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© St. Petersburg Times, published September 20, 2002
PHILADELPHIA -- Are the nation's nuclear power plants safe from a successful terrorist attack?
Yes, say a group of engineers writing in today's Science magazine.
Don't bet on it, say other scientists familiar with the dozens of reactors across the country.
The authors of the Science article, including engineers from the nuclear power industry, focused primarily on the effects of an attack by airliner.
They concluded that even if terrorists flew a jumbo jet right into a reactor, they would not likely cause a meltdown, and if they did there would be few deaths from the small amounts of radiation released. Most of the damage would come from panic, they argued, prompted by an irrational fear of all things nuclear.
Other scientists, though, said terrorists could use other tactics. Previous tests and mock attacks have exposed gaping holes in the security at nuclear plants, they said.
"It is prudent to assume that the attacker is well-informed, sophisticated and determined, and now we also assume the attacker is suicidal. That creates a whole new spectrum of opportunities that have to be analyzed," said Gordon Thompson of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies and Cambridge, Mass.
Two classified studies have been done, he said, one by the Sandia National Laboratory and one by the Electric Power Research Institute, but from what he knows, both focused exclusively on a jetliner crash, ignoring other ways terrorists might cause a nuclear release.
Thompson said the level of danger depends on the nature of the plant and the methods of attack. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has until now focused on accidents, not intentional acts. "I see no evidence they are conducting the kind of comprehensive analysis that's necessary, he said."
The authors in Science argue that the basic laws of physics make it impossible for terrorists to kill many people by attacking a nuclear reactor.
There's no way a plane could breach the thick reinforced concrete buildings that are built to protect nuclear reactors and hold in radioactive contaminants in case of a meltdown of the radioactive fuel, argued Ted Rockwell, an engineer from Virginia-based consulting firm MPR Associates, who contributed to the Science article. The article was an opinion piece, not a peer-reviewed research paper.
FOOD SUPPLY AT RISK: America's food supply is vulnerable to an agricultural bioterrorist attack, and the United States is unable to prevent it, poorly equipped to spot it and not prepared to respond to it, the National Academy of Sciences reported Thursday.
"The nation has inadequate plans to deal with agricultural bioterrorism," declared the 174-page report by 14 of the nation's top veterinary, plant, disease, insect, biology, genetics and bioterrorism scientists.
Among the diseases and pests that could be used to attack crops and livestock are: Mediterranean fruit flies; the nipah virus, which is carried by pigs; and karnal bunt, a fungus that attacks wheat.
PHILADELPHIA -- A man who once claimed to be on a mission from God to kill abortion providers was indicted Thursday on charges he mailed anthrax hoax letters to women's clinics around the country last fall.
The federal indictment also charged Clayton Lee Waagner with posting a message on an antiabortion Web site that said he had been following clinic employees home and was "going to kill as many of them as I can."
Waagner, 45, was on the FBI's Most Wanted list when he was captured in December, 10 months after escaping from jail in Illinois.
Authorities said that while he was on the run, Waagner posted the Web site message and mailed at least 550 letters to women's clinics in 24 states. The envelopes, from the "Army of God," contained a harmless white powder.
Scores of clinic workers who received the letters underwent decontamination procedures and sought medical care. Several of the clinics closed for a short time.
Waagner was the subject of a two-part special report in the St. Petersburg Times in August.
BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- A raid in southeastern Afghanistan produced a stash of literature calling for holy war against the United States and truckloads of weapons including a World War II era gun, a military spokesman said Thursday.
Special Forces troops detained seven people in the raid Wednesday near the village of Orgun, said Col. Roger King at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan.
Documents found at the compound indicated there was a weapons cache in a nearby building, and the soldiers found about 18,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition, rockets, an antiaircraft gun, rocket-propelled grenades and launchers, mortar rounds and anti-tank mines, King said.
King would not say if the seven detainees were Afghans or foreigners. The suspects will be questioned to see if they are among those wanted by the United States, can provide intelligence or pose a threat, King said.
KARACHI, Pakistan -- Pakistani police, working with FBI investigators, arrested five men and accused them of links to an al-Qaida-backed group that has targeted foreigners, churches and American fast food chains, a senior police official said Thursday.
Among those arrested was the owner of a soft drinks and ice cream shop in Karachi, identified only as Masood, who allegedly stored weapons and sheltered members of the militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press.