Global Security Newswire

The agency that manages the U.S. nuclear weapons complex said yesterday it would increase its role in national security efforts, including biological defense and nuclear forensics (see GSN, March 13).

Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman yesterday signed off on the new emphasis for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous branch of his department.

"NNSA's national security laboratories -- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- and the Nevada Test Site have world-class scientists, engineers and capabilities that are national assets," NNSA chief Thomas D'Agostino said in a press release.  "To respond to the evolving 21st century global security threats, NNSA will bring our science, technology and engineering enterprise to bear on solving large, urgent security challenges."

As the U.S. nuclear weapons complex shrinks in size and expense and grows in security, the agency can turn its expertise to additional research sectors.  Alongside nuclear work, present research at the national laboratories includes sensor technology, biological and chemical defenses and explosives science.

The agency already conducts projects in various national security areas, the release states.  It intends to develop extended collaborations with other federal agencies in these areas, which include:

--Helping to recover and secure any lost or stolen U.S. nuclear weapon or a possible radiological weapon;

--Using nuclear forensics to determine the source of a nuclear weapon and its manufacturer (see GSN, Feb. 20);

--Development and fielding of technology to counter biological warfare materials released in aerosol form and decontamination equipment to be used following such an incident; and

--Development and fielding of portal monitors for detection and interdiction of smuggled nuclear materials (U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration release, June 26).