- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A
group of experts and a member of Congress criticized security at the nation's
nuclear weapons facilities on Wednesday, charging terrorists could easily
penetrate the sites and trigger nuclear explosions.
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- ``Security is so lax at some Department of Energy nuclear
weapons sites ... terrorists could find what they needed to launch a nuclear
attack right here in America,'' said Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts
Democrat who is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
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- Markey and a chorus of former and current security personnel
at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities said at a news conference that weapons
grade uranium and plutonium were often left unguarded or in insecure storage
facilities.
-
- Markey said that in more than half of the security tests
performed at the sites in the past five years, mock ''terrorists'' played
by Navy SEALS and other commandos were able to penetrate security.
-
- He charged that a suicide squad could ``build and detonate
a dirty bomb or homemade nuclear bomb in minutes. They don't need to ever
come out of the building.''
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- He released a 23-page letter to Energy Secretary Spencer
Abraham expressing concern about the department's security of nuclear sites,
focusing on the Lawrence Livermore laboratories in California, the Oak
Ridge laboratory in Tennessee, the Rocky Flats nuclear production facility
in Colorado, and the Los Alamos labs in New Mexico.
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- Appearing at the news conference were four former nuclear
security police officers who alerted authorities to problems at Lawrence
Livermore, including Charles Quinones and Mathew Zipoli, who were fired
shortly after raising concerns.
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- ``Does Livermore labs have the capability of defending
itself from a terrorist assault? In my view, and under current conditions,
no,'' Zipoli said.
-
- Also appearing was Ronald Timm, president of a security
firm that analyzed safeguards at 10 sites housing enough nuclear materials
to build weapons. He wrote a memo in January 2000 alerting officials to
an ``unnecessary risk to public health and safety'' at many of the facilities.
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- His five-year contract was terminated shortly afterward,
Timm said.
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- Rep. Ellen Tauscher of California, ranking Democrat on
the House Armed Services panel that oversees the National Nuclear Security
Administration, said she was disappointed by Markey's charges.
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- ``There is no indication that security at our nation's
nuclear laboratories is lax,'' Tauscher said in a statement, adding security
at all the sites had been beefed up since the Sept. 11 attacks.
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