Return-Path: <sentto-279987-5176-1029332285-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 14 Aug 2002 06:41:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 13639 invoked by uid 510); 14 Aug 2002 13:36:38 -0000 Received: from n35.grp.scd.yahoo.com (66.218.66.103) by all.net with SMTP; 14 Aug 2002 13:36:38 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-5176-1029332285-fc=all.net@returns.groups.yahoo.com Received: from [66.218.67.194] by n35.grp.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 14 Aug 2002 13:38:05 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_7_4); 14 Aug 2002 13:38:05 -0000 Received: (qmail 13225 invoked from network); 14 Aug 2002 13:38:04 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m12.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 Aug 2002 13:38:04 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (12.232.72.152) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Aug 2002 13:38:04 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id g7EDcpo10226 for iwar@onelist.com; Wed, 14 Aug 2002 06:38:51 -0700 Message-Id: <200208141338.g7EDcpo10226@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 06:38:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [iwar] [fc:Terror.worries.spur.nuclear.facility.move] Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.0 required=5.0 tests=DIFFERENT_REPLY_TO version=2.20 X-Spam-Level: <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/showcase/chi-0208130251aug13.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/showcase/chi-0208130251aug13.story?coll=chi%2Dnews%2Dhed> Terror worries spur nuclear facility move Los Alamos site called vulnerable By Michael Kilian Tribune national correspondent August 13, 2002 LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- From a clifftop overlook called Robbie's Roost, Technical Area 18 spreads across the canyon floor below like the set of an action movie, complete with barbed wire, armed guards, an array of secret laboratories and, at the rear, three huge structures housing tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. But this is no movie. Since its role in the Manhattan Project that produced the world's first atomic bomb more than a half-century ago, TA-18--a major part of the Los Alamos National Laboratory complex--has been one of the most important and vulnerable components of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Now, after months of insisting that the security here can stand up to anything, the federal government is preparing to move TA-18 to the Nevada desert because of fears of terrorist attack. It will be the first time the U.S. has moved a major nuclear facility, and a formal announcement is expected this week. The General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, is examining security at Los Alamos and the nine other national nuclear weapons labs, which fall under the jurisdiction of the Energy Department. A spokesman for the GAO said its investigation should be complete by Jan. 1. In addition, congressional committee leaders are preparing hearings for this fall. Lawmakers are concerned that the facilities have repeatedly failed rudimentary security tests, such as mock raids staged to test their defenses. The Washington-based Project on Government Oversight and other citizen watchdog groups have long warned of inadequate security at the labs, which conduct research, develop new technologies and test the readiness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Activists applaud the impending move of TA-18, though they say more needs to be done. "This is the most sensible move DOE has made toward making the nuclear weapons complex more secure," said former Energy Department official Peter Stockton, now a Project on Government Oversight consultant. Despite the move, Los Alamos security chief Stanley Busboom insisted late last month that defenses at TA-18 were more than adequate. The facility is being moved, officials said, because maintaining the high level of security was too expensive. "After 9/11, we did a tremendous amount of work in a very short period of time in really beefing up security here," he said. "It was good before, but when you had a government-wide, nationwide threat, we reacted to it." Scientists at Los Alamos play a crucial role in ensuring that the U.S. nuclear arsenal has not deteriorated. International treaties forbid testing by actually detonating bombs; instead scientists run computer simulations and test the weapons' non-fissile components. Since Sept. 11, TA-18 also has played a major homeland security role, developing devices to detect terrorist nuclear weapons and training emergency personnel to respond to potential terrorist nuclear attacks. TA-18 is 50 miles northwest of Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico and a metropolitan area of 148,000 people. According to Stockton, who served as special assistant for security under Clinton administration Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, the area would be highly vulnerable to detonation of a nuclear device or a radioactive "dirty bomb." Experts also fear that TA-18's location at the bottom of a canyon would make it susceptible to commando and aerial raids by well-organized teams of terrorists. A June 28 letter from Los Alamos Director John Browne to Everet Beckner, deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, suggests Browne and other officials already had made up their minds to move TA-18 to Nevada, calling that "the best overall decision to meet the post September 11th challenges for the long-term security of nuclear activities associated with TA-18." TA-18 was established in Parajitos Canyon when few in the United States had ever heard of Los Alamos, and the entire laboratory grounds were restricted. Some parts of the laboratory are now accessible to the public, including office buildings in the town of Los Alamos. The weapons site is protected by a security force of several hundred--the exact number is secret--provided by a private company. From 1992 to Sept. 11, security forces at the labs were reduced nearly 40 percent--from 5,640 to about 3,500 nationwide--while the labs' nuclear inventory increased 30 percent. Though the move to a pre-existing nuclear test site about 90 miles from Las Vegas would help secure TA-18 operations, another nuclear weapons facility, TA-55, which has a less vulnerable hilltop location, will remain on Los Alamos' grounds. But the problem appears to be broader than Los Alamos; security has failed regularly in mock exercises at other labs as well. In addition to Los Alamos, the government owns Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and California; Argonne-West near Idaho Falls, Idaho; Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab outside San Francisco; the Rocky Flats lab in Denver; the Oak Ridge facility near Knoxville, Tenn.; the Savannah River lab near Augusta, Ga.; the Pantex complex at Amarillo, Texas; and the Hanford lab at Richland, Wash. The Department of Energy supervises the labs but hires others to handle day-to-day operations--the University of California runs Los Alamos, for example. Mock intruder exercises showed flaws in Livermore's defenses, Stockton said. In one test at Rocky Flats, Navy SEALs were able to cut a hole through the perimeter fence and escape with enough simulated nuclear material to make several bombs. They weren't discovered until after they had left the site. During the Cold War, the missions of labs such as Los Alamos were divided evenly between nuclear weapons and other scientific endeavors. Now, 85 percent of the work is nuclear because of the Energy Department's counterterrorism program and because the labs are responsible for the testing and maintenance of America's nuclear weapons stockpile. The U.S. stopped manufacturing nuclear weapons in 1990 and ceased underground nuclear arms testing in 1992. Since then, the testing and maintenance of the U.S. arsenal has fallen to Los Alamos, Sandia and Livermore. "Traditionally, nuclear weapons have had a shelf life of five to 10 years," said Los Alamos spokesman Kevin Roark. "They destroy the old ones and replace them with new ones. But now the U.S. no longer manufactures nuclear weapons, so the stockpile has to be maintained in good working order." That requires a complicated and top-secret testing program in which weapons are carefully dismantled and their components subjected to a variety of experiments--including some involving explosions--to prove their viability. The weapons are brought to and from the labs by surface transportation under extreme security and secrecy, though the vulnerability of that transport to terrorism presents another worry. Some members of Congress say the Energy Department has a long way to go in protecting its facilities against terrorists. "It seems as though little has been done to remedy the security problem," Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) wrote President Bush in a recent letter. "Nuclear weapons material at Department of Energy sites remains vulnerable to theft or onsite construction and detonation of `dirty bombs,' or homemade nuclear weapons." Copyright © 2002, Chicago Tribune ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> 4 DVDs Free +s&p Join Now http://us.click.yahoo.com/pt6YBB/NXiEAA/RN.GAA/kgFolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ------------------ http://all.net/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2002-10-01 06:44:32 PDT