Military

DATE=3/04/02

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=BRIAN JENKINS Q&A/ CROSBY

NUMBER=3-

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=YES

VOA INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN JENKINS,

BY VOA'S TOM CROSBY - MARCH 3, 2002

HOST: A published report says concern that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network may try to detonate a nuclear weapon prompted the United States to install hundreds of sophisticated radiation sensors in this country and abroad. The Washington Post Sunday reported the elite U-S military commando unit, the Delta Force, has been placed on alert, ready to seize control of any nuclear materials that the sensors may detect. The commandos' orders call for them to kill or disable anyone with a suspected nuclear device.

Brian Jenkins is one of this country's leading authorities on terrorism and a consultant to Rand Corporation executives on terrorism issues. He tells VOA News Now's Tom Crosby these are good moves on the part of the government:

MR. JENKINS: I think this falls in the realm of prudent precautions. I certainly have not seen anything that indicates that there is an imminent threat of some type of nuclear attack or nuclear terrorism. Certainly that is a possibility that has been long contemplated by the analysts. I wrote my first paper on the subject, called "Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?" in 1974. So it is not necessarily a new concern.

What has elevated the concern is of course the attacks on September 11th and some of the documents coming from Afghanistan and statements made by Osama bin Laden, indicating clearly aspirations to use weapons of mass destruction, indications of interest. So while we cannot be sure that they have such weapons yet -- I don't know that they do -- nonetheless, it appears to be within their ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

MR. CROSBY: Brian, when we talk about deploying sensors to detect movement of nuclear materials perhaps across U.S. borders, I get the impression -- and you may have a different impression than I do -- that what we have available right now only works at relatively close range, that we don't have something that gives us a longer-range means of detection.

MR. JENKINS: Certainly we do not have anything that would be the equivalent of radar, to warn us of incoming nuclear material. Yes, there are problems with range on all of these detection systems, whether we are talking about chemical, biological, radiological, or even conventional explosives. This is an area of intense research. And I must say that the technology has been improving over recent years, but, yes, there are technological problems here. We do not have detection systems that give us long-range detection.

MR. CROSBY: When a problem is detected, how well equipped do you think Delta Force, which is being talked about as a possible deterrent, is to deal with a nuclear threat?

MR. JENKINS: I would have to give you an infantry school answer. And that is, it depends on the situation and the terrain. There has been in existence for many years an entity called the Nuclear Emergency Search Teams that had the responsibility of locating potential nuclear material that was not under control, that might have been used in some type of improvised nuclear device. These are people who are technicians, scientists, who are equipped with the very latest technology, detection systems, that we have available, that would deploy where there was a credible threat involving either an improvised nuclear device -- that is, a nuclear bomb -- or the so-called dirty bomb that is simply radioactive material that is dispersed by means of conventional explosives.

MR. CROSBY: But they are not soldiers prepared to --

MR. JENKINS: They are not soldiers, and that is the point. They are scientists, they are technicians and, depending on the circumstances, they may need to be protected by or may need to be augmented by soldiers who historically have been equipped and trained initially to deal with hostage situations but, nonetheless, are highly trained, highly armed, and are trained to go into buildings, break down doors, rescue hostages, deal with terrorists under a variety of circumstances.

So, again, depending on the specific scenario that we are talking about, one could see the deployment of the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, one could see the deployment of the Special Operations forces, to assist them, to protect them, or perhaps to be their leading or cutting edge.

HOST: Terrorism expert Brian Jenkins speaking from his home in Southern California with VOA News Nows Tom Crosby. U-S government officials are quoted as saying that hundreds of the special sensors -- devices called gamma-ray and neutron flux detectors -- have been in use since November at border crossings and key locations around Washington.