Experts Warn of Nuclear Terrorism Threat

NTI: The risk of a terrorist nuclear attack on a U.S. city has grown in the past five years, an expert told a U.S. Senate committee yesterday (see GSN, March 31).“I definitely conclude the threat is greater and is increasing every year with the march of technology,” said Cham Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia. Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Dallas offered projections of the damage that would be caused by the detonation of a small nuclear weapon in Washington. . . . In Washington, for example, a blast near the White House would destroy the area from Constitution Avenue to K Street, according to the Dallas model. The city would face about 100,000 fatalities and about 150,000 serious injuries from the nuclear bomb cited, Dallas said. . . . "A 10-kiloton device — a plausible yield for a bomb constructed by terrorists — could be smuggled into a seaport as cargo, flown over a city in a private plane, or driven into a city in a truck," Collins said. “We hope that the improvements we've made in port security and in other areas would make that difficult to carry out but we can't exclude the possibility of such a successful enterprise." . . . Dallas predicted that as many as 500,000 residents would try to flee the Washington area in the event of a blast. Collins believes public understanding of what to do in the event of an attack has "gone backward" in recent years. "I think the public in many ways is less prepared today than we were at the height of the Cold War," she said (Chris Strohm, CongressDaily, April 16) . . . [Read More] Question: which candidate is best prepared to deal with this threat: Obama, Clinton or McCain?

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