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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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SMALL PLANE, BIG THREAT Last week a small private plane from Pennsylvania wandered into restricted airspace over Washington, DC. The pilots had strayed off-course. Armed planes forced them to land in Frederick, Maryland. Meanwhile, Capitol Hill was a Benny Hill-style burlesque. Congresspersons, dignitaries and civil servants actually ran down DC streets. In her haste, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lost her shoes. She and other high-ranking officials dived into limos. Congress closed for the day because legislators had no clean underwear at their offices. (Just kidding – well, not entirely.) Afterward, radio talk jocks made sport of the errant fliers, calling them “stupid, witless”, etc. One (slightly hysterical) commentator said the plane should have been shot down to “send a message”. Others thought it was all a hoot. “How much damage could a small plane do?” sniffed one Washington Times letter writer. Government officials are considering charges against the fliers. What was it all about? Do government poobahs know something we don’t? Probably so. If they are wise, officials will let the incident fade quickly. Otherwise, the public might realize how vulnerable we are to a very serious threat: not a small plane flown by two befuddled guys from PA, but a small plane – possibly originating in Mexico, an offshore island, or the Southwest USA – carrying an atomic bomb. Had the recent plane contained one, the pilots would have detonated it, with horrific effect, long before any fighter planes arrived. Attackers could fly a conventional flight plan until they neared their target. Then, darting across the no-fly boundary, they would detonate the bomb at a specified altitude – destroying an entire city with a devastating airburst. People running down the street carrying papers and briefcases – as in the alarm raised last week – would not escape. Having spent some time in the technical world of nuclear blast phenomenology, I am certain that the small-plane A-bomb scenario has been evaluated by top national security analysts. Perhaps we hear nothing about it because authorities are afraid of panicking the public. Because of media hype Americans today think atomic power plants are more hazardous than they truly are. We also imagine that complexity puts atomic weapons beyond terrorists’ reach. Not so. Much nuclear technology is now common knowledge. Solutions to once-formidable problems, such as “critical mass” – fashioned in the Manhattan Project by Fermi, Oppenheimer and others – are now part of the engineering domain. Equipped with proper materials and a simple design, a few knowledgeable engineers could build a small bomb in a garage workshop. Plastic casing (unknown in 1945) would make the device look like a large trunk. It could weigh as little as 1,000 pounds – easily delivered in a small plane. Some scoff at this, claiming that the crucial materials are logistically impossible for terrorists to obtain. This argument has some validity. Granted, the primary material – either weapons-grade uranium or plutonium – is not available at Home Depot. Uranium is scarce. Making it “fissile” – i.e., able to sustain an explosive chain reaction – is complex and costly. In its natural state, uranium consists mostly of the isotope U-238 (99.27%), with only tiny traces of the highly fissile isotope, U-235 (0.72%). So-called “enriched” uranium has been refined until it contains at least 20% U-235 – enough to produce the instantaneous chain reaction for a nuclear blast. Weapons-grade uranium contains as much as 90% U-235. In his article “Can Terrorists Build the Bomb?” (1), Michael Crowley says uranium enrichment is almost certainly beyond even the wealthiest terrorists, since it requires expensive centrifuges whose export is closely monitored and controlled. Iran has spent billions on uranium enrichment, but still has not achieved the capability. Plutonium does not occur in nature, but is produced by irradiating uranium in a nuclear reactor – a process so complex and expensive that terrorists could not possibly obtain it. But getting enough enriched uranium or plutonium to build a single bomb is possible for groups like Al Qaeda. A bomb that could level most of Washington, DC, requires just 100 pounds of 90% enriched uranium (i.e., bowling-ball size) or 35 pounds of plutonium (grapefruit size). Plutonium is so radioactive that handling it unprotected can be almost instantly fatal. Its high radioactivity also makes it easy to detect. Thus, uranium is the best choice. This is convenient (for terrorists) because enriched uranium is plentiful, widely dispersed, and poorly guarded. A determined effort to steal enough for several bombs might succeed. Buying quantities from rogue states like North Korea or Iran is also possible. Transporting a bomb built in the Middle East to the USA or Mexico is doubtful. Even in a disguised container it might attract attention and be discovered. But uranium “marbles” could be shipped to Mexico in small, lead-shrouded parcels. These could be carried across the USA’s southern borders to a collection point by some of the many illegals entering the country every day. It is not an insuperable logistical problem. Building a working bomb is a non-trivial engineering problem. You and I couldn’t do it, but small teams of American engineers have already shown its feasibility, according to Mr. Crowley. Experts could be hired from the Middle East or China. Such people are available. The simplest design is a “gun bomb” which fires a near-critical lump of uranium through a gun barrel at another such lump. When the lumps collide, critical mass is exceeded and a nuclear explosion results. This requires a small cannon barrel, conventional gunpowder for propellant, and a garage-door opener as firing mechanism. Beyond the nuclear material and the gun barrel, most other components are commercially available. A small bomb with explosive yield of 10 kilotons – a little less than “Little Boy” at Hiroshima – could fit in a small plane. A larger bomb, in a lead-lined shipping container, might be delivered by truck. Alternately, a bomb built in the target city would require no delivery. This threat is closely coupled to illegal immigration and the control of our national borders. The easier it is for illegals to sneak in, the more likely that the parts for a nuclear bomb can sneak in with them. Politicians of both parties are playing politics with illegal immigration, ignoring the concerns of a growing segment of the citizenry and disregarding this nuclear threat. If they keep diddling, we might wake up one morning to find that a nuclear nightmare has become a reality. If the Big One goes off over Washington, Congressmen (and women) won’t be able to run fast enough to escape. ******* (1) http://www.popsci.com/popsci/generaltech/article/0,20967,1017201-1,00.html
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