Steve Quayle News Alerts

July 12, 2002
BY MILES BENSON, Of Our Washington Bureau

There is a "moderate" chance that terrorists could detonate a nuclear weapon on American soil in the next five years, according to a team of leading scientists inside and outside the government.

More likely is an attack on a nuclear power plant, or a nasty combination of conventional explosives mixed with radioactive waste, according to a terrorist "threat matrix" published by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. The matrix rated those risks as "high" and "very high," respectively.

The June 25 report, part of a larger assessment of terrorism dangers, went to senior Bush administration officials and contained a classified section not made public.

Officials at the Office for Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment on the report's specifics.

Michael Scardaville, a homeland security specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said he found the threat matrix a "pretty good" assessment of the danger the nation faces from nuclear and radiological weapons. Absent, Scardaville noted, was any reference to the threat posed by Iran and Iraq, where efforts are believed to be under way to develop nuclear weapons.

A nuclear weapon detonated on American soil remains the worst possible scenario, said Princeton University physics professor William Happer, who headed the panel.

"In terms of catastrophic effects, there is no question that a real nuclear weapon is the sum of all fears," Happer said. "We know what it will do. We tested it twice in Japan over cities."

The scientists said there is a "medium" chance that weapons might be obtained from Pakistan and India, where political conditions are less stable, or from Russia, "where everything seems to be for sale," Happer said.

The scientists saw more risk that terrorists would launch ground or air assaults on one or more of 103 operating civilian nuclear power reactors at 65 sites around the country, which could have consequences ranging from reactor shutdowns to core meltdowns with large releases of radioactivity. Other possible targets are 35 research reactors operating in 23 states, most on university campuses, the report said.
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