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October 19, 2001
Michael
Colby
A
Mailroom Manifesto
October 18, 2001
Mahajan
and Jensen
Avoiding
a New Cold War
Patrick
Cockburn
US
Planes Pound Taliban
Jamey Hecht
Gerald Ford
and the CIA
Mokhiber
and Weisman
3
Arguments
Against This War
October 17, 2001
Ballinger
and Marsh
Music
and War Resistance
Steve
Perry
The
Anthrax Chronicles
Chris
Kromm
Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
October 16, 2001
Steve
Perry
War
Without Frontiers
Douglas
Valentine
The
CIA and Anthrax
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Battle of Mazar-i-Sharif
John
Troyer
Return
to Normal?
Moji Agha
A
Jihad Against Ignorance
October
15, 2001
Tariq
Ali
Alternatives
to War
John
Pilger
War
American Style
Umberto
Eco
The
Roots of Conflict
Marwan
Bishara
Clash
of Civilizations? Hardly
Patrick
Cockburn
Modern
War in
A Medieval Village
October
13, 2001
Carl
Estabrook
Letters
to Editors
Molly
Secours
War:
The Procter and Gamble Perspective
Alexander
Cockburn
War
Can't Save the Economy
October
10, 2001
Cockburn/St.
Clair
The
Empire Strikes Back
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
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by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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October
19, 2001
Nuclear Anxiety
By Mark Scaramella
On September 11, 2001 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
issued a press release entitled "NRC URGES INCREASED SECURITY"
which reads, "The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, purely
as a precaution, has recommended that all nuclear power plants,
non-power reactors, nuclear fuel facilities and gaseous diffusion
plants go to the highest level of security. Details of the heightened
security are classified. While there has been no credible general
or specific threats to any of these facilities, the recommendation
was considered prudent, given the acts of terrorism in New York
City and, in Washington, D.C."
The Nuclear Energy Institute's website has a short article entitled
"US Nuclear Plants Protected from Sabotage by Extensive
Security Measures" which summarizes nuclear plant security
based on "Physical Barriers, Armed Guards, and Personnel
Procedures" adding, "Nuclear plant security forces
and procedures [are] continually tested in mock drills. Federal
regulations require that the industry demonstrate it can protect
against a threat by a well-trained paramilitary force intent
on forcing its way into a nuclear power plant to commit sabotage,
armed with automatic weapons and explosives, with the assistance
of an insider who could pass along information and help the attackers.
In mock drills conducted periodically under NRC supervision and
evaluation, highly skilled, professionally trained intruders
make direct frontal attacks on the nuclear plants. They are provided
with all information about the plant regarding the location of
and pathway to vital equipment, as if they were previously informed
by an insider, and proceed to attempt to reach the equipment
to disable it. If a drill the energy company chooses to stage
is not sufficiently rigorous, the company would be cited for
a violation of NRC regulations. The NRC evaluates the efficiency
of the plant's security measures and any necessary enhancements
are implemented."
The NEI doesn't discuss the NRC's actual security evaluations
or records, nor the results of these voluntary, non-surprise
drills. The NEI, adds, "Because of the industry's security
programs and the defense in depth safety strategy, the US FBI
classifies nuclear power plants as 'hardened' targets. NRC Commissioner
Edward McGaffigan said recently, 'There are threats to the nation.
But outside the military, [the nuclear energy] industry is probably
the best at protecting its assets.' (March 3, 1999)."
By a quirk of macabre timing, the September 17 edition of US
News & World Report (published before the September 11th
terrorist attacks) ran a long investigative article describing
lax security and vulnerability to terrorist attacks at many of
the country's 103 nuclear power plants. In light of the unbelievably
accurate terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington DC,
the USN&WR story entitled "A nuclear nightmare: They
look tough, but some [nuclear] plants are easy marks for terrorism"
is sobering, to say the least.
Last year, a Florida-based militia unit run by a twisted soul
named Donald Beauregard was caught planning to use stolen explosives
to disable the electrical power grid which powers Florida's Crystal
River nuclear power plant. Luckily, an informant tipped off the
police and Beauregard was prosecuted and sent to jail. When the
cops caught up with Mr. Beauregard and his "strike team"
they had already assembled a 20-mm cannon, a .50-caliber machine
gun and some pipe bombs.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission took
the threat so seriously that it added what Beauregard called
"Project Worst Nightmare" to its list of mock terrorist
attack scenarios mentioned above.
"In the past decade, nearly half
the nation's 103 power plants have failed mock terrorist attacks
against them," says USN&WR's Douglas Pasternak. Based
on interviews with current and former NRC inspectors, security
experts and plant guards, Pasternak concludes, "Often, security
measures at nuclear plants don't work as they should or don't
work at all."
"High on critics' list of concerns is the failure rate in
the NRC-run mock terrorist assaults -- attacks that, if real,
could have released radiation more lethal than the 1986 Chernobyl
accident..." says Pasternak."In some cases, the mock
terrorists make it all the way to the sensitive control room
-- even though they give plant operators ample advance notice
of when they intend to strike."
The nuclear industry insists that the
plants are "overly defended" and the risk of attack
is low. But Pasternak describes several incidents of unsuccessful
attacks on nuclear plants around the world -- none of them from
the air.
An unnamed plant security guard is eerily
quoted saying, "There is nothing [in the mock attacks] about
protecting against a helicopter assault or a missile taking out
one of our positions." Pasternak adds, "Last September
an anti-nuclear demonstrator landed a motorized parafoil on the
roof of a nuclear reactor in Bern, Switzerland, before being
apprehended by security guards." The demonstrator was unarmed
and not bent on suicide.
Pasternak describes semi-successful
examples of internal sabotage attempts at some plants, the ease
with which truck bombs could be positioned outside their perimeters,
the vulnerability of the plants' water supply systems and back
up power generators, the vulnerability of the huge spent nuclear
fuel rod storage ponds...
These are serious security and safety
concerns, especially as the United States prepares for a protracted
and costly war against dangerous but ill-defined terrorists.
One can only hope that the nation's nuclear industry takes the
NRC's non-mandatory "urging" seriously and is better
at protecting itself than the airline industry.
PS. Mr. Beauregard's "worst nightmare"
plot was uncovered only when an "informant" tipped
off the police, not BY the police. Informant tips can certainly
be helpful in preventing disaster (even though several credible
tips appear to have been ignored by authorities in the days leading
up to the NYC and DC attacks). But informants can be mistaken
or malicious. It doesn't take much of a leap to imagine the risks
of misuse of informants if authorities here, in an upsurge of
war-inspired defensiveness and worry, feel the need to crack
down on certain people and speech as it has in previous wars.
In the wake of the September 11 attacks
US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, speaking at a recent International
Atomic Energy Agency conference, warned that fanatics could wreak
havoc by destroying plants or stealing materials to build their
own weapons. According to the Guardian of London, the only paper
reporting on the conference, "officials admitted that little
could be done to protect them from airborne threats which could
cause a 'Chernobyl situation'."
"We cannot assume that tomorrow's
terrorist acts will mirror those we've just experienced,"
Mr. Abraham said. "Clearly, terrorists will attack any target,
so no one will be immune. And clearly terrorists will use any
method. The terrible events of last week demonstrate in the clearest
possible fashion the importance of maintaining the highest levels
of security over nuclear materials. We expect the members of
this body to prohibit nuclear exports in cases where there is
a significant risk of diversion."
But the delegates from the 132 IAEA member
nations acknowledged that their ability to shield nuclear facilities
is limited. "It is practically impossible to protect nuclear
plants to the extent needed to withstand the sort of attack we
saw last week," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the
IAEA. "Consideration was given to the possibility of a plane
crashing into them when they were designed and built. But over
20 years later, we have planes that are almost twice as big and
are going on long-haul flights able to carry tons of fuel."
Dr. Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist
working for the Oxford Research Group in London, warned, "What
are very big risks are the huge tanks of very, very radioactive
liquid stored in reprocessing plants. They contain a huge amount
of radioactivity and are less well-protected than the reactors,
which are within very large concrete shields."
A British nuclear industry spokesman
echoed his US counterparts insisting that both reactors and reprocessing
plants were "extremely robust" and were designed to
withstand accidents, including plane crashes. But a US official,
who declined to be named, told the Guardian of London that a
direct hit from an airliner could cause a "Chernobyl situation."
Although it would not destroy a reactor, it could cause meltdown
by damaging its cooling systems, allowing the fuel rods to overheat.
Retired Navy Admiral Eugene Carroll,
a long-time critic of the US excessive defense buildups and procurements,
recently summed up the situation. "The sad truth is we cannot
guard everything in America all the time against terrorist attack.
The only realistic hope to reduce the danger of future attacks
lies not in violent reprisals by American forces, but in positive
preventive programs, taken in concert with other nations to attack
the root causes of terrorism by political and economic means.
Only by alleviating abject poverty and hopelessness in the poorest
nations in the world can we eliminate the spirit that breeds
terrorists -- that sense that even death is preferable to life
under unbearable conditions. This will not be an easy or inexpensive
challenge. But it is far less costly than the perpetual cycle
of attack and reprisal and with targets like nuclear reactors
to aim at."
But US security "experts" seem
more interested in nudging the gaping barn door of airline security
this way and that, with irrelevant new "security measures"
which would turn passenger aircraft into medium security prisons.
No pen knives. No bottle openers. No dinner knives. Plastic forks.
(My mother always told me that I could put someone's eye out
with a plastic fork.) No sharp objects. What's next? No shoelaces?
No belts? No credit
cards (that can be filed down to sharp edges)?
The following threat assessment from the Nuclear Energy Institute
provides a frightening indication of the upside-down priorities
of the people in charge of the nuclear industry's security programs:
"Nuclear power plant licensees must plan and provide for
all reasonable contingencies such as guard strikes and anti-nuclear
demonstrations." CP
Mark Scaramella
is the managing editor of the Anderson Valley Advertiser, the
weekly newspaper published in Booneville, CA.
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