Apocalypse How?

"These people are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States ... and we're going to have no one to blame but ourselves." -- Michael Scheuer, former head of the C.I.A.'s bin Laden unit, to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, February 19, 2007.

That isn't really news; it's sensational and au courant, but not really news. The Nunn-Lugar Act was passed years ago to deal with the very real threat of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists, and many experts, such as Graham Allison at the Kennedy School at Harvard, have offered in Senate testimony the probability estimates of an actual detonation. In late 2004, the guess was that the chance of a nuclear explosion somewhere in the world was 70% over the coming decade.

It's difficult to be more precise, of course, or even to know what to do with a probability estimate such as that. We could usefully contrast it with survival statistics in cancer research, for example. If we say that the five-year survival rate for a given type of cancer is 70%, then we can test the estimate by seeing how many survivors are around five years later. With sufficient numbers in the sample and standard scientific controls, the guesstimate can be affirmed or refuted. With a single, discrete event like a terrorist nuke, it's difficult to quantify, refute or affirm in the same way. Logically, any probability greater than zero during a given 10-year period would be affirmed by the actual event. Only if the prognosticator said the chances were, on one hand, zero; or at the other extreme, 100%, could we definitively say whether the guess was right or wrong.

So the purpose of such a probability estimate is to give us a general feeling. Should we be scared shitless, or is it just a Hollywood scenario pitch? If scientists with lots of data at their disposal start throwing around numbers like 70%, what do you think? In terms of my own street cred, I was, a long time ago, lead counsel for the intervenor in the Diablo Canyon licensing proceedings, through which Pacific Gas & Electric sought from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a green light to operate twin megawatt reactors built on an active earthquake fault in Avila Beach, California. Part of the proceedings required me to execute an Affidavit of Nondisclosure forbidding me to divulge any information acquired through my review of classified information in the clean rooms maintained on site at PG&E. That's been easy, and the silly nature of hyped-up classification was one of the two lessons I learned from the litigation. The other was that the NRC provides no real oversight of the nuclear industry because the appointees to the Commission are all industry hacks calling in political favors. As it was then, so it is now; the difference is that the blogosphere now extensively covers Bush's continuation of these corrupt practices, so that we have, for example, coal industry lobbyists in charge of America's "fight" against global warming.

Those are valuable lessons to learn at the callow age of 32. The federal government is (a) thoroughly, utterly corrupt, and hides many of its mistakes through (b) abuse of the classification process. For purposes of thematic continuity: these sad factoids relate to the existential danger posed by terrorist nukes. How bad is the danger? The information is all classified. And who's in charge of protecting us? Hacks, such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who don't know their ass from a hot rock.

Those who are privy to the information necessary to blow us to kingdom come include Islamic extremists, even if you, loyal American citizen, are not among the favored, in-the-know cohort. The basic information relevant to building a nuke is available now on the Internet or in public libraries, although the generalized diagrams or details are insufficient for a workable device. A terrorist would need either (1) an actual, assembled bomb, or (2) the materials to build one with, assisted by a bomb-making physicist.

If I were devising a Hollywood scenario, I would go for Door #2. One thing I learned (but not from classified sources) back in those glory days of within-the-system radicalism is that a standard commerical light-water reactor (such as those at Diablo Canyon, San Onofre, or dotting the landscape all over France) produces about 500 pounds of plutonium per year. About 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of plutonium is all you need for a good, solid, serviceable 10-kiloton bomb (in the Trinity shot ball park). In all the controversy over Iran's "nuclear program," we keep reading about Condi Rice's insistence that Iran "stop its uranium enrichment" as a condition of bilateral talks. Sometimes I actually wonder to myself: are Condi, Bush & Cheney so stupid they actually don't know? Uranium enrichment is the long way home. The United States undertook uranium enrichment as part of the Manhattan Project for one very simple reason: there were no nuclear reactors around to produce plutonium. But they undertook this extraordinarily complicated process because they had to. You can't find plutonium in a mine (except in infinitesimal quantities as the result of "natural reactor piles" sometimes found in uranium deposits). You make it in a reactor. A light water reactor uses U-238 (the plentiful kind) enriched to 3% (or more) U-235 (the highly radioactive isotope), all of it packed into long, cylindrical fuel rods. In the course of producing heat, through the neutron flux in the reactor core, the U-238 is altered (through a couple of chemical intervening steps) to Pu-239 - Plutonium. This silvery metal from Pluto's dark realm must be extracted from the spent fuel rods in a reprocessing plant by chemical means. The United States doesn't do this anymore, but France, England and (ahem) Russia do.

There's your weak link: Russia and all the former Soviet republics, particularly those with significant Muslim populations. This is where we're paying a terrible price for George Bush's anti-social personality disorder. His inability to get along with people has transmogrified into a global, existential crisis. Hate to say it, but it's true, folks. Bush's weird personal problems have succeeded in alienating Russia, which has strong connections to Iran, and the "crusade" bullshit he uses to galvanize America into unnecessary wars has polarized Muslim sentiment against us. His abrogation of the ABM treaty without bringing Russia along on a joint venture to develop a "missile shield" against rogue nation nukes; his enlisting of former Soviet Republics into NATO, and stationing new missile sites on Russia's border; and his adamant refusal to "talk" to Iran unless they cease doing something they don't need to do in order to become a nuclear threat - all this stupidity has added immeasurably to the danger.

We need the assistance of every advanced civilized nation on Earth to help us counter the threat of a terrorist nuke. We can't afford to be at odds with a country (Russia) which poses no threat to America's safety, yet which possesses not only finished nuclear weapons but tons of raw plutonium. We have to talk to everybody, all the time. There is no upside to this silly posturing, this Axis of Evil crap. It is the ultimate zero-sum game: one mushroom cloud here in the "homeland," and our days as a viable polity are over. We need to pull for that 30% chance it won't happen, and we need January 2009 to happen as soon as it can.