sanctions would be “likely to lift the already dangerous situation on the Korean Peninsula to a new level of tension.” “With the possible exception of Japan, these friendly governments believe that a major new drive to further isolate the Pyongyang regime would be a move in the wrong direction,” Gregg and Don Oberdorfer, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, wrote in a Washington Post commentary. “What is needed is sustained engagement to persuade Pyongyang to return to the regional talks and cease its confrontational actions — not new sanctions that will make such a course even more difficult,” they said. The U.S. State Department said the push for sanctions was in line with a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the North’s missile tests. “I always find very interesting this argument that somehow it is the fault of the United States or others when somebody else takes a step that is deeply provocative,” said department spokesman Sean McCormack. “The international community has spoken with one voice; in this case 15-0 on the Security Council resolution. So it’s pretty clear where the modification in behavior is needed,” McCormack said (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 6). China, meanwhile, announced today that it still does not support sanctions against North Korea, AFP reported (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 7).
China conducted a test-launch Monday of a long-range ballistic missile, ITAR-Tass reported (see GSN, July 13). The Russian Defense Ministry said it received notification from Beijing in advance of the test. “The Dongfeng 31 missile was fired from the Wuzhai launch site towards the Taklimakan desert at about midnight on Monday,” a ministry official said. Russian radar facilities tracked the missile’s flight, which the official said was about 2,500 kilometers. New ICBMs are scheduled to be deployed this year, according to ITAR-Tass, while longer-range Dongfeng 31A missiles are expected to be put in service next year (ITAR-Tass, Sept. 6).
The U.S. Energy Department announced yesterday that IBM would build a new supercomputer for use in ensuring the safety and reliability of the country’s nuclear arsenal (see GSN, July 6). Congress allocated $35 million in fiscal 2006 for development at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico of “Roadrunner,” a machine that would be capable of performing a quadrillion calculations per second. The so-called petaflop machine could support the stockpile stewardship program operated by the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the U.S. nuclear arsenal without conducting underground atomic tests (National Nuclear Security Administration release, Sept. 7).
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