MSNBC June 10, 2002
Dirty bomb's biggest hazard: panic Experts say radiation would play on public fears
By Alan Boyle
June 10 - A radioactive "dirty bomb" would be less devastating than a nuclear device but easier to create. Such a bomb would use conventional explosives to spread radioactive material over a small area - and spread panic far more widely, experts say. Even the reports of a dirty-bomb plot set off alarms Monday. And in an eerie coincidence, atomic watchdogs were searching for two radiation-powered generators from the Soviet era, devices that could provide raw material for a dirty bomb.
THE RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL inside a dirty bomb could be as deadly as the strontium-90 stored within the discarded generators, which are thought to lie within a remote 200-square-mile area of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. It could even involve spent fuel rods containing uranium or plutonium, somehow stolen from a nuclear plant.
But it would more likely take the form of radioactive cobalt-60 or cesium-137 - found in the low-level waste from medical or research labs, or welding shops and construction sites.
Last month, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission disclosed that it received an average of 300 reports a year of small amounts of radioactive materials missing from such sources.
"There are hundreds of thousands of these, and not all of them are accounted for," said John Pike, a weapons expert at GlobalSecurity.org.
Commission officials say they have no evidence of anyone collecting this material to have enough for a dirty bomb. But critics argue that no one is sure of that.
What is it? How can it be built? Is it a time to worry? In the event of an attackPast incidents A radiological dispersion bomb, or "dirty bomb," consists of easy to obtain radioactive material wrapped in conventional explosives like dynamite or C-4. When detonated, the bomb emits deadly radioactive gamma rays into the environment, killing or sickening target populations and rendering target areas uninhabitable.
Bomb-makers have a wide variety of radioactive material to choose from. Weapons-grade plutonium or uranium and spent nuclear fuel would be the most deadly material, but are hard to acquire and handle. Sources for weaker radioactive material include medical equipment used for cancer treatments and X-ray machines, food irradiation facilities that use cobalt and mechanical devices that use cesium.
Building the actual weapon could be more difficult than securing material, however. To shield its deadly contents during construction and transportation, the bomb makers would have to construct a shield so heavy that the bomb would be near impossible to move. Building a thinner shield could mean a quick death for anyone involved with the bomb construction.
U.S. officials tell NBC News that even prior to September 11 there were reports that al-Qaida planned to use a dirty bomb against the U.S. Capitol. One high-ranking Clinton administration official told NBC News earlier this year that intelligence about such an attack led to increased security at the Capitol in 2000. Obtaining the necessary radioactive material in the United States could be relatively easy, considering that of the tens of thousands of sources of industrial radiation in the country, few are guarded.
In the United States the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recorded over 1,700 instances in which radioactive materials have been lost or stolen since 1986. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, documented almost 400 cases of illicit sales of nuclear or radiological materials since 1993.
The Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Search Teams are trained to descend upon the threatened area to find and disable additional nuclear devices. In the case of an explosion, NEST would test people for radioactive exposure and provide medical treatment.
The lethality of a "dirty bomb" is dependent on a number of factors, including the type of radioactive material, wind conditions and the speed with which the target area is evacuated. A small bomb could kill no one, but render an area uninhabitable for years. Whatever the lethality, a "dirty bomb" would create panic.
According to intelligence reports, Iraq tested a one-ton "dirty bomb" in 1987. Chechen rebels, in 1995, buried a 30-pound container of Cesium-137 and dynamite in Moscow. They did not detonate the device. A September 1987 incident from Brazil demonstrates the destructive power of a 20-gram sample of Cesium-137. Stolen from an abandoned radiological clinic, the sample was cut into pieces by workers at a local junkyard. Over the following weeks, four died and an additional 249 were contaminated. To decontaminate the area, 125,000 drums and 1,470 boxes were filled with contaminated clothing, furniture, dirt and other materials; 85 houses had to be destroyed.
Creating a dirty bomb, also known as a radiological bomb, would involve grinding the radioactive material into dust, then placing it within a device also containing conventional explosives - for example, dynamite stolen from a construction site. When the bomb is set off, the radioisotope could be dispersed as dust or vapor.
In an alternate scenario, the radioisotope would be burned covertly, slowly spreading the emissions. The "burning candle" might go undetected until people became ill.
Depending on the strength of a dirty-bomb blast and the potency of the radioactive material, an area the size of a subway station, several city blocks or many square miles could be contaminated.
The most visible damage would be done by the conventional explosives. In a letter responding to a recent inquiry from Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve downplayed the potential health impact from the radiation.
"A few closest to the explosion might inhale enough radioactive material to obtain internal radiation doses exceeding the (100-millirem) NRC annual limit for members of the public, but they would not be expected to experience any prompt or latent health effects as a result," Meserve said.
In contrast, a crude nuclear bomb, in which there is a nuclear chain reaction, could kill tens of thousands of people over a 3-mile radius of the blast. Thousands more would suffer radiation poisoning from such an attack.
Still, the simple use of radioactive material with conventional explosives could hamper rescue work, create a cleanup problem and cause fear and public panic, experts say.
"I think that the fears would be absolutely enormous, dealing a devastating blow to the economy. ... Clearly, this would have superseded even the 9/11 attacks," Steven Emerson, an expert on counterterrorism, said on MSNBC cable.
In March, the Center for Strategic and International Studies led officials from the Washington area through a scenario that involved the detonation of a cesium-137 "dirty bomb" just outside the National Air and Space Museum.
"The presence of radioactivity was an issue that the participants were clearly not prepared to deal with. ... This would seem to indicate that the greater Washington region could be unprepared for unconventional terrorist attacks involving materials that have the potential of contaminating large areas," the center reported afterward. (Click to read the report in Adobe Acrobat format.)
INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION
The search currently under way in western Georgia, spearheaded by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, highlights the international dimension of the radiation threat. IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said that the concern over terrorism has added to the urgency of securing hazardous radiation sources that are currently unaccounted for.
The two missing nuclear-powered generators are among eight that were left behind by the Soviet military when they abandoned their bases in Georgia, in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Fleming said. She said six have been located and secured, including two that were found in a forest last December by Georgian lumberjacks. Two of the Georgians suffered severe radiation sickness and burns.
The current search - involving about 80 people on horseback, on foot and in motor vehicles - is expected to take two weeks, Fleming told MSNBC.com by phone from Vienna.
She said the IAEA believes several other former Soviet republics may face similar concerns about discarded Soviet-era radiation-powered thermal generators, but she declined to name the countries.
The strontium-90 generators are "extremely, extremely, extremely potent" and could be used in a radiological weapon, Fleming said, but the IAEA doesn't consider them to be likely targets for terrorists. She said it would be technically difficult to convert the strontium salts into a dispersible form - assuming that terrorists found the generators in the first place.
"It's been difficult for us to find them," she said, "and we assume it would be equally if not more difficult for terrorists to come across them."
NBC News producer Robert Windrem and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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