[Senate Hearing 109-761]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-761
DETECTING SMUGGLED NUCLEAR WEAPONS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, TECHNOLOGY
AND HOMELAND SECURITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 27, 2006
__________
Serial No. J-109-102
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
JON KYL, Arizona JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JOHN CORNYN, Texas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Michael O'Neill, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Bruce A. Cohen, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security
JON KYL, Arizona, Chairman
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
JOHN CORNYN, Texas JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
Stephen Higgins, Majority Chief Counsel
Steven Cash, Democratic Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Feinstein, Hon. Dianne, a U.S. Senator from the State of
California..................................................... 4
Kyl, Hon. Jon, a U.S. Senator from the State of Arizona.......... 1
WITNESSES
Aoki, Steven, Deputy Under Secretary for Counterterrorism,
Department of Energy, Washington, D.C.......................... 7
Ikle, Fred C., Distinguished Scholar, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Washington, D.C......................... 12
Levi, Michael A., Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on
Foreign Relations, New York, New York.......................... 10
Nanos, George Peter, Associate Director, Research and
Development, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir,
Virginia....................................................... 9
Oxford, Vayl S., Director, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office,
Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C............... 5
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Steven Aoki to questions submitted by Senator Kyl... 26
Responses of Vayl S. Oxford to questions submitted by Senator Kyl 43
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Aoki, Steven, Deputy Under Secretary for Counterterrorism, U.S.
Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., prepared statement..... 68
Levi, Michael A., Fellow for Science and Technology, Council on
Foreign Relations, New York, New York, prepared statement...... 72
Nanos, George Peter, Associate Director, Research and
Development, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, prepared statement................................... 79
Oxford, Vayl S., Director, Domestic Nuclear Detection Office,
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C.,
prepared statement............................................. 86
DETECTING SMUGGLED NUCLEAR WEAPONS
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THURSDAY, JULY 27, 2006
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland
Security, Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jon Kyl,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Kyl and Feinstein.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JON KYL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ARIZONA
Chairman Kyl. All right. This meeting of the Judiciary
Committee Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security
Subcommittee will come to order. I want to welcome all of you.
Let me begin with my opening statement and then call on our
Ranking Member, Senator Feinstein.
The 9/11 Commission said that the greatest danger of
another catastrophic attack in the United States will
materialize if the world's most dangerous terrorists acquire
the world's most dangerous weapons. Our report shows that al
Qaeda has tried to acquire or make weapons of mass destruction
for at least 10 years. There is no doubt the United States
would be a prime target.
In recent years, this Subcommittee has looked at threats
posed by chemical, biological, and electromagnetic pulse
attacks on the United States. Today, we will examine the most
dire threat that we face: nuclear terrorism. We will be hearing
from officials responsible for preventing the smuggling of
nuclear weapons into this country, and we want to hear about
the work that they are doing, the challenges they are facing,
and what we in Congress can do to help ensure that the American
people are protected from nuclear terrorism.
The 9/11 Commission's findings echo the argument of a
review conducted before 9/11 by Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler,
which found, and I am quoting, that the ``most urgent unmet
national security threat to the United States today is the
danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons- usable
material in Russia could be stolen, sold to terrorists or
hostile nation states, and used against American troops abroad
or citizens at home.''
To Russia, we should now add other potential nuclear
sources, such as Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. Terrorists
would need no more than 9 pounds of plutonium or 35 pounds of
highly enriched uranium to create a nuclear explosion. A
trained nuclear engineer--and there are plenty of them looking
for work worldwide--could use this small chunk of material to
create a nuclear device that would fit into a van or small
watercraft.
There have been plenty of efforts by terrorists and
smugglers to acquire these nuclear materials. According to the
IAEA, between 1993 and 2004, there were 662 confirmed cases of
smuggling of nuclear and radiological materials, and those were
just the instances that we know about. of those confirmed
cases, 21 involved materials that could be used to produce a
nuclear weapon, and over 400 involved materials that could be
used to make a dirty bomb. It is clear that this threat is very
real and deserves our utmost attention.
Increased awareness of this threat spurred the President to
create the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office within the
Department of Homeland Security in April of 2005. DNDO was
intended to be a single, accountable organization with
dedicated responsibilities to develop the global nuclear
detection architecture and to acquire and support the
deployment of the domestic system to detect and report attempts
to import or transport a nuclear device or fissile or
radiological material intended for illicit use.
In addition to DNDO, other governmental agencies, such as
the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Nuclear
Security Administration, play a role in preventing nuclear
terrorism, We will hear about these organizations today and how
they work with DNDO to keep America safe.
In its recent markup, the Appropriations Subcommittee on
Homeland Security cut DNDO's research and development budget by
30 percent. We want to look today at the impact of that cut on
the ability of the United States to develop technologies for
detecting smuggled nuclear weapons. In addition, I look forward
to discussing nuclear detection programs that may come before
the Senate in the near future.
And, finally, I would like to consider the proposition that
the United States is approaching the issue of nuclear detection
at a far too leisurely pace. Some have advocated the Manhattan-
type project as an approach to nuclear detection, modeled after
the intensive all-out efforts by U.S. scientists to build the
first atomic bomb. And I will be asking our witnesses today to
address this and to give an idea of what additional funding
could do for their offices and nuclear terrorism prevention in
general.
The Committee will hear from five experts.
Mr. Vayl Oxford was appointed Director of the Domestic
Nuclear Detection Office in September of 2005, reporting to the
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, with
responsibility for establishing the jointly staffed office and
for directing all activities associated with the organization.
Before this appointment, Mr. Oxford served as the transitional
team leader and Acting Director of DNDO, and previously served
as the Director for Counterproliferation at the National
Security Council.
Dr. Peter Nanos is the Associate Director of Research and
Development, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, DTRA. Before
going to DTRA, Dr. Nanos was the Director of Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico, having served since 2003. He
was named the Interim Director of Los Alamos in January of
2003, is a retired Vice Admiral of the United States Navy, and
a 1967 graduate of the Naval Academy.
Dr. Steve Aoki is the Deputy Under Secretary of Energy for
Counterterrorism. Before assuming this, he was Senior Adviser
for International Affairs to the Administrator of the
Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
Administration. Before joining DOE, he served at the U.S.
Department of State as the Director of the Office of
Proliferation Threat Reduction. From 1993 to 1996, he was on
the staff of the National Security Council with responsibility
for nonproliferation and export control policy. He also was a
program manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
which is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Dr. Michael Levi is a Fellow for Science and Technology at
the Council on Foreign Relations. He has also been a Fellow at
the Brookings Institution and the Federation of American
Scientists. Dr. Levi holds a Ph.D. in war studies from the
University of London, Kings College, and an M.A. in physics
from Princeton University.
And, finally, we are honored to have with us today Dr. Fred
Ikle. Dr. Ikle is a Distinguished Scholar at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies and a member of the Defense
Policy Board. Before joining CSIS in 1988, Dr. Ikle served as
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy during the first and
second Reagan administrations and Director of the U.S. Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency during the Nixon and Ford
administrations. From 1999 to 2000, he served as Commissioner
on the National Commission on Terrorism.
We have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us today.
I am interested in examining with them how to make the Nation
safer by developing and deploying nuclear detection
technologies. In today's budget-constrained environment, we
simply cannot spend money on every technology that might keep
us safe. But if a nuclear 9/11 is, in fact, the greatest
existential danger facing this Nation, then we must ensure that
we are acting in a manner proportionate to the threat. That
includes providing adequate funding, adequate authority, and
adequate attention to the relevant agencies of our Government.
Today the Subcommittee will consider whether enough is
being spent on nuclear detection and specifically what the
likely impact will be of the appropriations cuts on DNDO's
budget. In addition, I want to examine whether the money being
spent is allocated correctly between organizations, missions,
and technologies. And, finally, the Subcommittee is interested
to know whether there is anything else the Congress can do to
facilitate the work of the organizations represented here, and
I certainly look forward to all of your statements and the
lively discussion sure to follow.
In conclusion, let me also thank our Ranking Member,
Senator Dianne Feinstein, who has been a real partner in this
effort to deal with technology and terrorism from the very
commencement of our Committee work a decade ago. I think
without the close working relationship that our two staffs have
and that Senator Feinstein and I have, we could not have made
the progress that we have on so many different fronts. She is
going to have to go to another Committee meeting in just a few
minutes, and so I am going to give her the remainder of the
time here and comment on anything that you would like, Senator
Feinstein. But any questions that you would like to submit to
the witnesses after you are gone, of course, will be submitted
for the record, and we would like to get the responses from all
of the witnesses to those questions.
Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Feinstein. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank
you for your leadership. It is hard to believe we have both
been either Chairman or Ranking of this Subcommittee now for 10
years. I guess we both grow older in the process--hopefully
wiser, too.
I would like particularly to recognize Pete Nanos. I would
like to thank you for your work at Los Alamos on behalf of the
University of California. It is much appreciated, and I hope
you know that. I also welcome the other witnesses today.
As Senator Kyl inferred, Senator Lisa Murkowski is doing me
really a great favor by hearing a bill which benefits the water
situation in California, which in turn benefits the State of
Arizona because it enables us to wean off of Colorado River
water. So I figure I should, at the very least, show up for the
hearing, and I will.
Let me begin by saying many lessons have been learned in
combating the war on terror, and in turn, our Government has
used a multi-layered strategy to protect our country. Central
to the effort is the Government's focus on detecting and
intercepting nuclear materials and technologies. And the goal
is that neither falls into the hands of terrorists or those who
might sell these weapons to terrorists.
Now, to many, such a threat seems remote, but,
unfortunately, it is real. I was very surprised by this, but
according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, from 1993
to 2004--that is 11 years--there were 662 confirmed cases of
smuggling of nuclear and radiological materials worldwide--662
confirmed cases in 11 years. While all of these cases arose in
and out of other countries, the United States is certainly not
immune.
A recent GAO undercover operation proved that nuclear
materials could be smuggled into the United States. GAO
actually shipped here to Washington enough nuclear materials to
build two dirty bombs through our Northern border and again
through our Southern border.
I am pleased that the fault was not with the detection
devices, and there are efforts under way to ensure that the
mistakes that were made are not repeated. However, clearly,
there is more that must be done, and, clearly, we still have
problems on both our Northern and Southern border.
We have got to put in place an integrated system that
provides our citizens with maximum protection against nuclear
smuggling and do it in a way that is both efficient and cost
effective. So I hope that our witnesses today will give us an
update on where we are, describe options going forward, and
suggest tangible solutions.
Let me mention some steps that need to be taken. Today,
only 5 percent of containers at our seaports are screened. We
all know that. GAO recently reported that DHS' deployment of
monitors at seaports and Southwest border crossings is 2 years
behind schedule. GAO reported that DHS may be facing a cost
overrun of $340 million and that overall deployment may not be
completed before 2014.
The new generation of radiation detectors are based on
prototypes that GAO said were no more effective than the
portals now in use and clearly not worth the price tag of
almost 10 times the cost of the current detectors. So I hope
that is something we will look into.
Even after DHS completes its efforts, it appears we will
still not have a device that can detect a nuclear bomb encased
in lead shielding or uranium placed in a lead pipe. And,
finally, it is unclear why DHS is not prioritizing development
of the integrated cargo inspection scanning technology that has
shown such promise.
Now, I believe that our security situation has improved
since 9/11, and I would not want to give a contrary view. And
the efforts are, of course, greatly appreciated. But the bottom
line here is better is simply not enough.
I would like to thank Senator Kyl for holding this hearing.
I am delighted to work with him. And I think it is really very
important that we tackle some of these specific issues and get
some cost-effective answers.
I am awful sorry I cannot be here, but I do have a series
of questions, and I will give them to you, Senator. If you
would be willing to submit them, I would appreciate it very
much.
Chairman Kyl. Thank you very much. They will be submitted,
and if there is nothing further, then I think the best thing to
do is to start on my left and just start with Mr. Oxford and
have each of the panelists in turn go ahead and make your
statements, and then we will begin the questioning. Thank you,
Senator Feinstein.
So, Vayl Oxford, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF VAYL S. OXFORD, DIRECTOR, DOMESTIC NUCLEAR
DETECTION OFFICE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, WASHINGTON,
D.C.
Mr. Oxford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to
come before you today along with my partners from the
Department of Energy and Department of Defense to discuss how
DNDO is responding to the threat of nuclear and radiological
terrorism.
Today, I would like to briefly discuss the formation of
DNDO and what its role is in protecting against this threat,
some of our accomplishments over the last year since our
inception, and some of our program priorities for the upcoming
year. Then I will be glad to address some of the issues that
Senator Feinstein brought up specifically.
I would like to talk specifically about how we are
enhancing our detection capabilities through next-generation
capabilities and how through transformational research will
help to overcome some of our longer-term challenges.
Let me highlight some of the accomplishments we have made
in the last year since our accomplishment and what our mission
is.
First of all, as you noted, we were set up as a joint
office in April 2005 to not only integrate DHS' efforts in
nuclear and radiological threat response, but also to work as a
singular authority with our partners to coordinate efforts
across the U.S. Government to do this. We were assigned
specific responsibilities, as you noted, to develop the global
detection architecture that sets in place the global strategy
for dealing with this threat; to develop, acquire, and support
the deployment of the actual domestic component of that
architecture; to direct the nuclear and radiological research
and development program within DHS; and to serve as a focal
point to help coordinate the activities across the executive
branch.
In the year since its founding, the DNDO has taken major
steps in accomplishing this mission. Let me cite some of our
accomplishments.
First of all, we have completed the first ever global
detection architecture that identified key vulnerabilities and
priority initiatives across the Federal, State, and local
arena. On July 14th of this year, we awarded three contracts
with an estimated value of $1.15 billion for the next-
generation passive radiation detection systems. The ASP
program, the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal Program, will enter
immediately into operational testing as well as by January into
secondary screening operations with Customs and Border
Protection. We expect full production to begin in 2007. These
will be an integral part of our land border crossing and
seaport architecture within the U.S.
We have completed two high-fidelity test and evaluation
campaigns at our Nevada test site to fully characterize systems
performance before we do go to deployment, and we have also
completed a test series on the handheld, backpack, and mobile
detection systems. As we speak, we are conducting a test and
evaluation campaign to look at radiation detection pagers that
our law enforcement and Federal officials routinely use in the
field to make sure we understand their full performance.
We have also begun the development of next-generation
radiography systems to deliver imagine systems that will allow
us to detect the shielding associated with the threat that
Senator Feinstein mentioned.
Finally, we are very close to awarding contracts for the
next-generation improved handheld and backpack systems to deal
with other avenues of our architecture.
We are also taking steps to expand our detection
capabilities into aviation and maritime domains and within the
domestic interior. Deployments of radiation detection equipment
at U.S. airports will begin with a pilot deployment later this
year at Dulles Airport, and ultimately we will have a total of
30 airports equipped with radiation detection equipment. We
have also committed to provide handheld and backpack radiation
detection systems to the Coast Guard to allow them to
successfully interdict radiation and radioactive materials
offshore.
We have launched a Southeastern Transportation Corridor
Pilot program to deploy radiation detectors to truck weigh
stations and other sites and, in addition, are providing the
State and local authorities with the necessary training and
reachback and operational protocols to effectively operate
those.
As Secretary Chertoff officially announced 2 weeks ago, we
have also launched the Securing the Cities initiative that will
enhance protection and response capabilities in and around the
Nation's highest-risk urban areas. Using the New York area as
our initial engagement, the DNDO and its regional partners will
develop analytically based architectures, planning, equipment,
and the necessary support infrastructure to protect those
cities. We also plan to train over 1,500 operators at the State
and local level in the use of this kind of equipment.
There are remaining challenges, however, key, long-term
challenges and vulnerabilities in our detection architecture
that require a well-supported research and development program.
These challenges include detecting threats from greater
distances, in highly cluttered backgrounds, or in the presence
of shielding and masking materials.
Our exploratory research program is focused on innovative
detection materials, advanced special nuclear material
detection and verification, and algorithm development. We have
received over 150 proposals in response to the solicitation to
National and Federal Laboratories, resulting in almost $40
million in research and development programs. A March 2006
solicitation for private industry and academia resulted in over
200 white papers, and we are currently evaluating 74 proposals
for additional awards. In the upcoming year, we plan to begin
our academic research program, which will fund colleges and
universities to pursue innovative nuclear detection concepts
and encourage them to train graduate students in the field of
nuclear detection and related sciences.
This concludes my prepared statement, and with the
Committee's permission, I request my formal statement be
submitted for the record and, Mr. Chairman, I will be glad to
take any questions you have.
Chairman Kyl. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Oxford appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Kyl. Thank you.
Dr. Aoki?
STATEMENT OF STEVEN AOKI, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY FOR
COUNTERTERRORISM, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Aoki. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the
opportunity to appear today to discuss nuclear terrorism and,
in particular, how to prevent terrorists from attacking the
United States with nuclear or radiological weapons. As
requested, I submitted a written statement for the record, so I
will confine my oral remarks to a few points.
First, this is a hard problem. Detecting a clandestinely
transported nuclear weapon or materials to build one is
inherently difficult. The radiation signatures emitted by
fissile materials are relatively weak and can be further
attenuated by shielding. Nonetheless, we believe this is a
problem that can be successfully addressed, particularly for
situations like land or seaports of entry where we potentially
have enough access to the items being inspected to have a good
chance of detecting a smuggled weapon. We are working closely
with colleagues at DNDO, DOD, and other agencies to develop,
test, and implement the most effective technology for this
mission. We are also pursuing research and development to
improve current systems and to explore fundamental advances in
detection technology.
The built-in challenges of the detection program,
challenges brought to us by the laws of physics, make it
vitally important that our approach to detection be embedded in
a comprehensive, overall strategy that looks for multiple
opportunities to prevent an attack. We need to block every step
along the way, from terrorist acquisition of nuclear materials
through delivery to the target, and to be ready to disarm a
terrorist device should we uncover one before it is detonated.
We also need to build the capability to identify the source
of any illicitly obtained nuclear materials, both to track down
weaknesses in security and to hold accountable those who
contribute to an attack.
Even if our individual measures and individual steps are
not perfect, a coherent strategy can help deter attack by
increasing its difficulty and reducing the likelihood that it
can be carried to completion. Such a strategy necessarily cuts
across traditional agency lines and responsibility, and we,
therefore, welcome the role that DNDO is now playing to develop
and articulate an overall strategic architecture that includes
contributions from a number of Federal agencies, each acting
with their own authorities and budgets.
When you take a strategic look, this underscores the value
of preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons or
materials in the first place. Although it is outside the scope
of today's hearing, I would note that DOE and other agencies
have over the past decade made major investments to strengthen
the security of nuclear storage sites in Russia and other
countries, with this threat very much in mind. We have done
even more to provide strengthened security at our own nuclear
facilities in the United States.
A related observation reflecting our experience in
deploying nuclear detectors internationally and in conducting
nuclear search operations is that attention must be given to
the overall concept of operations for finding nuclear
materials, not only the performance of individual portal
monitors or the detectors.
Our detection system needs to be able to identify the wide
variety of natural and manmade sources of radiation that it may
encounter in commerce or in ordinary shipments, but also to
respond effectively and quickly if an alarm turns out to be
real.
As we increase the deployment of nuclear detection
equipment by Federal, State, and local government authorities,
we need to ensure that we also strengthen the ability to call
in higher-level expertise, including national Render Safe
Teams, when and if needed.
Let me conclude with a brief summary of what DOE as an
agency contributes to the nuclear detection mission.
First, we operate the National Laboratory system that
maintains expertise on nuclear weapons and related areas of
science. Within the National Labs, DOE funds R&D specifically
focused on the problems of nuclear detection. All of the
agencies represented on this panel, and a number who are not
here today, draw heavily from the National Labs' science base
in carrying out their own missions.
Secondly, as I mentioned, DOE's Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation Program carries out extensive cooperation with
other countries aimed at improving security for nuclear
materials and weapons. Through the Second Line of Defense and
MegaPorts activities, DOE also provides assistance to install
nuclear detection equipment at foreign border crossings and
major seaports. These programs are important components of the
overall detection architecture being developed by DNDO.
Thirdly, DOE's Office of Emergency Operations provides
technical support for nuclear search operations, for disarming
and disposing of a terrorist nuclear device should one be
discovered, for attribution and consequence management in the
event of a terrorist of any kind involving nuclear or
radioactive materials. This mission is carried out by the
specialist teams involving DOD or FBI as well as DOE experts.
This concludes the prepared remarks, and I look forward to
your questions and discussion. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Aoki appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Kyl. Thank you, Dr. Aoki.
And now Dr. Pete Nanos.
STATEMENT OF GEORGE PETER NANOS, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, RESEARCH
AND DEVELOPMENT, DEFENSE THREAT REDUCTION AGENCY, FORT BELVOIR,
VIRGINIA
Mr. Nanos. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to be here today to
address the Defense Threat Reduction Agency's Radiation
Detection program. I will excerpt and highlight a couple of
issues from my prepared remarks.
As the Associate Director for Research and Development at
DTRA, I am responsible for making R&D investments in
capabilities to reduce, eliminate, counter, and defeat the
threat of weapons of mass destruction and mitigate their
effects.
Most importantly, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency is a
combat support agency, which means that the warfighter in the
field is our customer and primary focus. Since our
establishment in 1998, we have been providing capabilities for
the Department of Defense's nonproliferation,
counterproliferation, and consequence management programs--the
three pillars of the President's National Strategy to Combat
WMD.
As the President stated in March 2006 in the National
Nuclear Security Strategy of the United States, ``There are few
greater threats than a terrorist attack with WMD.'' That
message has been reflected throughout DOD guidance documents,
starting with the National Security Strategy and included in
the National Defense Strategy, the National Military Strategy,
and the National Strategy to Combat WMD.
Further, in the report of the 2006 Quadrennial Defense
Review, there is additional guidance. It calls on the need to
generate the capabilities to locate, tag, and track WMD, their
delivery systems and related materials, including the means to
move such items; the capabilities to detect fissile materials
such as nuclear devices at stand-off ranges--and the emphasis
here is on stand-off ranges for DOD; interdiction capabilities
to stop air, maritime, and ground shipments of WMD, their
delivery systems, and related materials; and persistent
surveillance over wide areas to locate WMD capabilities or
hostile forces.
The Department of Homeland Security Domestic Nuclear
Detection Office, with personnel from several Federal
departments, has drafted a global nuclear detection
architecture. The Department of Defense retains the
responsibility for implementing their parts of that
architecture, both within their facilities in the United States
and as part of its operations outside the United States. DOD is
working with the other Federal departments to draft a
Memorandum of Agreement to promote an integrated national
research and development effort, without duplication, to
provide better nuclear and radiological detection.
Our DOD-specific missions require mobile and transportable
detection systems. Stand-off is important, and even more
important than that is high search rate. DOD has the
responsibility to go into hostile environments, locate
materials rapidly, and fix the situation. That requires a
different technology in some cases; in other cases, different
applications of technology in order to do that job properly.
I do not mean that there is no overlap between our
missions. Clearly, DNDO is interested in putting detectors in
backpacks and mobile vehicles to use to protect our borders.
However, the focus of our operations is different, and so some
of the details of the engineering is different. The important
thing, I think, between us is that we maintain a comprehensive
S&T program that covers all the needs; we make sure that we
share so that there is no duplication; and that we do the best
we can to give our country the needed capability.
The Department has focused on the WMD challenge for many
years, and we have been making steady progress in expanding our
capabilities to combat WMD and in building interagency
partnerships. The QDR continues this momentum by providing
specific near-term direction and longer-term guidance on
capabilities and the required investments.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks. I would be pleased
to respond to any questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nanos appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Kyl. Thank you, Dr. Nanos.
Dr. Levi?
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL A. LEVI, FELLOW FOR SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Mr. Levi. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for inviting me
to speak to you today about the challenge of detecting the
smuggling of nuclear weapons and about the potential for
transformational research in particular.
I should say it is also an honor to sit here alongside so
many dedicated and accomplished public servants.
The threats from nuclear terrorism and from covert nuclear
attack by a state are substantially different. We are speaking
about both of them here today, but I want to separate my
remarks on each of the two. I am going to focus on nuclear
terrorism first.
The first important point is that security at the source of
nuclear materials is the most important part of the defense,
but at the same time it is insufficient alone.
The second important point to keep in mind is that
preventing nuclear smuggling is different from preventing the
acquisition and movement of radioactive materials. What we are
fighting is terrorists with limited, though often substantial,
capabilities that must acquire, possibly build, transport, and
detonate a weapon, none of which, aside from perhaps the last
step, are all that easy. And they have to do that within some
strategic, political, or religious context that they have.
Correspondingly, detecting nuclear smuggling involves
detecting nuclear materials, but it also involves detecting
nuclear terrorists, operations to build nuclear weapons, and
the supporting fundraising, recruiting, and operational
security efforts. On top of that, those efforts have to work
together as a system.
What does this mean for technology? The first thing we need
to understand is that terrorist groups have varying
capabilities and goals. That means that some may be more
challenging than others. It is important to look at the worst-
case scenario. It is also important to design defenses that
could defeat less than worst-case plots. Experience from
defense planning has taught us that designing a defense against
the worst case does not always provide an appropriate defense
against other targets. For materials in particular, that means
looking at detecting shielded highly enriched uranium, but also
at other target materials.
How about transformational technology? First, it is very
important, as Steve Aoki mentioned, that there are fundamental
physical limits to what you can do in transforming technology.
But there is room for progress.
I want to make a few basic points, and the theme here is
that there is room for improvement in the hardware, but that
transforming detection is about more than hardware.
We can improve detection sensitivity. We can also combine
detection of radiation with detection of other materials that
might be involved in nuclear terrorism. Shielding is one.
Combining detection with profiling of potential terrorists is
another. Detecting the explosives that might be part of a
nuclear weapon and combining that, in particular in an
automated way, getting the right software with nuclear
radiation detection is important.
Another opportunity, combination of hardware and software,
is the ability to integrate multiple detectors, wide networks
of detectors. That requires software to combine the pieces. It
also requires portability, lower power, and lower cost for
detectors.
And, finally, we need to think about transformational
concepts of operations, in particular leveraging intelligence
to make best use of our detectors. The biggest source of
intelligence may be at the source. The systems we are
installing to prevent the theft of materials may also provide
us with warning that theft has occurred.
Let me describe a handful of specific policy measures that
I think these imply. The first is that transformational
technology is worth not only the investments that are occurring
now, but is worth greater investment. The budget for
transformational technology at DNDO is smaller than all but one
program budget at DARPA, the Defense Department's long-term,
high-risk, ambitious detection program.
On top of that, we need to make sure we are doing this in
the widest context possible. DNDO is integrating radiation
detection efforts. We need an approach that integrates all of
our efforts to defend against nuclear terrorism. I would
recommend that the place to do that is at the National
Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC, both to lay out the
responsibilities across departments and to make sure we have
the right underlying intelligence assessment of what exactly
the threat is to design and measure our efforts against.
Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Levi appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Kyl. Thank you, Dr. Levi.
And now Dr. Fred Ikle.
STATEMENT OF FRED C. IKLE, DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR, CENTER FOR
STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Ikle. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting me to
testify here. I am the rear guard for these excellent four
witnesses, so I am in charge of looking backward.
A sense of history helps us prepare for the future. Eleven
years ago, the Defense Science Board fully explained the need
for better tools to detect smuggled nuclear weapons and
proposed specific technologies that could and should be
developed. 2 years later, the Defense Science Board reiterated
these recommendations. In 1999, the National Intelligence
Council issued a report pointing out that smuggling nuclear
weapons is much easier than building missiles and nuclear
warheads that fit into them. Indeed, putting a nuclear warhead
in a large container is less difficult than putting one into a
missile cone.
Yet, even including the Hart-Rudman Commission, Mr.
Chairman, that you mentioned, nothing was done until 9/11.
But even then, after 9/11, it was a long, uphill struggle
to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles, including some people
who mistakenly, unlike Dr. Levi, talked about physical limits
as an absolute limit that you could not--that prevented you
from making any progress. And that was an obstacle for a full
year. But thanks to Vayl Oxford's leadership, the interminable
interagency debates about road maps were finally terminated and
replaced by real research; real work at the laboratory benches
is what we need.
And as Dr. Nanos testified, the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency is ramping up research and development on the specific,
quite different nuclear detection systems that the combat
commanders so badly need. Whether this urgent R&D for our
military needs can move ahead with enough speed and conviction
will be decided in part by Congress, especially the
Appropriations Committees. What budget levels should be met for
these military needs? In my rough estimate, a ramp-up to $200
million for fiscal year 2008 would be about right as a target.
Compare this with the $251 billion next year--just 1 year--for
the F-35 fighter aircraft, more than a thousand times larger
than protecting us from nuclear weapons, or the more than $10
billion next year, more than 50 times larger, for missile
defense. Now, I am all for missile defense and have spoken up
on that for a long time. We need it. We need it to close half
the barn door. But we must not leave the other half of the door
open to smuggled nuclear weapons.
Mr. Chairman, I shall use my remaining minutes to focus on
the Pentagon's challenges since the homeland security needs
have received far more attention and are better understood.
Assume the President has just received a reliable intel warning
that a nuclear bomb is being smuggled on one of several ships
sailing from North Korea. He would turn to the Department of
Defense to take lead action to find this bomb and render it
harmless. But today neither the Defense Department, nor DOE,
nor Homeland Security, nor the FBI have the tools to find and
safely disarm this bomb. The Navy could sink every ship sailing
from North Korea, without proof which ship had the weapon and
without confirmation that any of the ships had a nuclear bomb.
Considering our intelligence quarrels about Saddam Hussein's
WMD, I am not sure we want to go that route?
A Spanish philosopher once said, ``The beginning of wisdom
is fear.'' But it is painful to explore the abyss of a
justified deep fear. We have become so used to the non-use of
nuclear weapons, a dispensation that lasted for more than 65
years--one of the greatest accomplishments in all of military
history.
But the morning after, when this dispensation has abruptly
come to an end, what will we do? All the concerns about
affecting the public by active interrogation that Dr. Aoki
properly referred to, all the budget constraints would be swept
away. Dr. Nanos' agency would be funded with billions to
develop and build the technology--precisely the technology
recommended more than 10 years ago, but which we failed to
build when we used the time to fill spiral-bound reports with
``road maps'' and ``architectures.''
Now, Congress has invested a great deal in improving the
intelligence capabilities, which is fine. But a priority of
this effort has been directed against individuals and
organizations attempting to prepare an attack--cell phone
chatter and financial transactions, suspicious people taking
pictures below the Brooklyn Bridge, airplane passengers
arriving with names on a list. This works when it takes a lot
of people to do limited damage.
But once the ultimate evildoers obtained a nuclear bomb and
know how to detonate it, they do not have to chat on cell
phones; they do not have to take pictures below a bridge,
because the blast will destroy it from any angle; they will not
use a passport with a name like Osama bin al Qaeda. So the
suspect search for people will be less effective than the
search for fissile materials. If only we had built the very
best technology for this search.
We have to take the enemy into account, Mr. Chairman, or as
Winston Churchill put it: However absorbed a commander may be
in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is necessary
sometimes to take the enemy into consideration.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ikle appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Kyl. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Ikle, and all
members of the panel. I think your last comment helps me to put
into perspective the questions that I would like to pose.
I have to some extent assumed, but will state specifically,
that we all acknowledge the nature of the enemy that we are
concerned about here today, an enemy that is so bent upon
achieving its goals that it will literally stop at nothing,
including overriding that 65-year nuclear dispensation that you
spoke of, Dr. Ikle.
I do not have any doubt, having served on the Intelligence
Committee and being familiar with what all of you are familiar
with, that if certain terrorist groups were able to get their
hands on a device which they could detonate, that they would
try to find a way to do it.
If we all agree to that, then it would be unthinkable for
us not to do everything we could within reason to obviate that
threat. Intelligence is, of course, the key place to begin. Dr.
Levi pointed out that it goes far beyond just a detection
device proposition. You would look at all the different ways in
which it could be done and try to determine whether you can
find out things about the people or the transportation
methodologies or the other ways that you might have to detect
the threat when it came. But at the end of the day, I think Dr.
Ikle is correct. A lot of questions would be asked after the
fact why you did not have a better way of finding out that this
was going to happen or potentially detecting it.
Now, I acknowledge the different responsibilities, and one
of the benefits of having a panel such as we have today is that
we have a glimpse of each of the entities that have the primary
responsibility for our Government's response to this as well as
to area outside experts, both with experience.
Do I understand--and I primarily ask the three of you this
question, but anybody can chime in. Do I understand that in a
very rough way, the research part of the effort is for the most
part led by the Department of Energy; the applied technology
deployment into the field to do the very best detection that we
can with what we have available now is done through the
Department of Homeland Security; and the application of what we
need for the purely or primarily military applications would be
accomplished through the Department of Defense; but that there
is a lot of overlap? And, in fact, part of my question here is:
Is the DNDO R&D group where the priorities are set, or is there
some other level that goes across our governmental agencies
that actually set the priorities for both the research and
deployment of whatever technologies we have?
Now, those are actually two questions, so any of you, since
nobody else is here, we do not have a time limit. Let's just
have a conversation about this. Let me start with Dr. Oxford.
Mr. Oxford. Mr. Chairman, if I could address that, and then
ask Steve and Pete to jump in as necessary.
First of all, the overarching technology road map that
helps construct the executive branch's response to this was
actually done through the OSTP office within the White House,
and we all contributed to the respective contributions to that.
I think regarding your former question, both Steve and I
own what I call transformational research; I think he calls it
foundational research; but we do de-conflict those. For
example, when he goes out and solicits proposals from the
National Laboratories, I contribute members of his team to do
the selection and do the proposal review so we understand where
each of us are investing and how that will either transition to
later stages of development or how we can de-conflict that
directly.
But our transformational research program is tied directly
to our architecture, where he has broader objectives that allow
him to address. We do take our transformational research
program against our architecture as a backdrop for longer-term
solutions that ultimately will lead to the system solutions
that you referred to.
Chairman Kyl. Dr. Aoki?
Mr. Aoki. Mr. Chairman, just to add a little bit to Vayl's
comments, I think one way to think about this is that there
really is sort of a core science base, and DOE does and has
over the years contributed to maintaining that science base.
But because the solution to this problem, as several of the
witnesses have pointed out, requires not only the kind of
integrated system that DNDO is developing for detection in this
country and at our borders, but also the best use of our
intelligence resources, and ultimately perhaps our military
resources, one of the things that we do is provide a lot of
support for some of the other agencies. And so we work very--
you know, our R&D programs work very closely with the
intelligence community. We work very closely with DOD. We
actually do provide a lot of applied R&D that is directed at
their missions as well as at some of our own specialty areas,
like the Render Safe Teams and Emergency Response Teams.
So there may appear to be a certain amount of overlap. Some
of that is inevitable because what you have here is a number of
product lines, if you will, being built on top of a common
substructure. We do work very hard at trying to coordinate,
trying to get the priorities right, and trying to make sure
that we are not keeping each other in the dark about what is
going on. Some of that is informal; some of that is formalized.
Chairman Kyl. And I should not have shorted DTRA's research
role as well. Perhaps in the way I asked the question I did. I
am sure Dr. Nanos will correct that.
Mr. Nanos. Well, sir, I would like to say that the National
Labs are a treasure in this regard. I mean, in terms of the
development of a lot of the detection technology, and even when
we are engaged with the universities or industry development
sources, they provide the people that help us sort it out and
put sanity in the equation and understand what we have.
The DOD part of the equation, I think, I like to describe
is a little bit different, and we may push on some technologies
that would not--which might be being worked by others but would
not necessarily be their first priority. If you think of Dr.
Ikle's scenario and back it up to prior to when the material
gets shipboard and you--first of all, you need to study the
terrain, the background, and understand where the material--
what pathways it might take because time is clearly of the
essence and you need to get out there and find the material now
before it gets too close, or even worse, if it were diverted
and went after an important overseas target.
And so for that reason, we have to apply a long stand-off,
potentially high-energy active sources to ferret out the
material, and some of that in the hazardous environment we
would operate in and with the rules of engagement might not be
suitable for use in the other agencies' scenarios, but would be
perfectly acceptable in the combat conditions or near-combat
conditions we would find ourselves in.
So we will be pushing predominantly in that direction and
developing and hopefully sharing that technology, obviously,
but we may be pushing it harder in that direction than others
would do. But, of course, at the same time, we will be relying
on the DOE laboratories to provide us the scientists to help us
do that.
Mr. Levi. Let me just make a couple comments. Two witnesses
have pointed out that active interrogation technology, which,
in particular, lets you deal with some shielding challenges, is
acceptable in different ways in different situations. The
hazards to people, to operators, and to enemy combatants are
all judged in different ways. There is an in-between scenario
also. If we have strong intelligence, not even after a single
attack but strong intelligence that material has escaped, we
might be willing to cross over other lines. But that requires a
conversation now about what the rules are and what rules we
would use in the future that can guide the technology
development. It is not technology in a vacuum. It is technology
within a context that we need to look at.
We are not going to develop the technology during the time
frame between warning and possible attack. We have to look at
it now.
We also talked a bit about a scenario where a state lets
material go, where a state deliberately tries to attack
covertly. And I think Steve Aoki's point earlier about the
necessity of investing in attribution so that states cannot do
this anonymously is incredibly important. And it is also
important to understand that this is not primarily a technology
effort to characterize the materials after an attack or before
an attack. That is part of it. But the biggest shortfall right
now is having fingerprints to match whatever we find to.
There are important things that have been done. There is
more important analysis and more in the way of intelligence
operations that could be done. And there also needs to be
better integration across the U.S. Government.
I do not hold a clearance, but I have been told that there
is poor sharing in some important cases between critical parts
of the U.S. Government in what they know about foreign nuclear
materials holdings. And I think that would be very important to
investigate and to address if that problem genuinely does
exist.
Chairman Kyl. Dr. Ikle?
Mr. Ikle. The useful distinction that we can see
percolating through these good responses is really peacetime
prevention, which DNDO is rightly focused on, enormously
important, and wartime response with DTRA, for which DTRA has
to equip the Department of Defense. And different rules apply.
Different rules can be used. It is really almost an entirely
different world if you think of the full consequences that we
get into in a world after a nuclear weapon has been used.
Having said that, I am little bit troubled occasionally by
the use of the word ``architecture.'' It sounds kind of good,
purposeful building of a big program, a big structure. But
architects normally know their building materials. They know
what the beams can carry. They know what the roofing can do.
And so even for the most ambitious structures, they know what
they work with.
In this area, it is the very materials, the tools, the
detection equipment that is in flux, that should be greatly
improved. And as we improve it, the architecture will change.
So this has to be an iterative process. Otherwise, it is like
you were trying to build an air force architecture with the
bases, the hangars, the logistics department, training of the
pilots, but you do not want the airplanes are like. And that is
a bit the situation we are in here.
So we have to think more of an iterative process where we
get better tools and we can do different things with the
structure, the deployment, or call it the architecture, based
on these different tools.
Finally, a very brief word on attribution, which was
properly raised by Dr. Levi. That is a deep problem, and as was
indicated, it gets into classified areas. I do not know whether
your Committee wants to have a closed hearing on that sometime,
but it is a big problem area. That is all I can say now.
Chairman Kyl. Well, and it would be wonderful if we could
say someday soon in an unclassified way that our scientists
have now figured out a way, going back to the genomic kind of
projects in biology, to figure out the source of every nuclear
emission should there be some kind of material released from an
explosion. And so whoever you are thinking about doing it, just
like the FBI and the fingerprints, we will find you because we
know what each of you have.
It would be nice to be able to use that as a deterrent, so
if you have that capability, it is one that you probably want
to announce in advance.
Mr. Ikle. Mr. Chairman, I think it is around the corner,
and we hope will have it before the first attack.
Mr. Levi. You can also go partway to disclosing your
capabilities in order to achieve a meaningful deterrent. There
is an analogy here. When states like India and Pakistan
developed nuclear weapons, they did not release all the details
of what they were doing, but they published limited amounts in
technical journals to show that they had certain capabilities.
I have encouraged DOE scientists to try to look at doing
something similar--publishing enough to get the other guy
worried, but not enough so that he can evade your defense.
Chairman Kyl. And, of course, I think it is obvious that
there is much about this entire area that is classified and
obviously has to remain classified.
One of the undercurrents to the testimony here is the
relative priority of spending on near-term detection devices
and programs that enable us to meet a potential current threat,
on the one hand, versus the kind of research that has got to be
done for more robust activity. To some extent, that also breaks
down between the non-military and military, although to some
extent, while you might consider the military the more active
or robust threat, it does not necessarily have to be.
And so I am wondering how each of you would evaluate--and,
in particular, I will put this to Dr. Oxford, too--how we
evaluate our spending priorities with the kind of spending
reductions that I talked about in my opening statement and what
kind of impact that has and what we can do about that.
Now, I know you did not come here to complain, so I am
eliciting this information from you under penalty of something.
Mr. Oxford. Mr. Chairman, I understand the budget pressures
that we are all under, and I will try to not make this sound
like a complaint.
First of all, getting to the basis for your question, we
think right now, given the sparsity of what this country has
been investing in this area, we have got to have a balance
between near-term and future capabilities. For example, the
contracts that I mentioned that were awarded on the 14th of
this month will be our next-generation technologies for
probably 10 years. The upgrades to those systems in the passive
detection arena are going to come primarily in two areas:
upgraded software, which can be immediately downloaded in the
fielded systems so the hardware investment is not wasted,
because we have actually already set up a national algorithm
team that consists of national experts from the laboratories as
well as industry to constantly improve the algorithms in which
these detectors will give us the answers. So I think that
becomes a very cost-effective solution.
Separately from that, both DOE and ourselves, and I am sure
Dr. Nanos ultimately--I am not sure what his program looks like
right this minute--will be investing in advanced detector
materials. Now, based on our design philosophy, at least for
the domestic systems, we are building these in a way that we
can retrofit. So if we come up with a replacement to sodium
iodide--for example, lanthanum bromide is one of the detector
materials that is being looked at pretty hard--we would have a
design methodology where we could retrofit our systems, just
like we will the software, to upgrade those systems as new
materials become available.
So that kind of balance allows us to do things now without
waiting for the future necessarily, so we get what we call
capability and coverage, expecting then improvements to come
over time.
Now, there are long-term challenges that we just do not
have capabilities for right now, and that is why we still need
that balance in the longer-term R&D. As Dr. Nanos has
mentioned, and in my opening statement I mentioned, stand-off
distances for detection is problematic, and we need to
aggressively look at what we can do in that arena.
Regarding the reductions that are currently in the Senate
mark, there was $35 million of a $100 million reduction in our
transformational research program that will affect many of the
programs that we expected to start next year. Specifically, the
academic research program, which we think is the future for
this country in this area, was essentially zeroed out. That
will hurt our ability to get the universities and colleges
engaged in this topic to bring the best and the brightest to
the forefront, you know, in the 5- to 10-year horizon.
So we think in the transformational side that we need to
work with the Senate in the conference process to see if we can
restore that.
Likewise, some of the other reductions will affect our
ability to start working with our major urban areas to help
them provide detection systems to protect them against a weapon
that could be developed inside this country. So just looking
outwards from the border may not be an effective solution,
especially for a dirty bomb, where the materials could come
from a domestic source and essentially be transported directly
into one of our major urban areas.
So there are a variety of things like that. The shielding
problem that we have talked about, that program was cut in half
in the 2007 mark. That will be our next-generation capability
to actually automatically identify shielding in cargo. So we
think those become critical vulnerabilities as we go forward
over time.
Chairman Kyl. Okay. Thank you.
Others? Dr. Nanos?
Mr. Nanos. I would like to emphasize something that
Mr. Oxford said, the system aspects of what we are talking
about. You know, a detector, an individual detector, is a
component of an overall system, and if you think of the radar
now to the transmitter-receiver processing software and that
sort of thing, each mission has sort of a system aspect to it
that we have to develop. And as new technologies come along,
you do not throw away the system. You introduce it to the
system. And I think that is an important point.
And I think that part of this effort and a very important
part of it is to work the system aspects of this and then to
optimize the components for these systems.
The detection business 10 years ago was largely one that
was based on protection of people and some detection of events,
but not trying to prevent smuggling or not trying to locate
material the way we are today in the field. So some of the--
although we did a lot of work on detectors, we did not do it in
the system context. And I think that is probably--Vayl, I don't
know if you agree with that, but I think that is probably one
of the biggest sea changes that we are undergoing right now.
Mr. Oxford. Mr. Chairman, if I could add to something, Dr.
Ikle mentioned something, that there has been probably a 50/50
split in the technical community as to whether we are at our
physical limits on understanding this problem or being able to
do something about it. Let me just give you one analogy that
suggests that we are not.
I would contend that the detector community has never met
the signal processing community, so what Pete is saying I think
is absolutely true. There are things we can do in the signal
processing area, just like we did in the ASW business for
years, that will allow us to start to take some of these
signatures that are buried in a cluttered environment and
extract them.
The detector community did not necessarily worry about
that. They worried about the physical detector and not
necessarily the system solution, as Pete is saying. So when you
get a group of just physicists in the room who do not think
about signal processing, you would get that same kind of
argument. We think there is a different approach.
Chairman Kyl. Well, go ahead, and I will add one more
question for Dr. Ikle.
Mr. Ikle. It is a very important question you raise, Mr.
Chairman, the question you raised about near-term and more
advanced or longer-term tools and investments. I would think,
if you look at the other large budget allocations, particularly
in the Pentagon, quite a bit of it is certainly for the long
term. The more than 1,000 times larger budget--and we are
talking about for DTRA, the F-35 is really more for the long
term. The very important ballistic missile defense project is
also rather long term. It has made some progress, but it has
still quite some way to go.
So it makes sense to compliment these long-term efforts,
which I think are mostly necessary for our military capability
10, 20 years hence, in this area as well.
A very encouraging idea that Dr. Oxford mentioned is the
retrofitting of currently deployed things with improved
equipment. And to the extent that that can be provided in
advance, it would help a great deal. So it remains a difficult
balance, long-term life versus short term.
There is another balance we have not touched on, and that
is the enormity or the damage of the event that we want to
prevent. There is a lot of talk about dirty bombs. They are
nasty. Scattering of medical isotopes could do similar things.
One of the best decisions, I thought, of Homeland Security
Secretary Chertoff was to raise the radiation level tolerable
after a dirty bomb to the level that you encounter every time
you fly to Arizona. It was a ridiculously low level. Of course,
you have to evacuate a city for a century or whatever. So there
are flexible ways of handling the dirty bomb that is, as we all
realize, much, much less dreadful than a full-scale nuclear
explosion.
There is the risk of chemical plants, often mentioned in
Congress, being attacked by terrorists, and some of these could
be terribly nasty because there is a dirty bomb probably in
there, the damage they do. So these less bad or lesser dangers
probably do deserve less attention.
Chairman Kyl. Dr. Levi?
Mr. Levi. First, let me say I think Dr. Ikle's comments on
radiological weapons, dirty bombs, are right on the point. In
particular, adjustments to the radiation threshold levels were
very smart to do.
Let me try to give you yet another perspective on the near-
term versus long-term thinking. Our near-term investments are
defending us against some subset of the threat. They are not
going to defend us against the--they are not going to give us
high confidence against the worst-case threats, but they are
going to give us meaningful defense against some of the lesser
threats. Let me give you an example of a situation I would not
like to see happen.
We look at all the radiation detection technologies, decide
that they can't detect well-shielded highly enriched uranium
that has been properly cast and so on. So we say we are not
going to deploy the lesser systems.
Then a group comes along, a terrorist group that is really
good a stealing things, but not good at technical measures, not
good at recruiting scientists. They break into a weapons
facility, get the material. They cannot do much to hide it,
let's say. They try to bring it into the country, and we do not
have the detection systems capable of detecting it because we
have only looked at the worst-case threat. I think that is a
situation we want to avoid.
What we want to be doing--and I think this is one way to
think of the near and long term--is to use a capabilities-based
approach. This is the way that the Defense Department has been
doing planning for the last 5 years or so, where we look at a
range of capabilities, both of the potential opponents and of
the defense, and try to simply cover as much of that space as
possible, to have good capabilities against whatever we can
defend against, and then in an evolutionary way try to improve
that.
It is the way the Defense Department has been heading. They
have been developing better ways to actually do carefully
planning under that. And it is probably the right framework for
thinking about this as well.
Chairman Kyl. Well, a good example of that is in the area
of missile defense. There is controversy about it, but it makes
sense given the fact that there is some potential threat today.
In the case of terrorism, it makes even more sense, it seems to
me, because there is a very real threat of terrorism today. But
concomitant to that is what is the relative prioritization in
spending research dollars if there is a potential--again, the
predicate here is that this is the worst calamity that we can
imagine and, therefore, we probably ought to be setting aside
some concomitant amount of research dollars to deal with it.
Is there a need for a Manhattan-style effort here that
would eventually enable us to have a pretty good chance to
protect against this ultimate threat to our citizenry? Dr.
Ikle?
Mr. Ikle. Some of us, especially you, Mr. Chairman, have
argued for kind of a Manhattan Project and made that case at
high levels of the executive branch, and at the time, the
executive branch was close to that but then went off in a
different direction.
The advantage of the Manhattan Project, as I would see it,
is not just the perhaps somewhat larger budget, but that the
scientists interact more vigorously than if we have to parcel
out contracts to different universities and the four or five
laboratories and agencies and so on, and it becomes more
parceled. And I do hope that DNDO under Vayl Oxford's
leadership will be able to pull these many excellent contracts
that they are letting out intellectually together and have a
system that the overall reinforcement and interaction of these
ideas of different physicists, be they at universities, at the
labs, or wherever, that can mutually reinforce each other, as
was the case at the Manhattan Project the way it was led.
Chairman Kyl. Mr. Oxford?
Mr. Oxford. let me address that a little bit. I take a
similar view, but maybe a different pathway. For example, when
I inherited DNDO, before it actually was formalized, the total
budget within DHS to deal with both the acquisition and the R&D
account was about $173 million. We are operating this year with
a total budget of $318 million. The President's budget request
in 2007 is $535 million. We are on the right trajectory.
I think there are cases where you could throw too much
money too quickly until the community is ready to accept it;
otherwise, we would be sitting here in front of you next year
wondering why we had wasted a billion dollars when the
community was not ready to effectively spend it.
So I think we are looking--whether it is a Manhattan
Project or just a very prudent planning and execution strategy
to deal with threat, I think we are on that right trajectory.
And I think if you look at our 5-year projections, we will be
over a billion dollars within the next several years if we get
the support not only through the White House but the Congress
as we go forward.
So the trajectory is right. We are getting the priorities
established. We could have thrown too much money too soon had
we not gone through some of this planning phase.
Chairman Kyl. Yes, Dr. Aoki?
Mr. Aoki. I guess I would just want to add one comment to
that, that is, this is not only a science and technology issue,
but also--you know, we used the word ``architecture''
occasionally in the testimony, but what architecture is really
all about is the flow of information. And what we are trying to
do in designing the system that Vayl is responsible for is to
make sure that not only do we have better detectors in the
sense of better physics packages that go out and sense
radiation at border crossings or in the hands of policemen or
wherever, but also a better ability to synthesize and utilize
that information and make sure that if somebody picks up
something that is a warning sign, that information gets to
someone who can appreciate it and analyze it and draw the
proper conclusion.
So I think one of the things that we need to focus on here
is not only making sure that the science is properly funded,
but also that within--that science is placed in the right
operational context, which includes a great deal of time and
attention placed to the management of the information, the
connectivity between the different parts of the system, so that
the very precious nuclear weapons expertise, for example, at
Los Alamos National Laboratory can be brought to bear on the
kinds of things that we--the signals we are getting out in the
field and conclusions, proper conclusions drawn and sent back
to the operators.
So some of this is not only about putting more money into
R&D, it is also about, as I think several people have commented
already, the systems aspects.
Chairman Kyl. Dr. Levi?
Mr. Levi. Let me expand on a couple of things that Dr. Ikle
and Dr. Aoki have said. The labs have a very particular
advantage in dealing with these things. In many cases, we are
going to be trying to detect not just nuclear material but
nuclear weapons. As far as I know, universities do not know
details about what nuclear weapons--what forms nuclear weapons
might take. Industry does not know that. The labs do. So they
can take advantage of that knowledge.
Context--I think several people have emphasized it.
Information flow. I think DNDO is to be complimented from one
particular initiative, which is to make sure that facilities
that we are helping acquire protection and accounting systems
actually report to the United States when those systems detect
something missing. That has not been a focus in the past, and
DNDO should get as broad support as possible.
But let me also give you one more example of how thinking
of this as a system matters. I doubt that technological
advances will give us the ability to have ubiquitous radiation
sensing along, for example, the border. Okay? But here is what
it can do: If we have an ability to actually stop a significant
number of people crossing the border, then the technological
advance can help make detectors smaller and more portable so
that if we have something like the catch-and-release policy we
have now, at least we do not catch someone with plutonium and
release them.
Those sorts of integrated concepts of operations are
incredibly important, and if we have that context, these
technological investments will be much more valuable.
Chairman Kyl. Dr. Nanos?
Mr. Nanos. Sir, as a student of both the Manhattan Project
and the Polaris, from my strategic system experiences, there is
a part of it that is often not discussed, and that is the
tremendous industrial base ground that was prepared during that
time and the ability to do things concurrently. And I think it
is probably too early now, but, you know, this story may
ultimately be written in our ability to cost-effectively
produce exotic materials that we have never produced before. In
other words, as we look to some of the detector technologies
creating high-purity crystals and things like that, and then
being able to churn out many thousands of them at reasonable
expense may end up being the biggest challenge we have in terms
of our defense.
So as the S&T opens up the doors, we have to be aware of
where the major industrial base challenges are and move on
those very quickly because it does not do us any good to do the
S&T and then not have the production capability or not be able
to afford the result.
Mr. Oxford. Mr. Chairman, could I add an exclamation point
to that?
Chairman Kyl. Sure. Before you do, let me just--first of
all, I have a 3:30 meeting. Secondly, I promised some people we
would finish within an hour or so, and we are a bit beyond
that. And I do not want to impinge upon your time either. So
what I would like to do is just conclude with Mr. Oxford and
then, Dr. Ikle, if you had something, to conclude our hearing
with that, but to make the point that--I mean, I could sit here
all day and listen to you. The one thing that I do want to get
out of this in terms of a written question to all of you--and I
would like to submit a couple here--is any suggestions you have
about this issue that has been now addressed directly and
indirectly about the coordination of effort and the
prioritization and the ultimate authority and responsibility
for doing that so that we don't just end up with a Government
that has a lot of capability and an industry with a lot of
capability, laboratories, others with a lot of capability, some
organizational structure in the Government to deal with it, but
not having a very clear chain of authority that utilizes all of
this in a sensible and ultimately responsible way.
Mr. Oxford. If I could show you how this is working right
now, for example, when we signed the Spectroscopic Portal
program contracts, we have an agreement with NNSA that they
will begin procurement from those contracts. So the systems
they field overseas, where they can field these systems based
on the host nation agreement, they will have the wherewithal to
now buy from these contracts, therefore, hopefully reducing the
unit costs for those contracts.
As Pete mentioned, one of the long poles in this tent is
the fact that there is one sodium iodide manufacturing facility
in this country. It is a French-owned company operating out of
Ohio. So in this case, what we have done is we have gone out
with a separate solicitation from the detector program to
solicit bids from not only that company but also other
companies within the U.S. to see if we can enhance the domestic
production of sodium iodide crystals and to reduce the overall
costs. Right now as a singular source, they are drawing about a
25-percent profit on the crystals. Those are the kinds of
issues that Pete just raised that, as we start getting into the
systems and the industrial capacity, we have to look forward
because that becomes a long pole in terms of the production
capacity.
Chairman Kyl. Dr. Ikle?
Mr. Ikle. Mr. Chairman, I think this hearing by itself
helped integrating the thinking among the involved agencies and
scholars. And I think more can be achieved just by your
Committee pulling this--make sure this effort pulls together
from the industrial side on the one hand, the scientific side
on the other, what the laboratories can do, as Dr. Levi had
pointed out, because, you know, weapons is quite different from
what the university can do, and how do you fit these together
so that the country as a whole will rapidly and greatly improve
its capability in this important area.
Chairman Kyl. Let me conclude by echoing something that Dr.
Levi said, although he was too self-effacing here. I am humbled
to be in the presence of people whose reputations I know and
whose contributions to this country's security and prosperity
are not, I am sure, nearly appreciated, not just in the room
but elsewhere. We have got some tremendous talent in this
country and people who have sacrificed, who have served the
country in ways that did not perhaps provide as much
remuneration as they could have acquired otherwise, but
certainly their contributions to our society in the long run
will make a much greater difference.
I just appreciate that and hope that the contribution that
we in the policymaking area can make will match the kind of
scientific effort that all of you have been responsible for.
To that end, I invite your comments, your suggestions. This
is not just an end of a process here but I hope the beginning
of a process. Dr. Ikle, as you pointed out, perhaps we can play
a role in this with this Subcommittee, but not even just this
Subcommittee, the Congress generally.
I will follow up with the questions that Senator Feinstein
had for the panel, as well as a couple that I would like to
ask, and really elicit any other advice or suggestions that you
have, and then perhaps we can get together again.
I will just conclude by saying thank you to all of you, and
thank you to those in the audience who I am sure share this
appreciation for our panel here today.
This hearing will now be concluded.
[Whereupon, at 3:35 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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