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US Nuclear Plants vulnerable to Terrorist Attacks
The panel of American scientists found that an attack on any one or more of America’s Nuclear Plants by using an aircraft or
high explosive could under some conditions lead to a draining of the
spent-fuel pool, unleashing a high-temperature fire and release of
large amounts of radiation.
 This panel of American nuclear experts gathered by the National Academy of
Sciences called Wednesday for a plant-by-plant examination
of the fuel storage pools at nuclear power reactors,
declaring the material may be vulnerable to a potential terrorist
attack and deadly release of radiation. ______________________________________
There need not be any panic, but the report, a declassified version of which was released Wednesday,
has been the subject of intense internal debate between panel members
and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which had opposed its
release and has called some of its recommendations unnecessary.
The agency said in a statement that it considers the NAS study
important and is giving its recommendations "serious consideration."
But it also said it considers reactor spent fuel pools "well
protected by physical barriers, armed guards, intrusion detection
systems, area surveillance systems" and limits on access by workers
at power plants.
Protecting the Nuclear Plants is "a critical national security issue," said Bruce
Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The panel of scientists found that an attack using an aircraft or
high explosive could under some conditions lead to a draining of the
spent-fuel pool, unleashing a high-temperature fire and release of
large amounts of radiation.
Here is a report about a truck that regularly brings in supplies to the Nuclear Facility at Three Mile Island (TMI) suffers a flat tire on the Freeway while on its way to the Facility. Truck Waylaid after Flat Tire When the driver gets off to change the flat, the parked truck is waylaid after its three guards are overpowered. The flat is a result of the nails strewn on the highway just a few seconds before the truck made is scheduled passage on its regular route. The highwaymen gag the guards and force them to inhale chloroform to make them unconscious. They tie them up and dump them into the truck after undressing them. The highwaymen change into the uniforms of the guards and the driver and drive away the truck to a different destination. Sarin Gas, TNT, RDX, etc. They unload the regular cargo and replace it with TNT, RDX and other lethal explosives along with a stock of sarin nerve gas. The truck then resumes its journey to the Three Mile Island. It arrives at its regular Gate No 2 and the driver flashes the Entry and Identification Pass and is waved inside. The sarin gas canisters lie up-opened since they were a back-up for forcing the gate by spraying the gas on the guards, had they found out that the inmates of the truck are imposters and had blocked the truck's entry into the complex. An unexpected event can stump a Terrorist - A question gives the game away Now once on the driveway inside, the truck drives towards that one of the 12 truck bomb barriers which is barely 10 feet from a vital area building (Unit No. 8). Is routinely flagged down by the guards, and while examining the entry and identification passes; Carlton, one of the guards casually looks up to ask for the packet of doughnuts that Jimmy the regular driver had promised to get in that day. Taken aback the imposter who has his county cap pulled down below his sunglasses, at a rakish angle is stumped for an answer! Knowing that the game would be up, if he spoke anything in reply, the imposter, slams the truck door and sends a spray of the sarin gas towards Carlton and his mates, while stepping on the gas to suddenly accelerate the truck and make its way not to the Central Warehouse - its regular destination but towards the Unit No 8 Reactor that is just a few meters across barrier. Hey, what's the hell is happening here! The alert marshals on patrol duty inside, immediately hail the driver to stop the speeding truck. As their order is ignored, the marshals suspect foul play and sound the alarm while opening fire at the trucks tires to stop it from ramming into the Reactor. But this delayed security response miserably fails and with the Heavy Duty Truck ploughing through the Reinforced Iron Door into the Silo makes time stand still in one blinding flash, followed by an ear-drum shattering sound decibels. The first explosion is followed by secondary explosions of equal intensity as the other neighboring silos in the complex are consumed by the combustion from the first explosion. Thus in effect we have a series of nuclear explosions. The Heavy Duty Truck ploughing through the Reinforced Iron Door into the Silo makes time stand still A series of nuclear explosions in an attack has taken place after more than half a century! It takes time for the horror to sink in, despite the fact that just a few years back an unprecedented terror attack had shaken the world on 11th September 2001. The affected perimeter is of a diameter of 40 miles. The survivors on the outer fringes, inside the affected perimeter are too dazed to respond in any way. It takes time for the word to travel about what has actually happened. And so the first official dispatch of this catastrophe is filed by those outside the affected perimeter. The rising mushroom cloud of radio-active fission that is released is what is the first to be noticed by those on Trans-American flights overflying Pennsylvania. The terrorist have done their dirty work once again and that too using American nuclear arsenal itself, to strike at America! And that too without having to take the trouble of pilfering it or transporting it anyplace; leave apart, spending multiple mandays (in fact manyears) of painstaking effort to manufacture it! The story of September 11th 2001 has been repeated. The use of American Aircrafts, American fuel to blow up American targets. The only thing un-American is the fanaticism of the terrorists. And now this same story has been repeated - the only difference this time around is that the catastrophe is a 100 times more manifold, as against the WTC/Pentagon attacks! Hiroshima on American Soil The first reaction to this carnage is to compare it with Hiroshima - but now on American soil. The way the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon was called the 2nd Pearl Harbor, this one is nicknamed Hiroshima in America! At a ballpark level the death toll is estimated at two hundred thousand as the radioactive bubble of nuclear radiation has covered Pittsburgh city. This daring and devastatingly successful attack has made the events of September 11th 2001 seem like a whimper. In the aftermath of this nuclear explosion, with the US and the rest of civilized world shaken up to the nuclear dimensions of the War against Terror, the Pentagon advised the Oval Office to re-look at the War Strategy and work towards a zero possibility of such attacks in future. _______________________________________________________________ Relax, all this is just imagination that many would say defies reality Relax, all this is just imagination that many would say defies reality. But what happened on the 11th of September also defied imagination - till it actually happened. Looking at the actual ground situation in the location of the above imaginary re-creation of a possible future attack. We may note that at Three Mile Island, truck barriers were installed only after an intruder in 1993 crashed into the plant's turbine building. In February 1993 -- 19 days before militant Muslim terrorists first attacked the World Trade Center in New York City by exploding bombs in its underground parking garage -- other terrorists associated with that group practiced a nighttime mock assault on an electric substation in Perry County, 30 miles west of the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant in Harrisburg. In 1993, an intruder had deliberately crashed a car through a door at TMI's turbine building, eventually stopping 63 feet inside the building! But interestingly, in an unrelated incident that same 1993 weekend, an intruder deliberately crashed a car through a door at TMI's turbine building, eventually stopping 63 feet inside the building! This event did not make news headlines in the global media unlike the terrorist attacks that toppled the World Trade Center buildings in New York City and gouged a hole into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. But as a result of September 11th, the security was tightened at all the 103 nuclear power plants in the United States, including Beaver Valley, Three Mile Island and three others in Pennsylvania. The American Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NTC) recommended that the power plants increase security to the "highest level," details of which are classified. "While there's been no credible general or specific threats," Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the NRC, said, "the recommendation was considered prudent, given the acts of terrorism." And Pennsylvania State Police were deployed as a precaution at the entrances to Beaver Valley Power Station in Shipping port, 22 miles northwest of Pittsburgh; Three Mile Island near Harrisburg; Limerick in Montgomery County; Susquehanna/PPL Electric in Luzerne County and the Peach Bottom Power Station in York County. "We are highly critical of the NRC for just recommending and not ordering all nuclear plants to increase security to the highest level," said Scott Portzline, chairman of Alert's security committee. Coincidental to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Portzline said Alert has formally petitioned the NRC to issue a rule directing utilities to post guards at the entrances of their nuclear power stations.
The absence of such a rule makes the nuclear plants "soft targets" for terrorists, he contended. "Posting armed guards at the entrances of nuclear power plants serves as a physical deterrent, would 'harden' those sites and demonstrates to local communities that the NRC and the nuclear industry are serious about public health and safety," Portzline said. "It's hard to imagine that nuclear plant entrances remain unguarded in the 21st century. Although U.S. nuclear power plants probably have the world's best safeguards, Alert is not the only group that says they need to get much better and fast.
Physicians for Social Responsibility has called nuclear power plants "land mines waiting to be stepped upon." And the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nuclear non-proliferation group, said that nuclear power plants are vulnerable to terrorists, and a successful attack that breaches a reactor's containment systems could cause severe panic. "Potentially, it could be many times worse than what we've seen [in New York] because it could result in radiation and fallout over a vast area that would have a devastating economic effect," said Tom Clements, head of the Institute.
Nuclear plants have three security zones -- the outermost "owner-controlled area," the middle "protected area," and the innermost "vital area," where safety systems and fuel rods are located. Nuclear power plants are required to employ site protection officers who are usually stationed in the protected area. That's also where truck bomb barriers -- required by the NRC only after the 1993 "vehicle intrusion" at TMI -- can be found.
Portzline said most of those truck bomb barriers, including 12 of 14 installed at TMI in 1994, are so close to the vital areas of nuclear power plants that an Oklahoma City-sized truck bomb could cause a catastrophe. One of those barriers at TMI is only 10 feet from a vital area building. In addition, Portzline said, security at TMI's main entrance has decreased over the years. During the 1970s, the north entrance was guarded and vehicles were required to stop for a credentials check before entering the site. In 1993, a truck bomb barrier was installed, but it is unmanned and is left open more than half the time. A parking garage-style barrier lifts automatically to approaching vehicles. The imaginary attack described in this report has been scripted assuming the existence of all these new preventive measures But the imaginary attack described in the top paragraphs of this report has been scripted assuming the existence of all these new preventive measures and so there could still there could be a scenario wherein the truck (or a boat, or low-flying airplane) could slip into the TMI or any other nuclear facility anywhere on this globe and blow up the entire facility making this imaginary scenario to become an eerily prophetic. Since we obviously do not want that to happen, we should re-look at the following suggestion. We mentioned above that "In the aftermath of this nuclear explosion, with the US and the rest of civilized world shaken up to the nuclear dimensions of the War against Terror, the Pentagon advised the Oval Office to work towards a zero possibility of such attacks in future." A look at cold facts tells us that - An unused nuclear is an inviting target for resourceless terrorists - whose only resources is their daring and will to die while killing.
The ONLY way to reduce the possibility of such attacks to Zero - The only way to reduce the possibility of such attacks to zero is by keeping this nuclear arsenal beyond the reach of the terrorists. - The only option that gives a cent-per-cent insurance of safety is by exploding the arsenal in the context of the situation prevailing after 11th September - The best target for such explosions is the terrorists themselves. - To destroy the terrorists, the rogue states that harbor them have to be brought within the cross-hairs of nuclear attack, sooner or later! - With the entire nuclear arsenal of the globe flared-off in an unorthodox measure of liquidation of the entire arsenal itself in a single continuous strike on the evil empire of rogue states that make up the Islamic crescent from Morocco to Indonesia; the danger of this arsenal being used in a scenario described above, is reduced to zero.
The only issue that would have to be resolved is that of neutralizing the nuclear of the only Islamic state - Pakistan, before this operation is rolled out. The task of getting all other non-Islamic nuclear powers to acquiesce to this would be a daunting one, no doubt. But this can be addressed. And if any of the nuclear powers refuse to co-operate in this seemingly desperate measure, then they would have to ensure that after the suggested operation their arsenal is transferred to a global trust for safekeeping so that anytime in the future it does not fall into wrong hands. The nuclear capable NATO powers today have sufficient resources to carry out the suggested operation. And after the war, all global nuclear potential can be directed to creative uses. We guess that after this catastrophic war, humankind in a future borderless global state, will come to its senses to preclude the wrongful use of nuclear or any other resources!
Many would balk at the solution suggested here that involves the un-precedently unorthodox measure of liquidation of the entire global nuclear arsenal in a single continuous strike on the evil empire of rogue states that make up the Islamic crescent from Morocco to Indonesia. But there is no other go. Since many would still balk at this suggestion, we invite them to come up with equally effective alternate solutions that will eliminate the threat of terrorists using nuclear weapons in any manner whatsoever.
The Shape of Things to Come in the War against Terror - Suitcase Dirty Bombs smuggled across the Sea Coast into the USA While on this topic let us digress a bit into the possibility of Suitcase Dirty Bombs being smuggled across the long Sea Coast into the USA. But with security being tightened at American airports, the Jihadis can be expected to use the long American coastline to smuggle in Dirty Bombs assembled with nuclear materials. With America's CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) confirming that between two and ten retired and serving nuclear scientists having visited Kandahar and met Osama Bin Laden himself or the contacts from Al Qaeda; the dangers of a Dirty Bomb being in possession of the Al Qaeda is a distinct possibility. Such a device could easily be ported through an innocuous looking briefcase and be smuggled into the USA through its long and porous coastline alongwith the many refugees (stowaway immigrants) who try to enter the USA. Through such a channel, the chances of an explosive contraband being detected are dim. And with the dirty bomb, having reached American soil, the consequences could be disastrous. Story Credits: Fox News
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