home > by publication type > backgrounders > Targets for Terrorism: Nuclear Facilities
Email
| Author: | cfr.org editorial staff |
|---|
Updated: January 2006
Yes. In his January 2002 State of the Union speech, President Bush said that U.S. forces “found diagrams of American nuclear power plants” in al-Qaeda materials in Afghanistan. An al-Qaeda training manual lists nuclear plants as among the best targets for spreading fear in the United States. The government is taking the threat seriously: in February 2002, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued an advisory to the nation’s 103 nuclear power plants that terrorists might try to fly hijacked planes into some of them. And eight governors have independently ordered the National Guard to protect nuclear reactors in their states.
Not very, most experts say. Nuclear weapons production and storage sites are guarded by security forces supervised by the Department of Energy. John Gordon, the administrator of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, has called such sites “one of the last places a terrorist would think about attacking and having hopes of success; the security basically bristles.” But a watchdog organization, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), charged that security at U.S. nuclear weapons complexes was inadequate and that hundreds of tons of weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium could be stolen, sabotaged, or even detonated. The Department of Energy dismisses such criticism, adding that security has been stepped up since September 11. Experts note that a terrorist looking to steal nuclear weapons or weapons-grade material would have a much easier time in Russia or Pakistan than in the United States.
U.S. homeland security planners are most concerned about the following scenarios:
Suicide terrorists might also try to break in to a nuclear plant and quickly build and detonate a “dirty bomb”—a conventional explosive laced with radioactive material. Attackers could also use conventional explosives to blow up some nuclear waste or nuclear fuel, thereby spewing radioactive materials into nearby areas.
Finally, experts warn that terrorists might target the pools in which nuclear reactors’ highly radioactive waste (“spent fuel”) is kept. This waste, which is kept cool by water, could ignite if exposed to the air. One nuclear expert, Robert Alvarez, has said that this would cause a “catastrophic fire” that could be “worse than a reactor meltdown.”
Experts say that an attack on a nuclear power plant, all of which are guarded by private security forces hired by the plants and supervised by the NRC, couldn’t lead to a nuclear explosion. The danger, they say, is that attackers could cause a meltdown or a fire or set off a major conventional explosion, all of which could spew radiation into nearby cities and towns.
No one knows. U.S. nuclear power plants are built to withstand hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and small plane crashes. Their “containment walls” are typically made of two to five feet of reinforced concrete with an interior steel lining. But the NRC didn’t anticipate the type of attacks seen on September 11—large passenger airliners loaded with fuel slamming into targets. Both the NRC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have said that U.S. nuclear plants were not designed to withstand such an impact, and the NRC has ordered a study of plant designs to look at what would happen in such a scenario.
In January 2002, former NRC chair Richard Meserve said that “since September 11, there have been no specific credible threats of a terrorist attack on nuclear power plants.” But he added that in light of “the high general threat environment, nonetheless, we and our licensees have maintained our highest security posture.”
On October 18, 2001, there was what was initially called a “credible threat” to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the site of America’s worst nuclear accident, which occurred in 1979. The threat closed down two nearby airports for four hours, and military aircraft were sent to patrol the area. But by the next morning, the threat was dismissed and the alert canceled.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.