[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BUILDING A NUCLEAR BOMB: IDENTIFYING EARLY
INDICATORS OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PREVENTION OF
NUCLEAR AND BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 26 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-17
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Christopher Cox, California, Chairman
Don Young, Alaska Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Lamar S. Smith, Texas Loretta Sanchez, California
Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania, Vice Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts
Chairman Norman D. Dicks, Washington
Christopher Shays, Connecticut Jane Harman, California
Peter T. King, New York Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
John Linder, Georgia Nita M. Lowey, New York
Mark E. Souder, Indiana Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Tom Davis, Virginia Columbia
Daniel E. Lungren, California Zoe Lofgren, California
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Bill Pascrell, Jr., New Jersey
Mike Rogers, Alabama Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Stevan Pearce, New Mexico Islands
Katherine Harris, Florida Bob Etheridge, North Carolina
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana James R. Langevin, Rhode Island
Dave G. Reichert, Washington Kendrick B. Meek, Florida
Michael McCaul, Texas
Charlie Dent, Pennsylvania
______
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PREVENTION OF NUCLEAR AND BIOLOGICAL ATTACK
John Linder, Georgia, Chairman
Don Young, Alaska James R. Langevin, Rhode Island,
Christopher Shays, Connecticut EdwarD J. Markey, Massachusetts
Daniel E. Lungren, California Norman D. Dicks, Washington
Jim Gibbons, Nevada Jane Harman, California
Rob Simmons, Connecticut Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana Columbia
Michael McCaul, Texas Donna M. Christensen, U.S. Virgin
Christopher Cox, California (Ex Islands
Officio) Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
(Ex Officio)
(II)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS
The Honorable John Linder, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Georgia, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Prevention of
Nuclear and Biological Attack
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 2
The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Rhode Island, and Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack.... 2
The Honorable Christopher Cox, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California, and Chairman, Committee on Homeland
Security
Oral Statement................................................. 22
Prepared Statement............................................. 4
The Honorable Donna M. Christensen, a Delegate in Congress From
the U. S. Virgin Islands....................................... 27
The Honorable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Washington........................................ 35
The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Nevada................................................ 28
The Honorable Jane Harman, a Representative in Congress From the
State of California............................................ 42
The Honorable Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Massachusetts..................................... 30
The Honorable Michael McCaul, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Texas............................................. 36
The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Delegate in Congress From
the District of Columbia....................................... 25
The Honorable Christopher Shays, a Representative in Congress
From the State of Connecticut.................................. 26
The Honorable Rob Simmons, a Representative in Congress From the
State of Connecticut........................................... 40
WITNESSES
Mr. David Albright, Director, Institute for International
Security....................................................... 10
Ms. Laura S.H. Holgate, Vice President for Russia/New Independent
States Programs Nuclear Threat Initiative
Oral Statement................................................. 14
Prepared Statement............................................. 15
Ambassador Ronald F. Lehman, Director, Center for Global Security
Research
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
BUILDING A NUCLEAR BOMB:
IDENTIFYING EARLY INDICATORS
OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES
----------
Thursday, May 26, 2005
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Prevention of
Nuclear and Biological Attack,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:01 p.m., in
Room 210, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. John Linder
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Linder, Shays, Lungren, Gibbons,
Simmons, McCaul, Cox, Langevin, Markey, Harman, Norton,
Christensen, and Thompson.
Mr. Linder. The committee will be in order. I would like to
welcome and thank our distinguished panelists who I hope will
help the members of this subcommittee understand how the
Department of Homeland Security, along with other Federal
partners, can detect in advance attempts by terrorists to buy,
steal, or build a nuclear device.
In recent months I have seen a number of reports from
experts that argue that the probability of a terrorist attack
involving a nuclear weapon against the United States is low.
They cite the reluctance of states to share nuclear secrets and
the difficulty for terrorists to obtain nuclear technology and
material.
Given the events of 9/11 and the intelligence and evidence
collected from Al-Qa`ida documents, it would be highly
irresponsible for us to simply disregard the nuclear threat. We
are dealing with a thinking enemy that has no limited hatred
for our citizens or the liberties that we cherish.
In January of 2004, investigators in Pakistan found that
the Nation's top nuclear weapons scientist, A.Q. Kahn, had for
decades sold nuclear secrets to Iran and Libya. According to
investigators, Kahn and his associates provided information on
how to design centrifuges used to make enriched uranium. U.S.
officials have also expressed their concern that Pakistani
scientists may have collaborated with North Korea on uranium
enrichment in exchange for ballistic missile information.
What are the telltale signs that a network of this nature
is operating? Could we have stopped A.Q. Kahn in advance from
succeeding? This year alone, there have been six publicly
documented instances in which nuclear material was seized from
persons not authorized to transport them. The material seizures
included small quantities of weapons-usable material. How many
other instances have occurred without detection? Do we have the
capability to effectively prevent this type of smuggling?
I am a firm believer in pushing this threat as far from our
borders as we possibly can. That requires our ability to detect
early on the signs that indicate intent to buy nuclear
material, to purchase intellectual knowledge and technology to
build a nuclear weapon, or simply the intent to steal a nuclear
apparatus.
As we look to consider legislation to counter the nuclear
threat, I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, and I
am hopeful that their expertise can help members of this
subcommittee understand what can and must be done not only by
the executive branch but also by Congress to prevent terrorists
from obtaining such devastating devices.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Linder, a Representative in
Congress From the State of Georgia, and Chairman, Subcommittee on
Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attach
I would like to welcome and thank our distinguished panelists who,
I hope, will help the Members of this Subcommittee understand how the
Department of Homeland Security, along with other Federal partners can
detect in advance attempts by terrorists to buy, steal, or build a
nuclear device.
In recent months, I have seen a number of reports from experts that
argue that the probability of a terrorist attack involving a nuclear
weapon against the United States is low. They cite the reluctance of
states to share nuclear secrets and the difficulty for terrorists to
obtain nuclear technology and material.
Given the events of 9/11 and the intelligence and evidence
collected from Al-Qa`ida documents, it would be highly irresponsible
for us to simply disregard the nuclear threat. We are dealing with a
thinking enemy that has no limit in hatred for our citizens or the
liberties that we cherish.
In January 2004, investigators in Pakistan found that the nation's
top nuclear weapons scientist, A.Q. Khan, had for decades sold nuclear
secrets to Iran and Libya. According to investigators, Khan and his
associates provided information on how to design centrifuges used to
make enriched uranium. U.S. officials have also expressed their concern
that Pakistani scientists may have collaborated with North Korea on
uranium enrichment in exchange for ballistic missile information. What
are the tell-tale signs that a network of this nature is operating?
Could we have stopped A.Q. Khan in advance from succeeding?
This year alone, there have been six publicly documented instances
in which nuclear material was seized from persons not authorized to
transport them. The material seizures include small quantities of
weapons usable material. How many other instances have occurred without
detection? Do we have the capability to effectively prevent this type
of smuggling?
I am a firm believer in pushing this threat as far from our borders
as we possibly can. That requires our ability to detect early on the
signs that indicate intent to buy nuclear material, to purchase
intellectual knowledge and technology to build a nuclear weapon or
simply the intent to steal a nuclear apparatus.
As we look to consider legislation to counter the nuclear threat, I
look forward to the testimony of our witnesses, and I am hopeful that
our expert witnesses can help Members of this Subcommittee understand
what can and must be done not only by the Executive Branch, but also by
Congress to prevent terrorists from obtaining such devastating devices.
I now yield to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Mr.
Langevin, for the purposes of making an opening statement.
And I will yield to the Ranking Member of the subcommittee
Mr. Langevin for the purpose of making a statement.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
welcome our witnesses today, and I certainly look forward to
hearing this testimony on this most important of topics.
There has been a great deal of debate over the likelihood
that terrorists will carry out a attack in the United States.
Given that Al-Qa`ida and like-minded groups have publicly
stated their intentions to conduct a nuclear attack, combined
with the fact that A.Q. Kahn, the former head of Pakistan's
nuclear weapons program, ran the largest black market operation
in modern times, I believe that the nuclear terrorist threat is
real.
After listening to witnesses at previous hearings and
briefings held by this subcommittee, I feel that our government
must move quickly to build off programs like Nunn-Lugar and the
Global Threat Reduction Initiative run by the Department of
Energy. I believe that today's hearing certainly will go a long
way in helping us understand the relative ease or difficulty a
terrorist would have in building a nuclear weapon.
I am going to be brief, but I hope the witnesses can
address the following issues for me: First, given the National
Intelligence Council's disturbing report that undetected
smuggling of nuclear materials has occurred at Russian weapons
facilities, what improvements are needed at our
nonproliferation programs to eliminate future smuggling
incidents?
Next, what are the lessons learned from the A.Q. Kahn case?
In particular, what surprised us? What caught us off guard
other than the fact that it happened in the first place? I am
especially interested in the type of technology that was used
in producing nuclear weapons and what, if any, surprises were
there?
In addition, and finally, how do we deal with scientists
from rogue states such as North Korea who will sell nuclear
secrets to the highest bidder?
As I have said in previous hearings, we must begin to move
with a sense of urgency to prevent terrorists from executing a
nuclear attack on our soil or against our interests.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing today
and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. Thank you.
Mr. Linder. Other members of the subcommittee are reminded
that opening statements may be submitted for the record.
I would like to now introduce today's witnesses. Dr. Ronald
Lehman is the Director of the Center for Global Security
Research at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, and is also the Chairman of the Governing
Board of the International Science and Technology Center. Dr.
Lehman has served as the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and
Disarmament Agency, and as Assistant Secretary for
International Security Policy with the U.S. Department of
Defense.
Mr. David Albright is the President of the Institute for
Science and International Security in Washington, D.C. Prior to
working at ISIS, Mr. Albright served as a consultant to the
International Task Force on Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism at
the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the International Atomic
Energy Agency.
Ms. Laura Holgate is the Vice President for Russia and New
Independent States Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative,
which was created in 2001 by two old friends of mine, Sam Nunn
and Ted Turner. Prior to working at NTI, Ms. Holgate directed
the Department of Energy's Office of Fissile Materials
Disposition, and served as a Special Coordinator for
Cooperative Threat Reduction at the Department of Defense.
Welcome you all. All of your written statements will be
made part of the record, without objection, and I would welcome
a summary and would like to try and keep within 5 minutes as
best you can.
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Christopher Cox, a Representative
in Congress From the State of California, and Chairman, Committee on
Homeland Security
Thank you, Chairman Linder, for holding this hearing on this very
important topic. I join you in welcoming our panel of witnesses today
who I hope will help us understand how we might recognize indicators of
terrorist attempts to obtain and use a nuclear weapon, and more
importantly provide us with suggestions as to how we might pre-empt
such an attempt.
Many have said that the detonation of a nuclear device by
terrorists is a low probability event with high consequences. But we
must calculate the level of effort we should commit to any particular
threat by discounting its consequences by its likelihood. And the
consequences that would follow terrorist use of a nuclear weapon are
unimaginably horrific--scores or hundreds of thousands of dead and
injured, countless tens of billions of dollars in damage, and a likely
permanent change in our way of life, governance, civil liberties, and
economy. Even discounted for probability, it necessarily follows that
prevention of this type of terrorism is the highest priority to protect
the security and economic well-being of our Nation.
The interest of terrorists in obtaining and using a nuclear weapon
is established by both intelligence and simple common sense.
Intelligence has demonstrated that the terrorists are well aware of the
value of such a weapon--and little wonder. It is the ultimate terrorist
device, as it would accomplish the goal of killing tens or hundreds of
thousands of people, devastating the economy, and spreading terror. The
imperative of detecting and preventing such an attack, therefore, is a
given. This hearing will explore how to detect the efforts to buy,
steal, or build such weapons before they can be deployed.
During the past two hearings in this subcommittee, the Members were
told about the concept of a ``layered'' defense against the nuclear
threat. In principle, this seems a prudent approach. From what we can
gather, however, in practice this effort appears to be an uncoordinated
and duplicative layering of bureaucracies. We need to have a
coordinated effort to identify and act upon the indicators that can be
gathered from deployed technologies and integrating that information
with products from our intelligence community. We must focus on
determining what these indicators are--what are the phenomena we could
observe that would indicate that terrorists are seeking to buy, steal,
or build a nuclear device.
To give an analogous example: all day every day, the U.S. military
in South Korea tracks dozens of indicators that would provide clues
that North Korea was preparing to launch a military assault. The United
States must assemble and track, all day every day, a similar catalogue
of telltale indicators that terrorists are seeking to acquire or create
nuclear weapons.
The long-undetected illicit proliferation activities of AQ Khan
leave us with little assurance as to whether or not our enemies
overseas might have obtained nuclear weapons technology, materials, or
know-how from Khan or his associates. This uncertainty simply means
that we must be more vigilant in our efforts to track down nuclear
traffickers overseas, secure foreign nuclear material, and prevent
nuclear material from entering our country.
As we consider legislation in the coming months, I hope that our
expert panel can help this committee fully evaluate how best to
identify and track early indicators of terrorist nuclear efforts.
Mr. Linder. Ambassador Lehman.
STATEMENT OF RONALD F. LEHMAN, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR GLOBAL
SECURITY RESEARCH
Mr. Lehman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be
invited along with two very good friends to discuss this very
important issue with you. I still wear a number of hats, so I
am speaking in my personal capacity, and I will try to be very
brief.
Much has been said in public about nuclear terrorism, not
all of it correct. And that is not all bad. Special care must
be taken not to provide terrorists with cookbooks to solve
their problems. Nor do we want to expose to terrorists our
vulnerabilities or reveal too much about countermeasures we may
take. Still, we must be candid with ourselves. There is a real
danger, and there is much that we don't know or may not find
out until it is too late. This is particularly true with
specific terrorist planning and activities.
The consequences of failure could be tragically high. We
must take the possibility of nuclear terrorism very seriously
now, as relevant technologies continue to spread. This requires
that everyone be sensitive to the danger. Thus we must balance
not saying too much with ensuring that we are saying enough.
You have asked me to focus today on the possibility that
terrorists might gain access to technology and technologists
useful to the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Here we
understand basic realities and a number of trends: Building
nuclear weapons from scratch is a challenge. Terrorists may
find it easier to obtain them by theft, gift, or purchase. Even
this will not be easy, and the U.S. and other governments have
programs aimed at preventing such activities, particularly with
the help of sufficiently knowledgeable insiders. However,
fissile material, key weapons components, and conceivably full-
up nuclear weapons could be obtained.
Also we cannot rule out the possibility that terrorist
organizations may attempt to construct nuclear weapons.
Although assembly may be a far more difficult path than theft,
considerable dual-use technology continues to become
accessible. And whether nuclear power generation expands or
contracts in the years ahead, a huge overhang of weapons-usable
material will remain as a potential source of nuclear weapons.
Because fissile material is essential to the nuclear
devices terrorists may wish to acquire, controlling and
securing fissile material must be the highest priority, second
only to protecting weapons themselves. At the same time, we
must be careful not to recreate the mistakes of the Maginot
Line. We can gain great leverage from sound physical security,
especially when guns, guards, and gates are augmented by an
effective system of material protection, control, and
accountability.
In the end, however, any linear defense will have
vulnerabilities, particularly if an insider threat is involved.
This is true in securing fissile material and it is true in
preventing the exploitation of dual-use technology. Worse,
terrorist groups are becoming adept at exploiting legitimate
industries' activities and individuals. In between the
legitimate and black markets are not very well understood but
unsavory gray markets. Here, it is individuals with whom we
seldom have contact who are more likely than we are to see
activity related to illicit nuclear weapons activity. Thus in
countries where we have concerns about security, we can help.
The indigenous governments and institutions, however, must step
up to the seriousness of the matter, take responsibility, and
hold people accountable.
Essential to the success of the terrorists is the
assistance of knowledgeable individuals, knowledgeable in the
sense that they are good enough to solve the problems that
terrorists face. In the case of nuclear terrorism, those
problems may be how to overcome security at nuclear storage
areas, or how to work with radioactive material, or how to
design an explosive device. The fact that terrorists need
access to knowledgeable people gives us a further arena in
which to counter the terrorists. Engagement of these
communities and industries through their governments and
directly is of great importance. In particular, we need to
become involved in the Islamic world.
Today I want to stress this need for broader engagement,
layered defenses, and a dynamic strategy. There is an unclear
but present danger that governments of concern, rogue
officials, or nonstate groups can exploit ever more widespread
dual-use technology to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
Modern societies will have to do a better job of understanding
the latent capabilities for destructiveness in our societies.
We need a better assessment of our vulnerabilities, and we need
to do a better job of managing the risks. We need to understand
that the distinction between state and nonstate actor is
blurred. We need to build a dynamic strategy that recognizes
that our reaction times will be short.
When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it helps
to have a tool like a magnet. Most of these active tools such
as sting operations involve intelligence and law enforcement,
and must be undertaken by governments. The governments that may
prove to be best positioned to deal with terrorists may be
governments elsewhere. Many governments are stepping up to the
terrorist problem, but many are not engaging effectively on the
WMD challenge as it relates to terrorism any more effectively
than they have dealt with the problem of the spread of nuclear
weapons to nation states. The reasons are clear: Governments
themselves have competing goals and interests. Many enabling
technologies are too widespread to monitor cheaply and
effectively. Modern business networks with just-in-time
inventories, offshore outsourcing, flat, almost virtual
organizational pyramids, numerous competitors, and multi-tier
markets are amorphous and changing. Universal norms seem
inappropriate in specific cases; enforcement options are
unattractive.
We run the risk of replaying the old debate of whether the
technologies are the problem or those that use them are the
problem. We won't be effective until we recognize that action
must be taken on both fronts.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Linder. Thank you, Ambassador.
[The statement of Mr. Lehman follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Ronald F. Lehman
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members of the Committee:
I am honored that you have asked me to join in your examination of
the danger of nuclear terrorism. As this Committee knows, I have
assisted the US government in a number of areas that relate to this
topic and continue to do so. Both personally and professionally, I
consider these initiatives to be very important, but you have asked for
my personal views. Thus, today I do not speak officially for any
program, organization, or Administration with which I have been or am
now associated.
Much has been said in public about nuclear terrorism, not all of it
correct. And that is not all bad. Indeed, special care must be taken
not to provide terrorists with ``cookbooks'' to solve their problems.
Nor do we want to expose to them vulnerabilities they might exploit or
reveal too much about countermeasures we may be able to take. Above
all, we must be candid with ourselves. There is much that we don't know
or may not find out until it is too late, particularly about specific
terrorist planning and activities. We will be asking constantly whether
the glimmers we see are the ``tip of an iceberg'' or simply
disconnected ``ice cubes.''
Although the odds that any particular group of terrorists will
acquire nuclear weapons are low, the probability that some terrorists
somewhere will acquire a nuclear weapon may increase over time. The
consequences could be tragically high. We must take the possibility of
nuclear terrorism very seriously now and in the years ahead as relevant
technologies continue to spread, no matter how difficult we make it for
terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons. This requires that publics be
sensitive to the danger, particularly those who may someday find
themselves in a position to help. Thus, we must balance not saying too
much with saying enough.
You have asked me to focus today on the possibility that terrorists
might gain access to technology and technologists useful to the
acquisition of nuclear weapons. Here, we understand basic realities and
a number of trends. Building nuclear weapons from scratch is a
challenge. Terrorists may find it easier to obtain them by theft, gift,
or purchase from sympathetic governments or rogue government
organizations. Even this will not be easy, and the U.S. and other
governments have programs and policies aimed at preventing just such
activities. Particularly with the help of sufficiently knowledgeable
``insiders,'' however, fissile material, key weapons components, or
full-up nuclear weapons could be purloined. Much has been made of
inadequate security in the transition republics of the former Soviet
Union. South and East Asia also deserve special attention, but securing
fissile material remains a global problem.
Still, we cannot rule out the possibility that terrorist
organizations may attempt to assemble nuclear weapons from components
or even from amounts of fissile material obtained from some source. (It
is unlikely that typical terrorist groups would by themselves succeed
in enrichment or reprocessing, but it is conceivable.) Although
assembly may be a far more difficult path than theft, considerable
knowledge and technology including dual-use equipment and facilities
once associated with nuclear weapons continues to become more
accessible. And whether nuclear power generation expands or contracts
in the years ahead, a huge overhang of weapons-useable material will
remain as a potential source of nuclear weapons even if no new
production were to take place and even if we eliminate large amounts of
existing fissile material.
In that sense, we already have strategic warning. We know there is
great risk. We can point to general indicators such as the spread
around the world of dual-use scientific knowledge, engineering skills,
industrial capabilities, nuclear materials, and the like. A political,
military, social, and economic overlay can further note the penetration
of these capabilities into regions of political turmoil and highlight
how they may be networked to create nuclear weapons potential. We can
correlate these with visible terrorist activities by groups with
motivations, statements, and attacks that suggest an interest in
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). These indicators can help in
assessing risk and setting priorities, but these strategic indicators
may become fewer and less clear in the future as latent WMD potential
becomes even more widespread. Moreover, we have very little certainty
of tactical warning and may get few precise actionable indicators of
any WMD attack.
Because fissile material is essential to the nuclear devices
terrorists may wish to acquire, it will come as no surprise that
controlling and securing fissile material must be the highest priority,
second only to protecting weapons themselves. At the same time, we must
be careful not to recreate the mistakes of the Maginot Line. We can
gain great leverage from sound physical security, especially when
``guns, guards, and gates'' are augmented by an effective system of
material protection, control, and accountability. In the end, however,
any linear defense will have vulnerabilities, particularly if an
``insider threat'' is involved. This is true in securing fissile
material, and it is true in preventing the exploitation of dual-use
technology. Worse, terrorist groups, as with other criminals such as
drug cartels, money launderers, and smugglers, are becoming more adept
at exploiting legitimate industries, activities, and individuals who
unknowingly become a part of the network. In between the legitimate and
black markets are not very well understood, but unsavory ``gray''
markets. Here too it is individuals with whom we seldom have contact
who are more likely than we are to see activity related to illicit
nuclear weapons related activity.
Thus, in the transition countries and other countries where we have
concerns about security, we can help. The indigenous governments and
institutions, however, must step up to the seriousness of the matter,
take responsibility, and hold people accountable for adopting best
practices and then testing their security measures and personnel to
make them even more effective. Here too we can help even if they, not
we, are more likely to have the right people at the right time at the
right place positioned to do the right thing. They, like we, must have
a dynamic strategy that takes into account that terrorists will probe
and adjust until they determine a way ahead.
Essential to the success of the terrorists is the assistance of
knowledgeable individuals--knowledgeable in the sense that they are
good enough to solve the problems the terrorists face. In the case of
nuclear terrorism, those problems may be how to overcome security at
nuclear storage areas or how to work with radioactive material or how
to design an explosive device. Terrorists are unlikely to begin at the
basic research level, and they are unlikely to seek or find Nobel Prize
winners to lead their programs, although totalitarian regimes have had
access to numerous world-class talents. Terrorists are more likely to
try to bring together journeyman skills related to proven paths, and
they may be able to attract competent, if disgruntled or disturbed,
people. The less they have to break new ground, the better from their
perspective.
This is not to say they will follow exactly current or historic
paths taken by nuclear weapons states. They may surprise us in their
creativity. But they will need help and much of that help can only come
from technologically savvy people, be they scientists, engineers,
technicians, or just employees who know where things are located or how
they work. The technology sector of American industry will tell you
that the best form of knowledge or technology transfer is the transfer
of knowledgeable people. There is no reason to believe it is much
different in the case of terrorism.
The fact that terrorists need access to knowledgeable people gives
us a further arena in which to counter the terrorists. Unfortunately,
it cannot be said that all individuals in the technology sector would
refuse to help terrorists. The history of crime and terrorism,
unfortunately, includes a number of technical people including medical
doctors who have taken professional oaths to protect lives. Ideological
or theological extremists are to be found in the technical communities,
which, however cosmopolitan, generally contain most elements of the
views of the societies with which they most closely interact. Still,
the technology sector is one populated predominantly by individuals who
must interact with a wide range of people who do not share the goals,
or at least the means of terrorists.
Much of the community of technologically savvy individuals is
sensitive to the security concerns we have about terrorist access to
dual-use technology or material, be it nuclear, chemical, biological,
or other. Some are very aware of the dangers. Most operate in an
environment that stresses security of intellectual property and
industrial know-how. Many work in an export control environment.
Important segments work on safety and security. Others work in areas
such as sensors or vaccines that may provide countermeasures. The
United States and its allies have considerable interaction with this
community in the advanced economic sectors. We are less well connected
to the scientific and industrial networks that operate in less advanced
economies, especially within authoritarian regimes and troubled
regions. Even here, however, there are contacts and means of influence.
Engagement of these communities and industries through their
governments and directly is of great importance. In particular, we need
to become more involved in the Islamic world.
I want to stress this need for broader engagement, layered
defenses, and a dynamic strategy, in part, because the problem of the
latency of potential destructive capabilities in developed and
developing economies is bigger than the nuclear question. There is an
unclear and present danger that governments, rogue officials, or non-
state groups and individuals can exploit ever more widespread dual-use
technology to obtain weapons of mass destruction or in other ways
threaten great damage. I say unclear danger because so many
capabilities can be networked in so many ways that it is difficult
anticipate the precise use to which they will be put. I say present
danger because the risks are here and now and include more than the
nuclear. Indeed, many analysts believe that the greatest threat is
biological.
Nuclear and biological attack clearly pose the most disastrous
consequences. Still, we may also be under estimating the lesser dangers
that are associated with chemical attacks and conventional attacks. The
modern global economy is highly leveraged. We must not let the
complexity of economic activity and our spirited efforts at recovery
after the September 11, 2001, attacks lead us to underestimate the
total economic cost of both the cumulative harm over time and the steps
taken in response. We are fortunate that we were able to manage our way
through this period without greater economic disruption. We cannot rule
out, however, the possibility that a series of major terrorist attacks,
especially if involving WMD and especially nuclear weapons, could push
the world into an economic depression with devastating political and
social consequences that are not lost on the terrorists who might want
to bring this about.
Modern societies will have to do a better job of understanding the
latent capacities for destructiveness in our societies. We need a
better assessment of our vulnerabilities, and we need to do a better
job of managing the risks. By ``latent'' capacities, I mean what the
dictionary defines as ``potentially existing, but not presently
evidence or realized.'' We need to understand the degree to which the
potential to acquire, deploy, and use WMD is becoming more accessible
to more players (state, quasi-state, and non state) for more deadly
goals against our citizens and interconnected societies. We need to
build a dynamic strategy that recognizes that our reaction times will
be short because the lead times for terrorists may become much shorter
and our ability to observe their preparations weaker. This will put a
premium on prevention. It will put a premium on active strategies for
intelligence and law enforcement.
When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it helps to have a
tool like a magnet. ``Sting operations'' play an important role despite
their limitations. Recognizing that terrorists are attracted to
vulnerabilities and icons may improve our chances of detection.
Similarly, choke points and boundaries can increase the chances of
detection. Going to the source by infiltrating or monitoring terrorists
groups and those they seek to exploit to obtain weapons capability
becomes more important. Most of these activities involve intelligence
and law enforcement and must be undertaken by governments. The
governments that may prove to be best positioned to deal with
terrorists may be governments elsewhere. Terrorism is a multinational
problem, and multinational solutions, such as closer cooperation among
intelligence and law enforcements agencies, especially in combating
nuclear materials trafficking, are needed to deal with it.
Many governments are stepping up to the terrorist problem, but many
are not engaging effectively on the WMD challenge as it relates to
terrorism any more effectively than they have dealt with the problem of
the spread of nuclear weapons to nation-states. The reasons are clear.
Governments themselves have competing goals and interests. Many
enabling technologies are too widespread to monitor cheaply and
effectively. Modern business networks with ``just in time''
inventories, offshore outsourcing, flat-almost virtual organizational
pyramids, numerous competitors, and multi-tiered markets are amorphous
and changing. Universal norms seem inappropriate in specific cases.
Enforcement options are unattractive.
We run the risk of replaying the old debate over whether the
technologies are the problem or those that use them are the problem. We
won't be effective until we recognize that action must be taken on both
fronts. We need only look at the problem of nuclear proliferation among
nations to see that we are in danger of making the same mistake with
respect to terrorism, i.e., assuming that if we put in place measures
to control material, we have solved the problem. These safeguard
measures have helped, and helped greatly. But for too many years, the
international community relied too heavily on IAEA safeguards of
declared material and declared facilities while it sought to avoid
addressing the more complex issues of motivations, planned latency,
covert programs including non-materials related activity, third-party
assistance, non-state actors, and treaty break-out. Even now that these
risks have been so clear, we do not have in place the means to deal
effectively with clear violations of the NPT.
Again, we run the risk of making the same mistake on the terrorist
front. To treat fissile material as if it were the gold in Fort Knox
has the right spirit. Unfortunately, the better analogy may be to
armored cars, bank vaults, or art masterpieces in museums. Every now
and then there is a heist, carefully prepared--sometimes with the help
of an insider. Since we must deal with conventional, biological, and
chemical terrorist threats in which we cannot rely so heavily on
materials controls, we should look toward a synergistic strategy for
dealing with nuclear terrorism that is also proactive.
Deeper cooperation among nation-states in intelligence and law
enforcement can be supplemented by counter-WMD cooperation such as in
the Proliferation Security Initiative and by the fulfillment of the
potential of UNSC 1540, which moves to hold governments accountable for
measures to prevent non-state actors from acquiring WMD. Across the
board, we need to roll up our sleeves and work together more at the
detailed level. In this context, more extensive and advanced
cooperative threat reduction that involves embedded engagement with
scientific, technical and industrial communities around the world will
be necessary to improve understanding of the problem and develop
countermeasures. It may also give us more hope that there will be
someone at the right place at the right time who does the right thing.
Thank you.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Albright.
STATEMENT OF DAVID ALBRIGHT, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Mr. Albright. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me, and I
look forward to a discussion with long-term colleagues.
The U.S. government and this committee is wisely taking
extraordinary steps to reduce the chance of terrorists getting
nuclear weapons, regardless of whether we perceive the risk as
low or even high. And toward that goal, the priority is
developing more effective means to detect and prevent a
terrorist group's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
What I would like to do is focus my comments on the theft
of fissile material and construction of nuclear weapons by a
terrorist group. And part of the reason for this is the
enormous stocks of weapons-usable fissile material in the
world. These large, and, in some cases, inadequately protected
stocks could provide more opportunities for terrorists than
this theft of nuclear weapons. I have provided the committee
with a table of our estimates on holdings, in-country holdings
of fissile material around the world. And of the total, about
2,400 tons of fissile material, roughly half is in Russia. But
I would like to point out that there are stocks in many other
places, and that these need to be of concern also.
I have also provided the committee a figure describing a
pathway whereby a terrorist group could acquire and use a
nuclear weapon. It starts with planning in the group's search
for fissile material, which we probably would all agree is
probably the hardest and most uncertain task facing a terrorist
group. Another key challenge is building the nuclear weapon
itself; that there are certain steps involved in constructing
the weapon that could present serious challenges for a
terrorist group. Nonetheless, I think they can overcome those
problems. Then the group must be able to assemble the weapon
and move it to a target for detonation. And the detection of
the terrorist group's efforts could be discovered all along
this pathway.
However, certain steps can be made more vulnerable to
outside detection, and I would like to focus on the two more
promising ones. One is the location where weapons-usable
fissile material are stored or used, and the sites where
nuclear components would have to be made and assembled by the
terrorists.
And with regard to the first one, I mean, these sites are
already the focus of U.S. and international efforts to increase
physical security. A payoff of this work is to both increase
the difficulty of theft or diversion of fissile materials, and
increase the probability of detection of efforts to steal or
divert the fissile material from these sites.
A U.S. priority has to be to try to better understand the
size and physical protection of all major stocks of fissile
material, particularly in Russia. The U.S. should aim to
develop extensive knowledge of all significant stocks of
fissile material, where they are located, and how the country
provides adequate security. And this goal should be
accomplished cooperatively with other states whenever possible.
And a focus should be on U.S. personnel having legitimate
contact and cooperation with individuals working at sites with
fissile material. And, as I have said, this contact could
increase the chance of learning about suspicious activity at
the site and increase physical protection and accounting at the
same time.
Now, the U.S. agencies are already improving their
knowledge of fissile material stocks and working in this
direction, but certainly more work needs to be done, although I
would want to commend the work so far.
The second part of the pathway I would like to discuss is
the manufacture of nuclear weapons components themselves. And
this task involves the terrorist group accomplishing many
things, such as casting plutonium or highly enriched uranium
metal in vacuum furnaces, working with fast electronics and
high explosives in the case of an implosion-type nuclear
weapon, or heavy projectiles in the case of a gun-type weapon.
Although all these tasks can be accomplished in small
buildings with relatively little equipment, they can be
vulnerable to detection. These tasks are going to involve
equipment and materials that are considered sensitive and must
be purchased. In addition, the necessary know-how is
specialized and relatively uncommon. Therefore, one way to
increase the chance of detection is to use the extensive
infrastructure dedicated to thwarting illegal exports to
states.
Most countries have national export control systems,
although of mixed quality and effectiveness. The states with
the most effective control system also have required companies
and individuals involved in exports of sensitive items to
become more aware of dangerous or illegal exports. These
individuals also in certain cases, which we have seen
personally, watch domestic sales in order to thwart illegal
retransfers out of this state, and they become in a sense the
first line of defense on the sale of equipment to dangerous
elements.
Although this approach applied to thwarting terrorist
efforts cannot be as effective as when applied to illegal
procurements by states, it can still provide a way to increase
the detection of suspicious individuals trying to acquire
certain equipment or materials that could be used in
manufacturing of their weapon.
An overarching goal in both cases that I have discussed is
to work with other states and individuals to increase the
awareness of the risk of nuclear terrorism and build a norm or
culture that values physical protection and transparency. In
doing so, the chance of detecting terrorist efforts to build
nuclear weapons can also be increased. Thank you.
Mr. Linder. Thank you, Mr. Albright.
[The statement of Mr. Albright follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3703.001
Fissile Materials of Special Concern (end 2003, in tonnes) In-Country Stocks of Unirradiated Plutonium and Total Stocks of HEU
ISIS Estimates--May 26, 2005
DRAFT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plutonium HEU
Country ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Total (rounded)
Military Civil Subtotal Military Civil Subtotal
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia....................................... 145 38.2 183.2 1070 15-30 1085-1100 1275
Pakistan..................................... 0.04 -- 0.04 1.1 -- 1.1 1.14
North Korea.................................. 0.04 -- 0.04 ? -- 0 0.04
India........................................ 0.04 1-1.5 1.04-1.54 0.5 -- 0.5 1.5-2.0
China........................................ 4.8 -- 4.8 20 1 21 26
South Africa................................. -- -- 0 -- 0.5 0.5 0.5
Belgium...................................... -- 3.5 3.5 -- 0.5 0.5 4.0
France....................................... 5 78.6 83.6 29 6.4 35.4 119
Germany...................................... -- 12.5 12.5 -- 1 1 13.5
Israel....................................... 0.6 -- 0.6 ? -- 0 0.6
Japan........................................ -- 5.4 5.4 -- 2.0 2 7.4
Switzerland.................................. -- 0.5-1.0 0.5-1.0 -- 0 0 0.5-1.0
United Kingdom............................... 7.6 96.2 103.8 21.9 1.5 23.4 127
United States................................ 92 -- 92 700 -- 700 792
Smaller Stocks of -- -- 0 -- 20 20 20
HEU in Many Countries........................
Smaller Stocks of -- 1 1 -- -- 0 1
Plutonium in Several
Countries....................................
Total (rounded).............................. 255 237 492 1720 170 1890 2400
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Linder. Ms. Holgate.
STATEMENT OF LAURA S.H. HOLGATE, VICE PRESIDENT FOR RUSSIA/NEW
INDEPENDENT STATES PROGRAMS NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE
Ms. Holgate. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Langevin, I
appreciate the opportunity to contribute to your subcommittee's
exploration of nuclear terrorism, and, as my colleagues have
said, among old friends.
At NTI, we have observed that the difference between a
terrorist and a nuclear terrorist is found in the word
``nuclear.'' No nuclear material, no terrorism.
This obvious logic underpins our fundamental prescription
for averting nuclear terrorism: Secure, consolidate, and, where
possible, eliminate nuclear weapons materials in all forms, in
every location.
This terrorist threat, which world leaders agree is our
number one security priority, requires an adjustment in our
thinking about what role individuals play in either preventing
or contributing to nuclear threats. I believe that access to
nuclear materials is more important in considering today's
nuclear realities than is sophisticated scientist knowledge.
This is not to say that scientists don't pose a threat.
A.Q. Kahn is the prime example. But even his contribution to
nuclear proliferation had less to do with his specific
scientific knowledge and more to do with his radical ideology,
greed, and entrepreneurial skill.
In considering the immediate post-Cold War threats, the
potential for former Soviet scientists to decamp for Baghdad or
Tripoli or Pyongyang, carrying in their heads or their
briefcases the crown jewels of nuclear bomb design, was a prime
concern, and a number of U.S. and international programs were
developed to address this potential exodus. The good news is
that this early set of proliferation concerns never came to
pass, probably for a combination of reasons: These programs'
effectiveness, Russian preferences to remain within familiar
social and political structures, patriotism, professionalism,
and a plain old fear of getting caught. So far as we know,
there has never been a Russian A.Q. Kahn.
The bad news is that U.S. and international programs have
not adapted to today's nuclear threat: terrorists' pursuit of
nuclear capability through theft of materials or weapons.
Almost any employee at a nuclear facility can facilitate
nuclear terrorism through access to nuclear materials or
through information about how such materials or weapons are
handled at a particular site. Individuals at all levels know
about storage venues and conditions, transfer schedules,
security vulnerabilities, routines, and procedures. This kind
of insider information provided to an outside terrorist group
can help them acquire nuclear weapons and materials. The
nuclear materials, once acquired, a small handful of chemists
and metalworkers, even without prior experience with weapons,
could build a crude but effective gun-type device with the
explosive power of the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima, which I
remind you our bomb designers were confident enough in that
they did not even test before they used it.
The drastic shrinkage of Russian nuclear facilities we will
experience over the next several years creates the potential
for disgruntled, opportunistic, unprofessional, or blackmail
personnel at all levels to make their knowledge of or access to
materials and weapons available to those who seek it. In an
environment in which petty pilferage of toilet seats, cooking
oil, and even small arms occurs on a daily basis, we should not
assume that less educated staff will distinguish nuclear
materials from other assets they may be willing to sell or
reveal. In fact, it is more likely that a machine tool operator
or a maintenance worker would do so than that the higher-level
scientist would.
The solution to today's nuclear threats is this:
sustainable alternatives for all types of employees set to lose
jobs owing to the very valid and necessary nuclear downsizing
in Russia. Existing programs, such as the Department of
Energy's Russian Transition Initiatives and the Department of
State-funded science and technology centers, will continue to
be valuable components of a comprehensive approach. But taking
these threats seriously would involve including the following
changes or additions to current efforts, and I will make a few
examples.
First of all, to spin off nonweapons research and
commercial activities to locations outside nuclear facilities
so that staff employed there no longer have awareness of or
access to nuclear weapons and materials.
Second, to reduce current moonlighting practices by
creating full-time sustainable jobs outside institutes.
Third, developing new techniques to reduce or redirect
excess staff, such as early retirement programs.
Fourth, and most importantly, make reducing total
employment at such facilities, especially of employees with
access to nuclear materials and weapons and related information
the key measure of merit.
This kind of approach would require greater funding, but,
even more important, broadened authorities for existing
programs and linkages to traditional international efforts such
as those carried out by the U.S. Agency for International
Development. Even though critics have dismissed the relevance
of so-called soft programs, developing sustainable alternatives
to weapons work is a critical component of reducing nuclear
terrorism.
At NTI, we frequently ask ourselves, our elected
representatives, and our fellow citizens of the world: The day
after a catastrophic instance of nuclear terror, what will we
wish we had done to prevent it, and why aren't we doing that
now? I have done my best to offer some answers, but the second
question has no good answers. The time to act is now. Thank
you.
Mr. Linder. Thank you very much.
[The statement of Ms. Holgate follows:]
Prepared Statement of Laura S.H. Holgate
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to your
exploration of nuclear terrorism. At NTI, we have observed that the
difference between a terrorist and a nuclear terrorist is found in the
word ``nuclear'': no nuclear material, no nuclear terrorism. This
obvious logic underpins our fundamental prescription for averting
nuclear terrorism: secure, consolidate, and--where possible--eliminate
nuclear weapons materials, in all forms, in every location. We know how
to do this, and it is affordable and achievable within the next decade,
but we have yet to act with the sense of urgency this threat requires,
whether out of a misplaced sense of priorities, or out of a false
perception that this threat is not real.
How might a terrorist become a nuclear terrorist? They could steal
or acquire a weapon manufactured by a state with a weapons program.
Russia has tens of thousands of weapons, including small, portable and
low-tech tactical weapons, none of which are subject to outside
accounting. The Beslan tragedy demonstrates the corruption and
incompetence that exists in the Russian security services. Pakistan is
known to have radical Islamists in the armed services charged with
guarding their weapons, and A.Q. Kahn, one of the leaders of their
nuclear weapons program, ran the most stunning nuclear black market
commerce we have ever seen. North Korea, who has proven they will sell
anything to anyone, may be prepared to sell one or more weapons to
terrorists once they make enough for themselves.
Given the technical difficulties associated with detonating a bomb
that they did not design, however, terrorists might instead prefer to
build their own. They could build a simple gun-type device, based on
stolen highly enriched uranium or, less likely, an implosion device
using plutonium. The largest sources of raw materials of nuclear bombs
can be found in facilities associated with national weapons programs,
but they are also used, and, in many instances poorly guarded, in
dozens of civilian research facilities and college campuses in over 40
nations around the world. The nuclear materials once in hand, a small
handful of chemists and metal workers, even without prior experience
with weapons, could build such a device.
We need not speculate about Osama bin Laden's interest in acquiring
a nuclear weapon. He has spoken to the world of his intentions, and
even sought a fatwa, or religious decree, sanctifying his pursuit of
nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. We know that he
recruited scientists and engineers--many trained in Western
institutions--who could help him realize his nuclear vision, and we
found nuclear weapons designs in the caves in Afghanistan. It would be
foolish to believe that he is unique among terrorists in seeking
nuclear capabilities.
Preventing terrorists' access to nuclear weapons and materials is
the single most effective way to avert nuclear terrorism; it's the only
step in the process where we have an advantage. Every other step along
the terrorists' path to the bomb is easy for them and hard for us. The
US and others have been making progress in the prevention mission, in
large part through the visionary and effective threat reduction
programs known collectively as ``Nunn-Lugar,'' but not on a pace or at
a scope that will solve the problem on a timeframe relevant to the
threat.
When Senators Nunn and Lugar originally passed their ground-
breaking bill in 1991, our picture of the proliferation threat was very
different. We worried about starving Soviet scientists decamping for
Baghdad or Tripoli or Pyongyang, carrying in their heads or their
briefcases the ``crown jewels'' of nuclear bomb design, sophisticated
miniaturized weapons suitable for delivery on the tip of an ICBM.
Programs like the International Science and Technology Center were
designed to give these scientists a reliable monthly stipend in
exchange for working on peaceful research topics, in the hopes that
avoiding economic desperation would prevent them from selling the keys
to the nuclear kingdom.
The good news is that this early set of proliferation concerns
never came to pass, probably for a combination of reasons: our
programs' effectiveness, Russian preferences to remain within familiar
social and political structures, patriotism, professionalism, fear of
getting caught. So far as we know, there has never been a Russian A.Q.
Kahn. The bad news is that US and international programs have not
adapted to today's nuclear threat: terrorists' pursuit of nuclear
weapons through theft of materials or weapons.
This reality--combined with the elimination of two of the largest
state-based proliferators in Iraq and Libya and the discovery that
Iran's nuclear technology came from Pakistan, not Russia--fundamentally
changes the way humans may contribute to nuclear threats. A decade ago,
we focused on the scientists because they held the keys to developing
the large-scale nuclear materials production and sophisticated weapons
systems necessary to states seeking a sustainable nuclear arsenal.
Today, we need to widen our scope to understand the role any employee
at a nuclear facility can play in facilitating nuclear terrorism
through access to nuclear materials, or to information about how such
materials are handled at a particular site. Individuals at all levels
know about storage venues and conditions, transfer schedules, security
vulnerabilities, routines and procedures. This kind of insider
information provided to an outside terrorist group can help them to
acquire nuclear weapons and materials. This is today's challenge, and
we are not yet rising to meet it.
Russia's ten closed nuclear cities are host to hundreds of tons of
highly enriched uranium and plutonium, and dozens of military bases
house tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Even if we were doing all
we could from a physical protection point of view, the drastic
shrinkage these facilities will experience over the next several years
creates the potential for disgruntled, opportunistic, unprofessional,
or blackmailed personnel at all levels to make their knowledge of or
access to materials and weapons available to those who seek it. In an
environment in which petty pilferage of toilet seats, cooking oil, and
even small arms occurs on a daily basis, we should not assume that less
educated staff will distinguish nuclear materials from other assets
they may be willing to steal or reveal. In fact, it is more likely that
a machine-tool operator or a maintenance worker would do so than the
higher-level scientists. Yet many of our programs persist in their
focus on scientists, and pay scant attention to the broader set of
personnel who may pose nuclear risks.
Current programs, effective in dealing with last decade's threat,
often fail to take today's materials-and-weapons-based threat into
account:
Many of those who are counted as ``engaged'' in
peaceful activities maintain their clearances and access to
sensitive facilities and materials.
Non-scientists are often not eligible to receive
funding from these programs.
Programs are not prioritized to address cities or
facilities with the greatest risk of materials diversion.
They do not address the risks posed by retired
military officers who continue to be housed (often unemployed
and perhaps alcoholic) at bases that store nuclear weapons.
Most programs have a high-tech, entrepreneurial
approach that leaves out middle- and lower-level employees.
The solution to today's nuclear threats is this: sustainable
alternatives for all types of employees set to lose jobs owing to
nuclear downsizing. Existing programs, such as the Department of
Energy's Russian Transition Initiatives and the Department of State-
funded Science and Technology Centers, will continue to be valuable
components of a comprehensive approach, but taking these threats
seriously would include the following changes or additions to current
efforts:
Spin off non-weapons research or commercial activities
to locations outside nuclear facilities, so that staff employed
there no longer have awareness of or access to nuclear
materials and activities
Reduce current ``moonlighting'' practices by creating
full-time sustainable jobs outside institutes
Develop new techniques to reduce or redirect excess
staff, such as early retirement programs
Make educing total employment--especially of employees
with access to nuclear materials, weapons and related
information--should become the key measure of merit
Increase low(er)-tech job creation, and recognize that
it contributes to the overall mission
Support regional economic planning and development
Increase access to capital for small-business start-
ups and expansions
Incorporate relevant military personnel and sites into
personnel-related programs
This approach demands greater funding, but even more important,
broadened authorities for existing programs and linkages to traditional
international development efforts, such as those carried out by the US
Agency for International Development. Even though critics have
dismissed the relevance of so-called ``soft'' programs, developing
sustainable alternatives to weapons work is a critical component of
reducing nuclear terrorism.
Some small but instructive progress has been made in broadening the
approach to unemployed nuclear workers, or those at risk of losing
their jobs. US AID has recently changed its mind-set toward working in
Russia's closed nuclear cities. Whereas in the past, US AID has by and
large avoided cities where significant nonproliferation projects are
being carried out, they now interpret their mission to include, and I
quote from their own strategic goals, ``reducing the threat of weapons
of mass destruction to the United States, our allies, and our
friends.'' This has created interest at US AID in finding ways to
target some of their ongoing programs in economic development and
health, for example, to Russian cities dealing with large layoffs of
nuclear workers. (Unfortunately, this realization comes at a time of
shrinking US AID budgets in Russia.) US AID's existing cadre of local
nongovernment organizations provides a ready base of expertise to work
effectively in these new areas, and in the process, to become familiar
with the unique needs of these cities. As part of US efforts to reduce
the risks of nuclear terrorism, US AID should be encouraged, and
funded, to expand its existing programs and develop targeted
initiatives to contribute to the creation of sustainable alternatives
to weapons work, including language and business training, local
governance, housing, and civic infrastructure.
A second novel approach has developed out of volunteer-based Sister
City relationships. During the 1990s, several US and Russian towns
involved in nuclear weapons activities became Sister Cities: Los
Alamos, NM and Sarov; Livermore, CA and Snezhinsk; and Blount County,
TN and Zhleznogorsk. Citizen-to-citizen contacts have engaged schools,
local officials, cultural leaders, and others in a myriad of exchanges,
planning exercises, donations and other interactions. These cities have
joined with other US-Russian Sister Cities where nonproliferation
activities are carried out in an initiative known as Communities for
International Development. Based on what these groups have been able to
accomplish on pure volunteerism, they offer a solid platform for
expanding federally funded activities in this arena.
At NTI, we have factored these issues into our own project design.
We have developed two projects intended to demonstrate new techniques
for engaging weapons workers generally, especially middle managers, in
the closed city of Sarov. One project involves a $1 million NTI
contribution to an existing Russian revolving loan fund. This fund
supports small and medium business generally in Sarov, and NTI's funds
are targeted specifically to supporting businesses that provide jobs
for workers coming out of the weapons institute. Our funds have
supported three new businesses, provided over 70 new permanent jobs for
weapons workers, and enough funds have been repaid from these
businesses' success to permit investment in a fourth enterprise. This
dollar-per-job-created compares very favorably with government-funded
programs. Also at Sarov, NTI's funds will permit the hiring of two
experienced marketing directors to promote SarovLabs, a contract
research firm, to Western and Russian private sector clients.
SarovLabs, formerly known as the Open Computing Center, provides part-
time jobs for some current weapons institute employees, but the rest of
their time they continue to work at the institute. The goal is to bring
in enough new business to create 100 new full-time positions that are
sustainable enough to give former weapons workers confidence to sever
their ties with the institute, which limits the risk they might pose to
theft of materials or weapons. We believe these new approaches offer
models that might be built on to more fully address these nuclear
terrorism risks.
The Day After
At NTI, we frequently ask ourselves, our elected representatives,
and our fellow citizens of the world: the day after a catastrophic
instance of nuclear terror, what will we wish we had done to prevent
it? Why aren't we doing that now? I've done my best to offer some
answers to the first question. The second question has no good answers.
The time to act is now.
Mr. Linder. I have got a few questions, and then we will
move around the panel. We are about to have a vote in the next
15 or 20 minutes, so we will get as much out of the way before
that as possible.
We have made a good bit of progress identifying and
containing Russian-manufactured fissile material and weapons. I
have two questions. What are we doing about Pakistan--for
Ambassador Lehman, I guess. And how many nations can you say in
open session that we know have stockpiles?
Mr. Lehman. First of all, Mr. Chairman, on the question of
how many stockpiles, I think--you mean fissile material itself?
I have got--I think David has probably got the exact number
from the IAEA. But it is a sizeable number, although many of
them have material in, say, for example, research reactors that
is a fairly small amount. Nevertheless, it is a cause of
concern.
On the U.S. Government efforts to engage Pakistan,
obviously there is a lot of sensitive discussions, and I am not
the right person to talk to about that. But in general, there
has been a major effort both in the public with NGOs, Members
of Congress, and the executive branch to persuade the
Pakistanis that controlling both their weapons and their
material is a very high priority. But, as you know, we have
this long history of A.Q. Kahn activities that show how very
difficult it is to be sure that governments or even government
entities are doing the right things.
Mr. Linder. Are we better prepared now to see any
indication of similar networks operating?
Mr. Lehman. Well, there is good news and bad news. The good
news is we are better prepared. The bad news is that the
networks are getting more and more complex because there is
more and more technology floating around. And when you have the
kind of outsourcing activities that are so typical of economies
today and business activities today, it is very hard, even with
the most wonderful data management systems, to really get a
good picture of what happens. And remember, every time we have
a success and it goes public, the terrorists learn what not to
do next time.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Albright, you commented on all the things
the United States has been trying to do around the world to
locate and nail down this material. Are other nations helping?
Are we the only Nation that is interested in this?
Mr. Albright. No. Many nations are part of it. I think the
United States is the leader and has been for over 20 years. I
mean, I think we faced our problems. We had weaknesses in
physical security in particularly our old nuclear weapons
product complex, and that, combined with increased concern
about proliferation, has led to a very aggressive leadership on
this area. And certainly it would be better for countries to
contribute more. I think there is a desire that Russia
particularly would buy into physical protection more. I mean,
it has certainly been willing to accept money and make
improvements, but I think that there is still a sense that they
are not--their culture hasn't changed enough where they really
deeply believe in the need for physical protection and realize
the risk of the terrorist nuclear weapons.
Mr. Linder. What is the source of the least protected and
the most vulnerable fissile material in the world? Is it
universities? Is it hospitals?
Mr. Albright. Well, I think overall it is--you can't
generalize. I mean, you could--I think traditionally there has
been a sense that on the civil side, that there is less
protection. But in a way, the adage of the squeaky wheel gets
fixed has played a very large role and created a situation
where there are many places that have excellent physical
protection, and then there are others that have escaped
attention. And that is essentially what happened in Russia
until the end of the Cold War, was not adequate to deal with
the threat posed by the collapse of the Soviet Union. They
hadn't created these internal systems that really could work
well.
Mr. Linder. Let me ask Ms. Holgate. You said so far we have
not seen a Russian A.Q. Kahn. Do we think there might be one
out there?
Ms. Holgate. I think if there existed one, that he is
already gone--or she. But I think the folks who are there have
been remarkably loyal, remarkably patriotic, and frankly they
are not all that interested in helping some of the countries
that we have been most concerned about in terms of
proliferation.
Mr. Linder. What percentage of their material have you
identified?
Ms. Holgate. Well the Department of Energy's figures are
the ones we have to go with here. And the Department of Energy
is focusing on providing material, protection, control, and
accounting upgrades on 600 metric tons of highly enriched
uranium and plutonium inside Russia. Now, those are at--mostly
at some of their major bomb-making factories. What is clear
about that is that that number is a dynamic number. It changes.
And we don't know exactly what is happening to the material
that moves into that 600 figure and the material that moves
out.
We also know that Russians themselves, Russians have told
me in my work with them at NTI that some of their civil
facilities, they don't have high-quality accounting at those
facilities. And so I think the fundamental answer is not only
do we not know, but there is an excellent chance the Russians
don't know.
Mr. Linder. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Langevin.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Holgate, following up on your last point there with
respect to locations where there may not be weapons-grade
material, but at more peaceful sites used at nuclear facilities
for producing energy. To what degree do we need to worry about
that material? And we have been focusing a lot on weapons-grade
plutonium, highly enriched uranium, but how great a security
threat is using nuclear material from a reactor a threat?
Ms. Holgate. Well, let me just make a distinction between
nuclear power reactors for producing energy, the vast majority
of which use low enriched uranium which poses next to no
proliferation threat. The civil reactors I was speaking of are
research reactors, which use highly enriched uranium, something
over 20 percent, and some of them use uranium as much as 90
percent. Anything over 20 percent the IAEA says you can make a
bomb with, and that is concerning. So I would say that category
of civilian research reactors or critical assemblies or other
types of research facilities that may simply have material are
much more to be concerned about than any kind of a civilian
power plant.
Mr. Langevin. In your testimony, you state that the key
requirement for a terrorist to become a nuclear terrorist is to
obtain nuclear material. The National Intelligence Council, as
you are well aware, issued a report in December of 2004, which
states: We assess that undetected smuggling has occurred, and
we are concerned about the total amount of material that could
have been diverted or stolen in the last 13 years.
Now, this concerns me since we have had nonproliferation
programs in place over the last 13 years. And now, I do believe
that things have improved in Russia, but what are the three
things that you think our government has to do now to ensure
that future reports from the Intelligence Community will not
continue to say that undetected smuggling is occurring? And
within that, I would like to know your thoughts as to--and the
other panelists as well--why we haven't had a Russian A.Q.
Kahn. That, to me, is just counterintuitive.
Ms. Holgate. Well, I am less surprised that we haven't had
a Russian A.Q. Kahn than I am that we haven't had some of these
more low-level petty pilferers. And that is when you see the
smugglers we have caught. It is not scientists, it is the
seaman who happens to have access to the material at the naval
base. You know, it is a worker who sees stuff that he thinks
might be valuable and he goes and he hides it under his bed,
sometimes at great damage to himself and his family. Those are
the people that have been getting caught. And thank goodness
they haven't had either the quality or the quantity of material
relevant from a bomb perspective. It is only--it may only be a
matter of time. And I share the concern over the intelligence
statement about we don't know how much may have been stolen.
I tend to believe that if it had made its way from a
pilferer to a terrorist group, we would have seen its use. So
my only hope is that to the degree that it has gone missing, it
is stuck in that netherland between how those pilferers might
connect to an outside group. We may not yet have seen the kind
of targeted outsider, you know, working with the dedicated
insider to try to capture specific material in connection with
a bomb; but that is what I really worry about at these large
sites with large quantities of material.
Mr. Langevin. The A.Q. Kahn case is disturbing to me in
terms of the scope of its operation and the nations to which he
provided nuclear secrets. The Congressional Research Service
reports that Kahn sold blueprints, centrifuge assemblies,
uranium hexafluoride feedstock, and, worst of all, nuclear
weapon designs.
Now, one of the purposes of this hearing is to determine if
there are any indicators for such terrorist activities. Now,
understanding that intelligence is going to be the best
indicator that we have, what are the lessons learned from the
Kahn case? And how can we catch a terrorist trying to obtain
the bomb? And, by the way, in my opening statement I asked you
to address, if possible for the panel, what surprised you about
the Kahn case? What caught us really off guard other than it
happened in the first place?
Ms. Holgate. I will defer to my colleague, Dr. Albright, on
the Kahn issues as he has done a lot of research on that.
Mr. Albright. What surprised me about the A.Q. Kahn case
was twofold: One is that they were in the end peddling an
entire gas centrifuge plant. They would have been able, if
finished, to make many nuclear weapons in a year. So typically
that is something countries or very advanced industries in
developed nations do. So that was the first surprise.
The other was is that he was providing to Libya, or
provided to Libya a very sophisticated--from a proliferance
point of view, crude but somewhat miniaturized--implosion
weapon design and the manufacturing instructions to make the
actual components. And so I think those are the two big
surprises.
I would say, though, that you can't compare--it is not
useful to talk about A.Q. Kahn and Russian fissile material. I
mean, A.Q. Kahn and his network evolved out of a over 20-year
illicit procurement effort to arm the Pakistanis with nuclear
weapons, and then at some point in the 1980s they decided to
turn it into an export operation. And so it is a very different
phenomena than what we have been talking about, about fissile
material controls in Russia.
But I would say that Russia is not going to come off scott
free. I mean, there has been a lot of exports of equipment
technology out of Russia in the missile area. We don't know for
sure on the nuclear area. But their export control system,
which is really what A.Q. Kahn was exploiting and undermining
in various nations, has been very weak. And they had horrible
problems in implementing effective export controls. And so
someone may emerge in Russia who turns out to be a major
supplier to a country's nuclear weapons program.
And in terms of helping terrorists, we may still see that,
particularly on the side of weapons assistance, equipment to
make nuclear weapons. You know, I hope to God we don't see it
on fissile material, but I think all three of us are saying
that that is also a possibility.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you. My time has expired.
Mr. Linder. Thank you. Chairman Cox.
Mr. Cox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses for excellent prepared testimony and excellent
support thus far during this hearing. We are very pleased to
have you today.
The reason that we are focused on the prevention of nuclear
attack is that the prospect of cleaning up the mess afterwards
is so dismal. Obviously, we are going to spend resources and
plan for response and recovery for any kind of terrorist
threat. That is unavoidable. But with some kinds of terrorist
threats, such as blowing up buildings or setting fire to things
or using conventional explosives, the prospect of recovery is
much easier to imagine than these high-consequence events, such
as terrorists getting their hands not on a dirty bomb but an
authentic nuclear weapon, which is what we have been discussing
here today. The priority, therefore, on prevention I think is
well placed, and we really appreciate your helping us walk
through this.
My understanding is that our screens are not going to be
able to put up this chart. Or we can? This is the chart, Mr.
Albright, that you included with your testimony. I just--is it
possible to enlarge that? Maybe we can scroll up and down it.
Or is that all we are going to do? All right. Well, that is as
good as not having it up, because nobody is going to be able to
read that. But I will just refer to it. It is in the formal
written record.
This is a great diagram, Mr. Albright, that you prepared
for us that we all understand is notional. Terrorists don't
have to follow this flow chart to put together nuclear weapons;
they can follow their own plan. But this is based on some
reasonable assumptions.
I just want to walk us through this and see whether or not,
given that the subject of today's hearing is identifying
earlier indicators of terrorist activities, how we might focus
our efforts at each one of these stages, the earlier the
better, to learn sooner than otherwise might be the case that
something is going on.
The role of the Department of Homeland Security, I should
mention parenthetically here, is to help us to knit together
some of the information strands. When Mohammed Atta was pulled
over just shortly before 9/11 by a Florida State trooper, the
Florida State trooper didn't know that he was a person of
interest to the CIA and to the Treasury and to FAA. We all know
from reading the 9/11 Commission report all the information
that we didn't use, and one of the reasons that DHS is there is
to help us, through the Information Analysis Office, not make
that mistake again. We have NCTC, we have a lot of fusion
systems that we are putting in place now that weren't there
prior to 9/11. Let us focus on how we might look for certain
kinds of information, and try and piece it together to prevent
nuclear terrorism before it happens.
The first thing, Mr. Albright, on your flow chart is that
terrorist leaders identify vulnerable stocks of plutonium or
HEU. And I might add at this point I think it is probably a
safe assumption to think that the more likely of those two
scenarios is HEU because it is more likely, as you said, Ms.
Holgate, in your testimony, that we are going to be looking at
a gun-type device, not an implosion device. Let us ask
ourselves whether--is there anything that we might be looking
for at that moment? Or is that too early?
The next thing is, we are going to have meetings and
communications to arrange the acquisition of fissile material?
Following that, we locate the fissile material, and we divert
it or steal it from an inside operation, or just break in and
get it, apparently. After that, we have to move it. The early
aspects on this are meetings of terrorists with themselves. I
take it that would require, say it again, listening to what
they are doing or having some infiltrator in there. But
ultimately they get to actually building this weapon after some
transit for the materials. They have manufacturing sites, they
have got an integration site.
My time is quickly running down here, so I am going to try
and load this all into one question for the whole panel here.
But using this chart--do the witnesses all have a copy of this?
If not, we will hand it to you because it didn't pop up on the
screen as well as I had hoped. I know that at least Mr.
Albright has it, because it is your chart.
And then, of course, the last box is detonation of the
nuclear weapon. I don't think we want to catch it just then.
Although I did see on an episode of 24 that after they launched
the missile with the nuclear warhead, that somehow they stopped
that all from happening. Probably not in real life. Probably we
ought to be looking at the top of this chart.
So can you help us interpret this chart and turn it into
actionable kinds of work that intelligence gatherers and
analysts could do if we are putting this priority on
prevention?
I will start with Mr. Albright, but all three of you are
richly equipped to help us answer this question.
Mr. Albright. I think I tried to emphasize the two places
where we can take steps to increase the chance of detection. I
mean, concrete actions that will lead to a higher probability
of detection, namely at the locations where fissile material is
stored, and then trying to detect illicit procurement of
equipment.
The others, there is certainly a lot of things that can
happen. And I am not sure it is suitable for an open hearing.
Certainly I am not encouraging a closed one. But there are a
lot of things that go on to try to intercept communications.
And you can actually take this and do a much deeper analysis,
looking at what kind of specific activities happen at each of
these boxes, and then try to increase your ability,
intelligence agencies' or communities' ability to detect that
the terrorists are trying something.
So I think it is--the trouble along some of the steps, like
when the terrorist leaders meet or when there are things that
are in transit, there is a certain luck to it all. And if we
are short of human sources within these terrorist
organizations, then it is hard to have a high chance of
detection, although I think it is important to do and to
certainly increase our ability to penetrate these groups.
Let me just stop there. I don't want to take too much time.
Mr. Cox. Ambassador Lehman?
Mr. Lehman. I would make two additions to the chart, but
not with the intent to help the terrorists. But one is, David
uses the word ``sites'' in plural, and I think he is right to
emphasize that. One of the awkward words of modern industry is
disintermediation. But what it really means is the flattening
of the pyramid of organizations. And I think that what we are
likely to see is that the activities will take place at a
number of different sites.
Now, obviously, when you integrate the bomb, as David's
chart points out, at some point all of the necessary things
need to come together. But I think if you are looking for a
plant where they do all the nonfissile material components, I
think you are not likely to find one. I think you are going to
find that bits and pieces are done in a lot of different
places. And the people who will be doing some of that will be
honest people who have no idea why they are doing this other
than they got an order.
The second point that I would emphasize is the box on
nuclear weapon designers or designs. And of course that, you
know, knowing what it is you are going to build is terribly
important, and it may not be as easy as some people think.
Having said that, I think I would share Laura's emphasis
that the knowledgeable people that the terrorists may need may
not be the designer. It may not even be someone who is
particularly technically adept. It depends on where they are
and how they are doing the process. I think--and this is the
theme of my prepared remarks--is that we have got to recognize
that in order to get the material and assemble it, if that is
the path they take, other than stealing a weapon, they need
some knowledgeable people. Some of those have to be
technologically savvy, others not so much so. But they need to
get access to those people. They are going to go fishing in
those waters. We, or somebody friendly to our interests, needs
to be sailing in those waters. We need to have the prospect
that the ships will pass and we will see.
Now, the bad news is it is a big world, a big ocean out
there, and it is hard to see. The good news, as I think David
and Laura have emphasized in their remarks, is there are places
where the ships keep coming. Obviously, focusing on fissile
material and its locations is a terribly important thing, but
there are other worlds out there where these ships have to
sail, and we need to have somebody watching those waters. Thank
you.
Ms. Holgate. I guess the only thing I would add to that is,
building on your comment about the 24 episode the other day, is
that NTI has actually taken a pathway similar to this and
transformed it into a film, which is available free to anyone
who logs on to Our Last Best Chance dot org Web site. It stars
Fred Thompson, a former colleague of all of yours, as the
President, and shows how governments and people deal with these
steps as they watch them unfold and what we can and cannot do
at various stages. So I will just commend that to folks for
their entertainment and education.
Mr. Cox. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps we
should link our Web site to that.
Mr. Linder. Not a bad idea. Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. In this area I am
particularly struck by how all of the assumptions about
proliferation changed since 9/11, or should have. We were
dealing government to government, we still have a great deal of
work to do government to government. And if we shored that up,
and we are very far from that, we will have gone some distance.
But, of course, as we look at sites, known sites, we then have
to speculate about sites and sites that are not even regarded
as sites, sites where--scientific sites. And so the who and the
what is part of the proliferation, leading, I must say, to, at
least in the general public, wild speculation about the
possibility of attack, what form it would attack, how people
should prepare. And the difficulty goes from not knowing about
whether or not, about--not knowing about the sources of fissile
material to who really has the expertise to do what would need
to be done.
I frankly have a--I have two questions. One isn't really
about the a A.Q. Kahns of this world. It is really about larger
pool of scientists, highly trained scientists. One of you
answered something about--several of you talked about helping
the terrorists. I mean, what that suggests is that you don't
have to be a fully-blown scientist who worked in the nuclear
field to follow the steps and learn what you have to learn.
And that is my first question, is--is given the huge pool
of people who are trained, given the number, given how much of
this is driven by religious zealotry, how likely is it that
some highly trained scientist could indeed be the source of
expertise for Al-Qa`ida-type groups, learning himself, self-
taught, learning in the way that scientists today can learn
about this field? What is your sense about the possibility that
whoever might help to produce a weapon for terrorists might not
come from the usual sources, but might come from the large
number of highly trained scientists throughout the Arab world,
the Muslim world? Is that, is that likely or is that simply--or
would that take too long and not the most likely way in which
such a weapon would be produced?
Mr. Lehman. Obviously the easiest path is to follow roughly
the path somebody else has taken. So I think the hardest way
for a terrorist to get to a nuclear weapon is to go back to
basic physics and try to--
Ms. Norton. Yeah, but I am not talking about basic physics.
And that assumes that, you know, the only folks who really
understand this have been the ones in these who have been
working, such as the Russian scientists. I am talking about
highly trained scientists that we know existed in places like
Iran and other places who may not have had access to the
laboratories in question.
Mr. Lehman. And I think that is a very good point in that
we need to understand that the expertise is not just in a few
places on the globe. It is incredibly widespread. But even some
of the finest Nobel Prize winners don't know how to fix their
own radio. They need a team of people who can do such things.
And, unfortunately, if the terrorists already have components
or have material or have certain things already predigested,
presolved for them, then the people they need may turn out to
be at a lower level of knowledge, and they only need to be so
competent. And the message is that there are more and more of
those people all over the world.
But you have also raised, I think, a very important point,
and that is that there is a tendency to think that nobody in
the scientific community really would ever help these people,
and I like to think that the scientific community is at least
as good and as honest as everybody else. But the history of
science is filled with scientists who became criminals or
associated with terrorists. Indeed, bin Laden's deputy is a
medical doctor. Medical doctors take oaths to save lives. We
have to recognize that we can't simply assume that, because the
number is small, that the number is zero. It is a large and
growing pool. And even though the percentage is very small, the
absolute number could be dangerous, and that is sort of where
we think it is, that there are people out there. Thus far, our
success has been that the people who want that knowledge and
the material have not been able to meet up in the right way
with the people who want to use it. And that is where we have
to focus our efforts.
Mr. Linder. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you,
Mr. Chairman, for an excellent panel and for holding this
hearing, and say first to you, Ms. Holgate, your comment, no
nuclear material, no nuclear threat, speaks to me. Because in
my work as Chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, both
in Russia and visiting our labs, there is no doubt in my mind
that terrorists can build a nuclear weapon. And to suggest
anything other than that I think would be to really fool
people.
True, they can't--and if you disagree after what I am
saying, I want to hear it. Terrorists may not be able to build
a sophisticated weapon that can go in a missile. They can't
reduce by a pound and give us the ability to put more missiles
on the warhead. But they can take, it seems to me, a very crude
tube with enriched uranium, even trying more than once to
create the impact, they can blow it up. And it seems to me the
only question is, it won't be dependable, they may have to try
a few times, but they don't care if they go up with it. The
yield will be inefficient. And they are ultimately going to
have to commit suicide in the process. But none of that would
deter them. So what have I said that you would disagree with? I
would just like to start with you, Ambassador.
Mr. Lehman. I think I basically agree, it can be done. And
the only thing that I would like to emphasize that we really
need to put a tremendous emphasis is on securing fissile
material.
Already we don't know if it is all going to be in the
places we secure, and we can put the best locks and systems on
a facility, but if the man who runs the facility is the person
who can unlock the door, then there at least is always a
potential vulnerability.
Because of the concern about biological weapons, chemical
weapons, other types of terrorism, we need a dynamic strategy
in any case, and I think it ought to be synergistic with our
efforts to counter nuclear terrorism as well.
You are going to need a dynamic defense in depth.
Mr. Albright. I agree.
Ms. Holgate. I wouldn't disagree with a thing you have
said, sir.
Mr. Albright. Can I say one thing, sir? I agree with you,
but I think if you study, particularly proliferant state
nuclear weapons programs, they really are starting, as
Congresswoman Norton talked about, starting from scratch. They
may have some nuclear training but very little, and they are
having to learn the ropes. They run into problems and I am not
saying this to downplay the threat. I am saying it so that we
don't write this off, that we just, oh, okay, don't worry about
it, it is a given, they can make a bomb. They actually need to
do certain things to make a bomb and some of those things are
detectable, particularly if we increase our efforts in certain
areas.
Mr. Shays. And I should be hearing that point about being
detectable, but the bottom line is you don't need instruments
that are hard to get. The material is pretty basic if you are
willing to have a low yield, and, I believe, enriched uranium
explosion. If it is plutonium, does the weapon need to be more
sophisticated?
Mr. Lehman. Yes.
Mr. Albright. Yes. The tradeoff is you need a lot more
material for a gun-type device.
Mr. Shays. But even if it had one-tenth the yield of
Hiroshima, it still would be a nuclear explosion, correct?
Mr. Albright. It would be devastating.
Mr. Shays. Okay.
Mr. Albright. If it is detonated in a city, for example.
Mr. Shays. Right. But your point to me, that I am trying to
make sure I am listening to, is that even containing the
weapons-grade material doesn't mean--under Nunn-Lugar doesn't
mean it is going to stay there. And your other point that I
think I am hearing is we may contain what we know, but we may
not be containing what we don't know. I mean we won't be.
Your last point--you know what, that is fine. I am done.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Linder. Dr. Christensen.
Mrs. Christensen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one
question and I am sorry I missed the testimony. I tried to skim
through it, but a lot of the focus seemed to have been on
fissile material in other countries, and some of the
protections I have read are anywhere--I think the quote is from
appalling to excellent--the protection of the facilities that
may house this material. And I was just wondering, looking at
the facilities in this country that might house fissile
material, how would you rate our protection of that critical
infrastructure?
Mr. Lehman. I think that we may be the world's best. The
question is, is best good enough? We constantly need to test
our own systems to see where the vulnerabilities are, because
you can spend a lot of time addressing one kind of scenario,
one threat; you can spend a huge sum of money and then discover
there is this other problem. So you need to be agile and
dynamic in testing yourself.
But there is another good reason for testing on yourself
and that is that you can then get a feel for where weaknesses
may be elsewhere, where there is even greater risk and perhaps
use that information to help.
So it is always good to take a good strong look at
ourselves, but in the end, there is only so much money and so
you have to kind of allocate where you really need to put the
priorities.
Mr. Albright. I think there is a principle at play here
that it is similar to protecting money in a bank. I mean, you
can't become complacent. It is an ongoing struggle and the
United States has had problems in the past, some in the not-
too-distant past, and so it is something you have to worry
about, what Ron said about the money often becomes the critical
factor.
I know in the nineties, senior Department of Energy
officials told me to get the money to help the Russians, they
had to take it from some of the security accounts for U.S.
facilities. And that created its own problems.
Ms. Holgate. The only thing I would add to what has been
said, I would certainly echo the notion that U.S. government-
run weapons-related nuclear facilities are among the best in
the world. Civilian facilities, however, may be a different
story. When you are talking about a highly enriched uranium in
a university research reactor in the middle of a city where the
guard force may be the local campus cops, where you have a
constant flow of graduate students through, I think there is a
lot of improvement that can be done in security there; or when
the tradeoffs, as was pointed out, between security and funding
becomes unmanageable, given the research that is being done
there, given that it can be done elsewhere or done with
nonweapons-usable material, I think that is a big caveat to
what has been said so far.
Mr. Linder. Thank you. Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and to our
witnesses, welcome. Thank you for your testimony. It has been
very enlightening for this committee as well.
When we look at this diagram that we have talked about, the
Chairman or Mr. Cox talked about--this diagram--in there is
nothing about the design. It starts with fissile material, it
looks like, and then goes down to finding fissile material
first and then construction. The design of such devices varies
but you can find them on the Internet. This is not your rocket
science-type project where you need an A.Q. Khan physicist to
be a designer. You can construct a crude device off the
Internet if you can find it on the Internet.
But that still doesn't answer the question about espionage
for the design of more sophisticated devices wherein back in
the early part of the decade, last decade, we saw the W-88
diagrams had been stolen from the United States and ended up
in, I believe, North Korea.
But I guess my question is this. At the end of the decade,
when the Soviet Union was breaking apart, there were a number
of weapons allocated to each of the various divisions of
Russia, whether it is Bulgaria, et cetera. When that broke up,
there was a poor accounting of all of those weapons, including
what some have called and our colleague from Pennsylvania Mr.
Weldon has said that there were a number of suitcase-size
weapons in that former Soviet Union that are unaccounted for.
Now, do you believe in your research that any of these
weapons may or may not be on the black market or have passed
through the black market to anybody who is a terrorist?
Ms. Holgate. I think it is fair to say, sir, that at the
breakup of the former Soviet Union, that all of the warheads
that had been in Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan--.
Mr. Gibbons. We are not talking warheads here, not warheads
off a missile. I am talking a suitcase-size device.
Ms. Holgate. The tactical weapons, the information we had
at the time was that Moscow detected a weakness in its
periphery even before the Wall fell, and they began pulling as
many tac nukes, including suitcase bombs, back into Russia
proper as they could.
Now, there has never been the kind of accounting, as you
point out, there has been on the missile-launched warheads, and
there has not been the kind of transparency because they have
never been governed by any kind of an arms control treaty. And,
as I am sure you have seen, when you ask your friends in the
Intelligence Community, how much do the Russians have, you see
these giant arrow bars because nobody really knows and we worry
the Russians don't know.
I would say, however, that this suitcase nuke thing is a
little bit of a red herring. The point is there may be tactical
nuclear weapons missing and those are the things to worry
about, but the specific scenario in the suitcase environment
for those who have looked into that research has not turned out
to be quite as stated by General Lebed in the mid-nineties when
that was such a scandal.
Mr. Gibbons. In your studies or any of your studies in this
problem, have any of you come across information, intelligence
or otherwise, that say on the black market there are parts that
can be acquired on the black market that would allow for you to
construct a simple, crude, nuclear-style device?
Mr. Albright. Parts. The first response is I have seen
plenty of information that terrorists have nuclear weapons,
that they were bought in Russia. We have never been able to
confirm any of that information and never found, in fact,
evidence to support it. And in terms of components, we have
seen reports of components being sold but not that we have seen
that are credible in the sense that it is a nuclear weapons
component advertised for sale.
If I can step back to this thing about the knowledge
spreading, we cannot find what we would call a nuclear weapons
design that would be usable to make a nuclear weapon on the
Internet. When we have done searches, what we tend to find is
information that in some ways parallels what the U.S. has
declassified, and when there are key questions that remain
classified, or information, we tend not to find it on the
Internet.
Let me just end it by saying the situation could get much,
much worse, for example, if A.Q. Khan's bomb design shows up on
the Internet.
Mr. Gibbons. Well, let me ask one brief question, because
you say if these terrorists had a weapon--and you have no idea
whether they do or they don't at this point in time--if they
did, why do you suspect they haven't used it?
Mr. Albright. I mean, there are some who don't accept the
statement that if they have it they will use it right away.
Again, I don't know of any evidence that they have it, but they
may be holding it back to use in some ways as a nation may use
a nuclear weapon: to extort concessions, to intimidate, to--in
the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan, pre-Taliban, or during
the Taliban era, certainly there was a theory about conflicts
developing between what they would call the Jews and Crusaders
versus the Muslim world, and they needed nuclear weapons to
prepare for that.
So I think there is a lot of thinking in some of these
communities that may not be just saying we will get it and we
will rush to the United States. I mean, they may be thinking,
in fact, a little more deeply, and I believe they will use it
in some way if they have it, but it may be in a more
complicated way.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Linder. The circumstance on the floor is that we are
going to have a series of votes and motion to recommit that
might take as much as an hour. So if Mr. McCaul would like to
inquire, and I would ask Ms. Harman and Mr. Markey to submit
any questions in writing, would the panel be satisfied with
answering that?
Mr. McCaul.
Mr. McCaul. No questions.
Mr. Linder. We will then adjourn this.
Mr. Markey. Mr. Chairman, people like me are put in a very
difficult position. On the one hand, the majority has ruled
that we cannot make opening statements, and as a result, the
people who are sitting in your chairs make opening statements
and you also get to ask questions. And then people like us, who
have intense interest in these nuclear issues, are then left at
the back of the line with important questions that have
remained unanswered and then asked to allow a hearing to end
without us ever having uttered a word.
And so I would object to the ending of this hearing so that
the Members who really believe that you are now talking about
the most important issue in the world are given an opportunity
on this subcommittee, which is my principal selection, to come
back and to ask the members of the witness panel these
questions.
Mr. Linder. Had you had been here when it opened, you would
have been the first person to ask questions.
Mr. Markey. After you, after the Ranking Member, and again
that is impossible to know.
Mr. Linder. We are not going to ask our guests to sit
around for an hour while we complete our votes.
Mr. Markey. Let us ask our guests if they would want to
wait around or not. Would the witnesses object to waiting
around an hour? I see no objection.
Mr. Linder. This hearing is recessed.
[Recess.]
Mr. Linder. I want to thank our witnesses for staying
through that recess, about an hour, and we have some more
questions for you. We expect another vote in probably half an
hour.
Mr. Markey.
Mr. Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman very much, and we thank
you, Chairman of the full committee, and we appreciate you, Mr.
Linder, returning for this opportunity, and I know that there
are other members who are going to be coming back now. I have
been trying to notify them out on the floor that they are going
to have this opportunity. And I appreciate the witnesses for
sticking around. We thank you very much.
Now, as we know, the Little Boy nuclear weapon which had a
13-kiloton was actually never tested before it was detonated in
Hiroshima, and we also know that Howard Moreland, when he
published how to build a nuclear bomb in the Progressive
magazine, and Jimmy Carter tried to get a restraining order
against it, that the courts just ruled it is not proprietary
information; every kid who is majoring in physics in schools in
the U.S., half of them from overseas in our colleges, already
have access to that information. So it is not a secret how to
build a nuclear bomb, and obviously that was printed and anyone
can get the designs as to how to build a nuclear bomb.
In fact, prominent physicists have said that you don't even
need a nuclear device to get an explosive yield; that simply
one piece of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium on another
could create a critical mass and a bomb that could kill
thousands of people. Of course, that would be suicidal, but we
know that these terrorists are suicidal.
The Bush administration is currently in the process of
approving a new uranium enrichment facility in New Mexico. Do
you think we need to produce more HEU when there is so much of
it in the former Soviet Union just waiting for us to pick up?
Mr. Lehman, do you support or oppose the construction of
that facility in New Mexico from a nonproliferation
perspective?
Mr. Lehman. Congressman Markey, I am here testifying just
on this broader issue of nuclear terrorism. Whether or not we
build a particular facility, it is incumbent upon us to make
sure that it is absolutely secure.
Mr. Markey. I am just talking about the signal we are
sending to the rest of the world as we are telling them that
they should not have highly enriched uranium facilities, given
the plethora that exists already.
Mr. Albright.
Mr. Albright. My understanding is it is not being built to
make highly enriched uranium.
Mr. Markey. It is not?
Mr. Albright. It is just to make low enriched uranium. You
may have more information.
Mr. Markey. It is my understanding that it is highly
enriched uranium.
Ms. Holgate.
Ms. Holgate. Well, without speaking specifically to that
facility, I have to say I share David's understanding that it
is a LEU production--well, centrifuges are centrifuges. They
can be used to make LEU or HEU, but the purpose of it is LEU.
But the more interesting point to your question about
Russian HEU, NTI has just completed a study with Russian
colleagues on how to accelerate the blend-down of Russian
highly enriched uranium to perhaps use that additionally for
nuclear power plants; and a counterintuitive fact about that is
you actually have to blend that material, blend the 90 percent
enriched material with 1.5 percent enriched blend stock. So you
actually do need to have some kind of an enrichment capability
even to get the power possibilities out of Russian HEUs.
So I would say that those are not incompatible realities to
have an enrichment capability in order to get the power out of
Russian HEU.
Mr. Markey. You said, Ms. Holgate, in your testimony that
Russia thus far has not had its own A.Q. Khan. Yet the Russian
Government has continued to sell nuclear facilities into Iran.
It continues its nuclear and missile assistance to China, and
while A.Q. Khan theoretically--although I don't believe it--was
not tied to the Pakistani Government, here the Russian
Government itself is engaging in reckless nonproliferation
policy.
Don't you think, for all intents and purposes, Vladimir
Putin is the A.Q. Khan--I am being serious on this--in terms of
his relationship with China and his relationship with Iran?
Ms. Holgate. Well, certainly, the missile issues are apart
from my personal knowledge, but I understand that is quite
serious and quite clear that there has been some government
connection, and obviously building a reactor in Iran is
government-sponsored and they are up front about that.
I would say Russia has been relatively responsible in that
broad context, and they have insisted that any fuel used--any
low enriched fuel that would be used in that reactor--come from
Russia, and that the spent fuel go back to Russia. In the
absence of indigenous capability for enrichment and
reprocessing, a power reactor using low enriched uranium is the
smallest component of a proliferation potential in Iran.
Mr. Markey. Do you agree with that, Mr. Albright?
Mr. Albright. Yes, I do. In terms of what she said about
the--.
Mr. Markey. I am going to go back to the Putin question.
Could you characterize Putin's cavalier attitude towards the
sale of these materials into China and Iran?
Mr. Albright. Well, I can't characterize Putin's actions. I
certainly worry a great deal about what Russia has been selling
in these areas.
Mr. Markey. Do you think these things can happen without
Putin's acquiescence?
Mr. Albright. I think they can, yes.
Mr. Markey. Do you think there can be a sale of nuclear
components into Iran without Putin?
Mr. Albright. Well, the leader of Russia certainly knew
about the deal in 95, and you will remember they were also
going to try to sell an enrichment plant to Iran. So I share
your concern about the Russia Government. But I do believe that
there is also a great risk that under Russian law would be
illegal exports that could be quite dangerous could leave
Russia, and that could happen without Putin knowing.
Where I would fault Putin and fault the Russian Government
is that they are not trying to implement export controls to the
extent they desperately need to.
Mr. Markey. We thank you for staying around. My 5 minutes
have expired. I would note, though, that under Rule IX of the
House of Representatives, that each committee shall apply the
5-minute rule during the questioning of witnesses in a hearing
until such time as each member of the committee who so desires
has had the opportunity to question each witness, and I am glad
today that finally we are in compliance with the rules, and I
yield back.
Mr. Linder. Mr. Cox.
Mr. Cox. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to thank our
witnesses for their gracious willingness to stick around during
our floor votes. We are going to be interrupted again, but as I
said earlier, your contribution is very, very valuable and we
very much appreciate you being here.
When I last left off my line of questioning we had up on
the screen the diagram, the flow chart prepared by Mr.
Albright, and if you have all still got your copies of that I
would like to keep our focus on that. Because what we are
trying to do in this hearing is look for those pieces of the
puzzle that will give us an early warning that terrorists are
actually moving from a general interest in or willingness to
use nuclear weapons to execution.
As you know, Osama bin Laden went out of his way to obtain
a fatwa in 2003, blessing Al-Qa`ida's use of nuclear weapons.
Ms. Holgate, you mentioned in your testimony that we found
nuclear weapons designs in the caves in Afghanistan. One month
before 9/11, two Pakistani nuclear scientists were arrested
because of links to Al-Qa`ida and the Taliban, and one of those
had been a project director in the lead up to Pakistan's 1998
nuclear test. The other one was with the Nuclear Materials
Division in Pakistan.
So we know that it wouldn't be greatly beyond the present,
to get on to your flow chart here, and I want to think about
what we might be doing to focus on those key indicators.
First of all, we know that the fissile material itself is a
sine qua non, so we are trying to watch that, and we have got
all these global arrangements that we are pursuing constantly
to secure fissile material, and by all accounts we are doing
the best job right here in the United States at securing
fissile material.
In addition to tracking material, I am inferring from what
I have heard so far during the hearing and your testimony that
there are some people that we can focus on, and I want to see
if I can drill down to that a little bit and understand exactly
what kind of people we can focus on and how can we go about
this. Since some of the expertise is required is not elegant
but would require at least, you know, a basic college degree,
let us say in certain areas, what can we piece together to make
sure that we are focusing on the right group of people? And
then beyond that, how can we track the intercourse, if there is
any, between terrorists and such people?
I guess, lastly, is the assumption in my question that this
is a worthwhile approach, a valid one.
Mr. Lehman. Mr. Chairman, let me offer sort of a way to try
to think about this. One is that there are certain traditional
paths down which countries that operate with this kind of
material and this kind of technology go, and so obviously if
you want to get into shipments of material, activities
involving material, one way to do it is to go and look at those
processes, those companies, URENCO, others, who are involved in
the legitimate business trade, and then try to see where the
anomalies are there; what is happening that doesn't make sense,
making sure that people there are sensitive to keep an eye out
for what may or may not be entirely legitimate activity.
A second path, though, is to say let us suppose that the
source of the threat is nontraditional. So, for example, right
now we tend to think of a certain limited number of countries
as having reprocessing enrichment capabilities and that we
would like to see them cooperate and making sure that material
is tightly controlled and limited and that the number is
limited.
One could imagine that a group of countries or, even
theoretically, nonstate actors involving some kind of
industrial organization, might decide that they want to have
their own system. Okay. Right now that is still big bucks, a
lot of talent, a lot of effort, and we would get indicators
that they were recruiting certain people, buying certain things
over time.
The problem is that I keep coming back to this point that
we need a more sophisticated way to think about the state,
nonstate, and actor issue and what I will call the legitimate
and illegitimate actor issue. They blur. They mix. So it may
well be that your proliferator will need certain skills that he
has already got. For example, it is quite common to hear people
talk about machine tools and what kind of high-precision
machine tools that would be necessary for making nuclear
weapons. The problem is the tendency is to look at what we use
in the nuclear weapons statements and forget that when we were
actually making our first weapons it was a much simpler
technology that is now widespread.
So I think if we try to look, as I said in my earlier
statement, for that illegitimate network or that other network,
we have got to find ways to get people on the inside of that.
For the legitimate network, we basically have to sensitize
people to keep eyes out for anomalies, but in particular what
we are looking for is the faster track in between, in which the
illegitimate and the legitimate start to come together. That is
kind of a vague answer but I am trying to give you a feel for
how we might think about it.
Mr. Albright. Let me add, because I agree with what Ron is
saying, the easiest to talk about is on the fissile material
side. The United States sends all kinds of people to Russia to
work on this problem. There has been a problem that the
information gained by those people hasn't been filtering into
the Intelligence Community fully.
I know they are taking steps right now to correct that, but
there was a sense that of the people out at the sites learning
things, learning about the adequacy of physical protection,
learning to know the people and developing relationships with
the people, is potentially important early warning for any
problems that may develop; and yet that information wasn't
really shared within the U.S. Government as it should be.
When Ron has used--if I can take his analogy--the ship
sailing into the right seas, that is important; and then we
have to make sure that the information gained by that ship is
actually communicated to the U.S. Government.
And on the other areas, I mean it is part of what I was
trying to do in my testimony and what Ron is struggling with
and Laura is: Where can you intervene to increase the chance of
detection? And that was part of the reason I wanted to generate
this pathway and, in fact, using pathway analysis.
Most of these things, it does appear you have to be lucky
to catch a meeting happening, a cell phone conversation. Our
intelligence agencies learn that a meeting is happening and
they can put in listening equipment. Those things seem very
hard to control. But on the fissile material, and, to a lesser
extent, but on the manufacturing of the weapon, it seems that
we can take steps to increase our chances that we will learn
something. But we do need to have people there.
And I would say under fissile materials side, I think we
know what to do and it can--the U.S. can better share the
information among its own agencies.
On the export side of this, it is a little more difficult
to know what to do. I mean, what I have seen personally is when
company officials help you, it is remarkable what you find out.
An example would be they get a tender from somebody where they
can--in this case it is a country trying to get something, and
they don't respond because they are responsible and they don't
want to deal with that. But they then pass on the information
to the intelligence agency of their country, and then that can
be used to nail some of these illegal procurement networks that
are going on. And I don't know the extent the U.S. does that,
but it certainly is something to encourage, to try to have
better relations with people in companies that may see some of
these things that terrorists would try to buy.
There is equipment--and Ron's point is very important about
the technology level. They are not going to buy the most fancy
computer in America when they control a machine to do
something, but they will need to buy certain equipment, and the
companies in some countries are set up to watch for anything
illegal because of these catch-all clauses that if it ends up
in a nuclear weapons program then that company is in trouble.
So they sensitize their employees to be suspicious of their
customers and then, in many cases, to share that information
with their respective government.
Mr. Linder. The gentleman's time has expired. Does Mr.
Dicks wish to inquire?
Mr. Dicks. Well, I want to thank the witnesses for being
here today. This is obviously one of the most important
subjects that our country faces, and there has been a lot of
work done on this by the three witnesses. And there are some
people who believe that if there was going to be this kind of
an attack, that one possible way it could be done would be from
a ship or a barge off the coast of the country. So they would
have to construct this somewhere else and that that is a
possibility.
Have you thought about that issue, Ron? I know you have had
a great deal of experience, and all three of you have had great
experience.
Mr. Lehman. Congressman Dicks, you are onto a very
important point, which is there sometimes a tendency to think
that the nuclear bomb that a terrorist would make will either
be like a nuclear weapons state's bomb, or at least something
like Hiroshima-Nagasaki, when in fact it may be a different
kind of device. It may be much more inefficient. It may be very
large, totally inappropriate for delivery, not only by missiles
but maybe inappropriate for delivery by an aircraft.
Well, then, how do they deliver? The answer is, as you have
said, is you can put them on ships. You can put them on trucks.
There are various means. I think this is something that the
community has to keep an eye on is that if you are looking for
the terrorist to meet your traditional standards of
performance, efficiency, safety, cost effectiveness at the
margin, you are asking the wrong questions.
Mr. Dicks. Other witnesses want to comment?
Mr. Albright. No. I agree with Ron, and particularly the
terrorists are going to look for shortcuts. Terrorists may look
to avoid using certain components that any state wouldn't
naturally think to use, and that would simplify their job, but
it may make their bomb much more inefficient and bigger.
Mr. Dicks. The other issue, you mentioned we have to have a
break in intelligence. One of the things that I have learned
about intelligence is that it is one thing to gather it; it is
another thing to analyze and act on it. And that is another
concern, whether we can get people to see the issue or see the
possibility and then to take action.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Linder. Mr. McCaul wish to inquire?
Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
witnesses for their patience in sticking around till we
finished our votes.
The Al-Qa`ida has stated publicly that they have the right
to kill 4 million people, 2 million children, and we didn't
take them seriously in the nineties but we do now. I don't
think they are going to achieve that by flying airplanes into
buildings.
I think the threat that we are talking about here today is
the real threat. Being a freshman, by the time they get to me
questions have been asked, so I apologize if I'm being
redundant.
But when you look at Dr. Kahn and what he did in terms of
proliferation, in testimony before the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence, Porter Goss stated that there is nuclear
material, specifically bomb grade, that has not been accounted
for in Russia and that it could be in the hands of terrorists,
and that is very alarming coming from our top intelligence
chief.
I have no idea how much of this stuff is unaccounted for,
particularly out of the Soviet Union. I was hoping you could
help me in clarifying that.
In addition, as Mr. Gibbons pointed out, we hear a lot
about the testimony about the briefcase, that there were maybe
up to 60, I believe, unaccounted for. That has never really
been verified in my view. I don't know whether these even
existed in the Soviet Union, nuclear briefcases; and if so, is
it true that there are that many unaccounted for? You can
imagine the scenario of that being brought into New York or
D.C., easily dropped off, and then an explosion occurs.
That is the first question I have.
The other one is that the threat coming from the border, we
have provided funding to secure it, but the cartels' ship
contraband, whether it is human, drug related, and certainly
enriched uranium, plutonium could be brought across the border.
In my prior career at the Justice Department, our job was
to identify where the cells were or are in the United States
and it is not an easy task. We were effective, but I am
concerned that there are many here already that we don't know
about.
So I guess, and my question really is, what is your best
estimate with respect to unaccounted plutonium that is out
there and recognizing that it is a guesstimate, maybe it is
proving a negative at this point.
Ms. Holgate. I will just make a couple of comments on that,
and it is hard to say. I mean, you can't really say how much
about unaccounted, but I just want to talk about a couple of
the reasons Russians might not know themselves how much
material they made.
In the Soviet times, each manufacturing plant had its
quota, and they were supposed to create X amount of plutonium
and highly enriched uranium that month. Now they depended on
some other plant making their quota of the raw material, and we
all know that the planned economy really never worked as
planned, and so an operator who got maybe a little bit more of
the input that month may make some of his product and put it
off to the side off the books, never telling the bosses about
it, maybe never even telling a lot of the plant managers about
it. So if next month he did not get all his input, he could
supplement from that off the books stock and then meet his
quota and get his Hero of the Soviet Union Prize at the end of
the year.
There is zero way to know how much that was. Is it a small
amount, is it a large amount? There is simply no way. What the
U.S. has been trying to do through its assistance programs is
to provide techniques, provide modern equipment, provide the
training and some of the security culture to the Russians to
learn how much they have.
That job isn't done and there is nothing that requires
Russia to tell anybody. Even if they did have perfect
accountability, there is nothing about their NPT membership,
about their bilateral relationship with the U.S. or anybody
else, that requires them to report on their total quantities.
Mr. McCaul. Do we have any evidence that there is any
evidence that that was actually happening, that it was taken
off?
Ms. Holgate. We know it. The plant managers have said that
that is how they operated their plants.
As to the suitcase nukes, there has been a lot of attention
to that one particular type of tactical weapon. I believe it is
a red herring. There is certainly a lack of accountability for
tactical weapons as a class, and these are all weapons, many of
them are portable, whether it looked like a suitcase or whether
it is just something you can carry with one or two people. They
are all concerning.
The kinds of specific statements that were made in the mid-
nineties about the suitcase nukes have never been verified, but
the general point of the lack of accountability of small, low-
tech, possibly, you know, able to be broken into by a terrorist
and actually detonated, that could be, you know, one or two
people portable. We made them in our arsenal. The Russians made
them in theirs.
Mr. McCaul. What is the size of these tactical?
Ms. Holgate. It varies a lot. Some of them look like an
artillery shell, and some of them are, you know, even--are
bigger, but they are not, you know--put a few of them in the
back of an SUV. It is not what you think of when you think of
the massive kinds of things.
But the other thing is if you haven't designed the weapon,
I mean, this is where the expertise may really be an issue. If
you have got a weapon that you have stolen and you didn't
design it, it is going to be hard to make it go off. Even if
you're suicidal, even if you don't care, even low-tech weapons
have some safety devices. But if you happen to have a designer
that you have managed to convince to come over to your side,
that kind of person may be able to help you detonate a stolen
weapon.
I think a much more likely pathway and much easier for the
terrorist is to get the uranium, build their own crude design
that they know is going to work, and go that route.
Mr. McCaul. So import the uranium and then build the bomb
in the United States?
Ms. Holgate. Or build it in Europe, put it on a boat, sail
it up the Potomac, bring it in over a border, and it is easy to
shield this stuff. A little bit of lead will shield it from the
kinds of even what we have got deployed now.
Mr. McCaul. There has been discussion, and if I can indulge
the Chairman, some discussion about a sensor that could detect
radiological devices on cargo. Would the lead prevent that
sensor from detecting it?
Ms. Holgate. Well, let me make a distinction between a gun-
type device using HEU and a radiological device. A radiological
device has lots of radioactivity. Highly enriched uranium has
naturally not a lot, and you can shield it easily with a little
lead. So the types of devices that are looking to detect a
radiological situation are not going to catch typically a gun-
type device.
Mr. Linder. The gentleman's time has expired. Gentleman
from Rhode Island wish to inquire?
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
witnesses for their patience in coming back to this hearing.
Getting back to the A.Q. Khan network and that situation.
And you indicated earlier there were some things, obviously,
that caught us off guard in terms of sophistication and design
of the centrifuges. How assessible is that type of technology
for a terrorist to in build a sophisticated device using highly
enriched uranium?
The other question I have is what do we need to worry? You
may not want to comment on this in an open hearing, but I was
reminded earlier that Moore's Law doesn't apply to just
physics; it may apply to computers. But what do we have to
worry about as technology gets more and more sophisticated?
What type of things do our intelligence officials especially
need to watch for. As technology gets more sophisticated
terrorist may be able to build a bomb that may not be easily
built today, but with tomorrow's technology, would it be easy
to build?
Mr. Albright. There is--certainly we do have to worry that
information on making bombs is going to become more widespread,
and particularly with the Internet.
Although what Khan was providing, particularly for a
nation, was a tested bomb design, it was a Chinese bomb design
given to Pakistan. And that was sort of the beauty of what Khan
did, was he took what China had given them secretly and
marketed it so it had no Pakistani fingerprints on it, so that
design is certainly of interest to states trying to put
warheads on missiles.
In terms of what it would help, its contribution to
terrorists would be it just teaches them how to make specific
components and actually tells them what the components are for
an implosion-type nuclear weapon. So it would be a tremendous
advance in knowledge if you had all that information and then
you could--you may choose to do something differently, but it
gives you a tremendous knowledge base.
In terms of far-off threats, the thing you worry about is
that terrorists sitting in a country, perhaps with some
complicity of a government, could learn how to build a uranium
enrichment plant, particularly out of centrifuges, and so they
could bypass really what amounts to our greatest safety;
namely, that they have to get the fissile material from
someplace, but if they can actually build it and get around
that and do it with relative ease--and there are developments
in centrifuges that is making it easier over time to build
centrifuges, although that is happening slowly and hopefully if
people aren't interested in centrifuges beyond the ones who
already have them, some of that development may not take place.
Ms. Holgate. Just one thing that I have heard from Russian
colleagues on the centrifuge point that would worry me in the
medium term is a gloss on this notion of terrorists gaining
access to enrichment capacity. A lot of our discussion has
centered on the notion that it takes a country to make HEU and
it is easy access to theft of that that makes a terrorist a
nuclear terrorist.
If you break that link somehow and terrorists do get access
to enrichment capacity, that changes all the equations that we
have been talking about today.
One technique that some Russian colleagues have talked
about, I don't know whether they have proven it in the lab or
not, is the potential to use actually very small-size medical
centrifuges, hooked in large series, that can come out with
small--but from a terrorist's perspective relevant--quantities
of HEU. That would be the kind of technology that is more or
less off the shelf if that is true. So this is something I
would think an eye should be kept on.
Mr. Langevin. Just so I am clear, and it is pretty much my
understanding that we can pretty much pinpoint where highly
enriched uranium or plutonium was produced in terms of from
what country, so that in a sense if there ever was a nuclear
device detonated it is highly likely it would have a sufficient
fingerprint so that we would be able to trace where it was
produced.
Do you agree with that and is that something that we would
want terrorists to understand? But right now it is my
understanding that it would have a sufficient fingerprint that
we could pretty much trace the country that it would come from.
Mr. Albright. Yeah, but I don't know if--it is relevant? In
the sense that if it is stolen in Russia and used by Iran,
passes it to a terrorist group, knowing that it was Russian, is
it necessarily going to help you in a response? So I mean it's
nice to know and there are other reasons to do it, but I am not
sure it contributes to us solving a terrorism problem. But
maybe Ron or Laura may disagree.
Ms. Holgate. The problem I have heard with that is the
sample question, is you may be able to match a sample to a
sample you already have that you know where it came from. The
challenge may be there may be a lot of stuff out there that you
don't know where it came from. I feel pretty confident we don't
have a good sample of North Korean plutonium, for example. So
it would be hard to be able to be sure that something came from
them if you don't have a reference sample. So that is just one
technical issue with that, but Ron is an actual weapons guy.
Mr. Albright. If Russia was cooperative and really--I don't
think it has been. If you had illicit trafficking,
investigators would like to know exactly where it came from,
and then that could help uncover a theft ring or uncover how
the diversion happened. So in that sense the tracking is
helpful, if nations are cooperating and producing the
information so that you know what the signatures of the
plutonium are and will take responsibility if it is from their
country.
Mr. Langevin. Could you expand on that? You said Russia has
not been cooperative.
Mr. Albright. I don't think they have been cooperative on
the investigations, for example, when they have found plutonium
in Europe. I think their position has been to deny that it came
from Russia. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Ms. Holgate. And they have not been willing--they consider
the isotopic component of their material from any type to be
classified, and so they haven't been willing to provide
reference samples. Now, they may be able to do the analysis
themselves, but then you run into a problem with are they
prepared to admit what they find.
Mr. Linder. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. Simmons.
Mr. Simmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you first, for
having this very interesting and very important hearing. Thank
you, second, for reconvening after the break. That is really
helpful and I especially thank our panel for indulging us,
given the schedule and the activity on the floor.
I want to address most of my comments to Ambassador Lehman
who I knew I think 25 years ago when he was on the Armed
Services Committee staff in the Senate. I was staff director of
the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time. And, without my
glasses on, you look just as young and dynamic as I remember.
It is great to have you here.
I have some personal experience with nuclear
nonproliferation. In a previous incarnation I worked abroad out
of an embassy where a sovereign state was engaged in
proliferating, and I came away from that experience, which
covered about 3 years, with a sense that if you looked at the
companies and the countries that seemed to be involved--and
this was in the Far East--many of them were European; and even
though we had nonproliferation regimes and even though
sovereign states had signed off on these nonproliferation
regimes and even though the IAEA was over there with inspectors
all the time, many of the countries that showed up 25 or 30
years ago on the vendor list are the same countries that we see
here on this graphic from Time, ``The Merchant of Menace, and
so it kind of begs the question from my perspective.
I thought we were making some progress in those days. The
proliferating countries that I was involved with apparently
have not proliferated, but others are getting into the game,
and the most worrisome part is perhaps that they are
nongovernmental entities, nonsovereign states, small, highly
resourced, ideological groups that don't have the constraints
of retaliation when it comes to developing these weapons and
deploying them.
We always knew who we could retaliate against during the
Cold War. We don't know that anymore, and so my question goes
to the issue of intelligence.
Our Intelligence Community was established and over 40
years did a pretty good job in dealing with the sovereign state
issues, whether it was conventional military, capabilities
intelligence, or whether it dealt more with the
nonproliferation sphere.
When I look at the challenges we have today, finding that
needle in a haystack, I wonder what the magnet is. Are we
capable today of doing sting operations? Can we draw these
folks out and get them? Do we have the assets within these
groups that we need to be successful? How confident are you?
And I see that we have just been called for another vote,
so I will stop and let you respond if you could.
Mr. Lehman. The whole history of intelligence about nuclear
programs by nation states and by others is a fascinating
history, with a lot of tremendous successes and a number of big
surprises. It began with a basic assumption that was correct.
The Manhattan Project demonstrated that to be a pathbreaking
nuclear power, you could take a tremendous amount of your
Nation's brain power and your resources and electricity, and so
if you looked for that, you could get a sign for what was going
on. The problem was that in the early days of the Cold War, we
didn't have a whole lot of tools for looking, so even though
the target we were looking at was in some ways massive, the
tools weren't all that great. It resulted in some--I hesitate
to say humorous--but some big mistakes.
For example, one that is well known is that most people in
public, when they were talking about the Chinese program,
expected that the Chinese would do a plutonium bomb because you
could look at China and see that there wasn't enough
electricity for gaseous diffusion. And then it went off and
they discovered it was the uranium bomb, and they discovered
why there was so little electricity in China; it was all going
to the gaseous diffusion plant at Lanzhou. That was a world--
but at least you had something big.
The challenge today--and I really think the Intelligence
Community understands it has got a big problem--is that that is
not how things are going to be done, because so much of what is
important, everybody has got. So we often make the point that
the laptop computer that you have right now, or your desktop,
is many times more powerful than the fastest, most powerful
supercomputer we used when we designed the last nuclear weapon.
People forget that when we designed the first nuclear weapon,
we didn't have any. We had housewives with calculators.
Now, agile manufacturing is going to be a problem. People
talk about machine tools. Well you know, villages around the
world have machine tools that are as good as anything that we
found necessary for the early weapons program. That is
happening.
As I said with agile manufacturing, there are going to be a
zillion different companies out there that are going to get
designs for piece parts, and the average person in an industry
looks at that part and he doesn't know what that is for, but he
has got an order, he fills the order. And as more and more
industries use technologies that were once associated with
weapons programs, it is going to be hard to lift the weapons
program out of that noise, because the rest of it is fully
legitimate.
But what I keep going back to is it is a challenge, and I
don't think that we can separate the intelligence on nuclear
terrorism from the intelligence on terrorism.
But we can also augment it by going and looking at certain
areas.
I have mentioned that knowledgeable people--and, as I have
emphasized, it is not the Nobel Prize winners necessarily--it
is a whole range of people who have certain types of knowledge,
sailing in those waters. We may catch our fish or we may not. I
think that is an important area to delve into. I think, though,
in the end, as I said, when you are looking for a needle in a
haystack, you need a few magnets. And I think sting operations,
false flags, things that permit us to go find them, are going
to be very important.
Mr. Linder. The gentleman's time has expired. Gentlewoman,
Ms. Harman, wish to inquire?
Ms. Harman. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to apologize to our witnesses for missing
their testimony. I was meeting with Ambassador John Negroponte
who is the new National Director of Intelligence, and, as you
know, Mr. Chairman, we all try to be here on time but it is
sometimes impossible given the schedules of this place.
I did read your testimony. I do know Graham Allison
extremely well. I am very worried, as one's district surrounds
the ports of L.A. and Long Beach, about the possibility of a
radiological bomb in an uninspected container. I know that
worries our Chairman, too, since he represents real estate
nearby as well.
And I have two questions. I know there are votes, so let me
just ask them both and hope that we can answer them quickly.
One, I understand you talked about the importance of a
threat and vulnerability assessment of where we might be most
vulnerable to nuclear--a nuclear attack or the transit of
nuclear materials. I just would welcome, if you could amplify
your thoughts about that.
Second, as Ranking Member on the Intelligence Committee, I
continue to be very worried about the A.Q. Khan network. I know
that we have--not only that he is under house arrest, but that
most of his operatives, at least those we could identify, have
been wrapped up. But I just wonder--and I am not asking
anything classified here, and I wouldn't want you to answer it
if you have classified information--but I just wonder if the
operating assumption shouldn't be that there still may be folks
out there who have access to his very thorough materials and
who may still be engaged in trying to sell them to terrorist
cells.
Mr. Albright. On the second point there is a lot of
concern. We don't know everything there is to know about the
A.Q. Khan network. I think most of the major players have been
identified, but not all their information has been recovered.
And there are others involved that--well, let me put it this
way. There haven't been a lot of confessions by the people that
have been arrested, and so there is a lot of mystery, in fact,
over do we know all the customers. A lot of their information
was digitized so--and we know that the bomb designs, for
example, haven't been found as far as I know. There has been
some traces of them in Dubai. Those were actually in paper
form, but have they been copied? The ones Libya got had been
copied multiple times.
So I think there is a lot of concern that the information
at the heart of the Khan network has not all been found and
that certainly could create or generate a new Khan network,
perhaps smaller in scale but still deadly.
And I think also that this group was very persistent-- I
mean, some of these people go back to the seventies--in their
help for Khan. And I think that--I don't think we know all of
them, and I think it is going to take quite a while to unravel
this mystery. And I think even when it is done, it very well
could turn out that another Khan network replaces it, and one
that I know that we worry about is North Korea. We don't know
what they got, but let us say we know some of what they got;
but if they--they are always selling buying and selling, in
fact. And they could decide--if things are not resolved so that
they do go on a path of denuclearization--they could decide
that they are going to make money by selling centrifuges.
Ms. Harman. Just to interrupt right there, my experience
with the North Koreans--and I actually went there as part of an
Intelligence Committee CODEL in 1997--is that they will sell
what they have. They have sold--and this is not classified
anymore--their missile technology. Iran, among others, is
benefiting from that. So that is a new set of worries.
But I just want to underscore what you just said, which is
we don't know everything about the A.Q. Khan network itself,
let alone copycat networks, and there may be folks out there
with some of the materials developed by some very sophisticated
people who are still trying to sell them or who have sold them
to terrorist networks; is that correct?
My time is almost up. Any comments on a need for a threat
and vulnerability assessment.
Ms. Holgate. I will just second that very heartily. One of
the things that NTI has focused on as a gap in our knowledge is
looking at the civil use of highly enriched uranium, the
research reactors at universities around the world, the
critical facilities. There is no comprehensive inventory
qualitative threat assessment of those facilities that the U.S.
Government has.
Mr. Linder. Anyone else have any questions? We have 5
minutes to vote.
Thank you all. Thank you for staying and answering some
more questions. We are grateful. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]