The Problem of Redundancy Problem: Why More Nuclear Security Forces May Produce Less Nuclear Security †

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many scholars, journalists, and public officials expressed fear about the security of nuclear facilities in the United States. Terrorists could attack military bases, weapons in transit, or nuclear weapons production and dismantlement plants in order to steal a weapon or its components. Terrorists might attack nuclear power reactors, nuclear materials storage sites, nuclear waste transportation vehicles, or nuclear research facilities, with two basic motives in mind: to cause a conventional explosion, spreading radioactive materials in the area; or to seize the nuclear materials, which could be used for building either a dirty bomb (a radiological weapon) or, conceivably, a primitive nuclear bomb. These fears were highlighted in President George Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union address, in which he reported that diagrams of American nuclear plants were discovered in al-Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan.(1) Senior U.S. intelligence officials also revealed that Osama bin Laden had sent operatives to try to purchase stolen nuclear materials and that there was “pretty convincing evidence” that al-Qaeda operatives had been “casing” nuclear power plants in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks.(2) In January 2002, U.S. intelligence agencies issued a warning, based on an interrogation of a captured terrorist, of a possible attack on a nuclear power plant or Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons facility.(3) Then, in June 2002, the Justice Department announced that it had arrested