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American Morning

Interview with Matthew Bunn

Aired June 11, 2002 - 07:09   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on the alleged terrorist plot to build and blow up a dirty bomb in the United States. Just how close is al Qaeda to actually making one? And how much damage could a dirty bomb do?

Matthew Bunn is a nuclear expert with Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. He joins us now from Boston with the very latest -- welcome back.

MATTHEW BUNN, NUCLEAR EXPERT: Thanks -- good to be here.

ZAHN: Matthew, what I'd like to do is start off with a little bit of what the deputy secretary of state had to say yesterday about this threat -- let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: This was still in the initial planning stages. It certainly wasn't at the point of having a specific target. He had indicated some knowledge of the Washington, D.C. area, but I want to emphasize again there was not an actual plan. We stopped this man in the initial planning stages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZAHN: Of course, in fact, who we were watching was Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense -- wrong department there. But, Matthew, explain to us what you think he is really telling us here. Do you think this man was capable of pulling this off?

BUNN: Well, it's hard to know from what little we know about this man so far, but it's not an extremely difficult thing to get hold of radiological material or to put it in a box with some explosives and disperse it. It's not trivial, and if you really don't know what you are doing, you can do more damage to yourself than to anyone else. But if you know a little bit about what you are doing, it is something that a terrorist would probably be able to pull off.

ZAHN: What is it that Al Muhajir needed to get his hands on?

BUNN: Radioactive material. Unfortunately, that kind of material is much more widespread throughout the world than the very specific kinds of material you need to make an actual nuclear bomb, which would be much more devastating, the Hiroshima kind of bomb that could wipe out an entire city.

What we are talking about here is radioactive material that would just contaminate an area. It would force you to evacuate, and you could potentially have billions of dollars in damage from economic disruption, billions of dollars in cleanup costs. But you wouldn't see thousands of people dead in a flash, as you would with an actual nuclear bomb. That kind of material is all over in industry, in medicine for a wide variety of purposes, and much of it is not particularly well-secured.

So I see this really as a wakeup call, not only to control these radiological sources, particularly the intense and dangerous ones, as rapidly as possible, but even more important, to go on and accelerate our efforts to secure and account for all of the actual nuclear weapons and the materials you could use to make those as rapidly as we possibly can. We may be lucky that we caught this person and thereby highlighted the dangers so that we can accelerate our actions now.

ZAHN: But, Professor, it's not too heartening to hear what you have to say, when you say although these materials are abundant in medical research centers and hospitals and industries all over the world, and I think in your words, you say they are not particularly secure. How -- could you and I get our hands on this stuff?

BUNN: Probably if we put our minds to it. Unfortunately, before September 11, these kinds of materials were really thought of more as a safety issue, making sure someone didn't accidentally get exposed to them, than they were thought of as a security issue. So there is a big change of mindset that's underway now, and it's -- given the wide dispersal of these materials, that change of mindset is going to take a while to get implemented on the ground.

Nonetheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency has put together an action plan on security and safety of these radiological materials. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking to increase the levels of security required domestically, within the United States. The Department of Energy is working with Russia and other countries on plans to upgrade the security for the most dangerous of these intense radioactive sources.

So there is a great deal that we can do to limit this threat, as well as to prepare for it if such an attack were to take place.

ZAHN: So you have just outlined for us a little bit of what the government is doing security-wise, but you also made it abundantly clear that these dirty bombs are not designed to be mass killers, that the idea behind them is psychologically to disrupt this country if the scenario is played out. How is the U.S. government prepared on the other front? If one goes off, how does the government deal with potential injuries and exposure to the radioactivity?

BUNN: Well, fortunately, there has been some significant preparation in a number of cities around the country. There has been some degree of training and equipment provided for first responders, the police and fire departments in major cities around the country. There needs to be more of that kind of thing. There needs to be more of controls at the borders and other key points to make sure that we would detect such a thing before it could actually be set off.

But at the same time, because this really would be only a weapon of mass disruption, not a genuine weapon of mass destruction, we need to keep our eye on the ball. We shouldn't let our efforts to control these radiological sources distract us from preventing the kinds of terrorism that really would be much more devastating, the nuclear terrorism and biological terrorism in particular. And there is much more to do in both of those areas as well.

ZAHN: Professor, we've just got ten seconds left. If one of these bombs, God forbid, goes off, if it's detonated, would authorities even know what's inside of it?

BUNN: Yes. If they get the right kinds of detectors to the scene, it's relatively easy to figure out what kinds of isotopes had been used, and then to provide the needed advice to the public.

ZAHN: All right. Professor Matthew Bunn of Harvard University, always good to hear your perspective. Thanks for joining us this morning on AMERICAN MORNING.

BUNN: Thank you.

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