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...terrorists may not need a dramatic skyborne attack to get the job done. They could take over a plant on foot. The key to understanding how the NRC has prepared for such an event is a standard called the design-basis threat, or DBT. The DBT is the regulatory worst-case scenario, the largest threat the NRC requires plants to train its guards to defeat...
...produce 19 operatives for a suicide mission on a single day, some security specialists anticipated a significant hike in the DBT. But the number of attackers in the revised DBT is less than double the old figure and a fraction of the size of the 9/11 group. (The NRC regards the exact number as an official secret.) "The NRC has taken only baby steps to improve security at the nation's nuclear plants," Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, told TIME last week...
...Qaeda sent 19 or so terrorists to take over a nuclear plant? "I don't think they could handle a 9/11-size attack," says David Orrik, a senior NRC official who retired in February after a 20-year career probing power-plant vulnerabilities. The guards themselves have doubts. "These guys are coming in to die. They know they're not leaving," says a veteran guard at a U.S. nuclear power plant. "Our training has increased, but I don't think it's increased enough to deal with that." A guard at another plant agrees. "We don't have the weapons...
Another issue is the lack of imagination in the scenarios used for training guards at private plants. TIME is refraining from publishing DBT specifics on the weapons that nuclear plants must defend against, but the relatively small arsenal that the NRC gives the "attackers" in its drills doesn't impress Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican. The DBT attack force is barred from using many of the weapons detailed in the opening scenario of this story, but, says the Congressman, "if I were a terrorist, I'd feel more than free to use them." The agency doesn't require defenses...
According to the NRC and the NEI, a force as big as Atta's band or anything bigger than the DBT is an "enemy of the state." That means it's the Pentagon's problem. "We recognize that there can be threats to our plants that are greater than what is defined by the DBT," Marvin Fertel, chief nuclear officer of the NEI has told Congress. "Although our security would provide an initial deterrence, at some point such threats are the responsibility of the Federal Government." That wouldn't necessarily do the plant's defenders any good, though. "They could...