Annihilation from Within

authority to reach a final decision is often diluted within the bureaucracy, especially for new initiatives on which several agencies claim to have a say. “Authority is spread so thinly that no one can say yes and too many people can say no,” wrote John Lehman (a member of the 9/11 commission) of America’s recent intelligence reorganization. Also, the officials who are nominally in charge often lack the authority—or the courage—to modify wholly inappropriate regulations that harm the national interest. A welter of harmful accounting regulations prevent the Department of Energy from making the most of its jurisdiction over the national laboratories. Newt Gingrich found that the damaging slowdown of Iraq’s reconstruction could have been avoided had common sense replaced the impractical accounting regulations, which everyone felt compelled to follow.4 Another reason for the neglect of nuclear-detection technology by the U.S. Government is the American tradition of defining “national security” and the mission of the Defense Department as the protection of American interests beyond the shores, to the exclusion of U.S. territory. As Stephen Flynn points out, America is the only country that “continues to treat domestic and national security as distinguishable from one another.”5
After interminable interagency meetings, the U.S. Government bureaucracy created the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, located in the Department of Homeland Security. Or more accurately, it created a large organization-chart for a new office meant to design and manage the overall architecture of detecting and interdicting smuggled nuclear weapons. But to design an “architecture” for detecting smuggled nuclear weapons without knowing more about the detection technology is like designing a nation’s air force, with all its bases, personnel, and logistics, without knowledge about the aircraft that will be built. A vigorous R&D project on this technology ought to be the first priority, since it will take years to invent and develop effective technology and to produce prototypes.
Curiously, midlevel bureaucrats repeatedly opposed such an R&D project, pretending “the limits of physics” would preclude significant progress in detection technology. In fact, it was not the “limits of physics” but the bureaucrats’ limited knowledge of physics that blocked progress. Senior officials in the Defense Department knew better. They recognized the importance of developing more effective means against smuggled nuclear weapons. Secretary Rumsfeld approved a new Quadrennial Defense Review in February 2006, and this guidance for the Pentagon’s priorities leaves no doubt about the requirement to detect and render safe nuclear materials and devices.6 Douglas J. Feith (Undersecretary of Defense for Policy 2001–2005), by ensuring that this requirement became part of the new guidance, changed the Pentagon’s role from a bystander to an active participant in the development of such nuclear detection systems. And Ryan Henry (Principal Deputy of the Undersecretary for Policy) skillfully advanced the implementation of the guidance. The Pentagon would be able to move ahead rapidly since its Defense Threat Reduction Agency has the requisite technical and administrative capabilities. Thanks to its highly competent leaders—Dr. James A. Tegnelia and Dr. G. Peter Nanos—the agency could launch an effective integrated project. Yet, as of this writing, obstructionist bureaucrats might yet prevail over those of us who reject the idea that America must remain naked to an enemy attack with smuggled nuclear weapons.
2. ASSURING THE CONTINUITY OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT To eliminate the incumbent government is the central purpose of those who seek to annihilate a nation from within. An aspiring dictator planning a nuclear power-grab will target the political leadership. So might anarchists who want to substitute their fantasized nirvana for the legitimate government. Jihadists living in Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, and other European democracies have already used murder and threats of murder to remove or intimidate parliamentarians and critics of their “faith-based” terrorism.
As noted in the previous chapter, it would be much easier for jihadists to mount a successful nuclear power-grab in one of the authoritarian Central Asian Republics than in an established democracy. But in one respect democracies are peculiarly vulnerable: Unlike dictatorships, they must concern themselves with the constitutional and legal requirements for replacing killed parliamentarians or government officials. During the Cold War, the U.S. Congress and the Executive branch paid considerable attention to the possibility of a Soviet nuclear attack that might devastate Washington. To protect the members of Congress, the second Eisenhower administration built a massive underground bunker, hidden below the fashionable Greenbrier hotel in West Virginia and equipped with communications, assembly rooms, and many other necessities. The whole installation, tucked away under this huge building, remained secret—at least to the public—for thirty years. It is now open to tourists, a sight to be seen. And for visitors with some imagination as to what the installation was all about, the sight is both impressive and deeply depressing. It also attests to the seriousness with which President Eisenhower sought to assure the continuity of Congress despite the worst manmade catastrophe then imaginable. But even the Greenbrier plan had its weaknesses. Like most Cold War measures for the continuity of government, it was predicated on the assumption of several hours’ advance warning; and secrecy was also essential.
A properly organized nuclear power-grab would not provide warning, and one nuclear weapon with a yield of those used in 1945 could kill nearly everyone in the U.S. Capitol building from a van parked well beyond the normal security perimeter. While senators killed by such a sneak attack could soon be replaced in most states by the governors, members of the House of Representatives would have to be replaced through special elections in their districts—a slow process even in normal times, and likely to be far slower during what would be the greatest crisis in the nation’s history. There are several different ways in which the House might be reconstituted, but it is important to settle on one of them in advance of the crisis. Members of Congress and various commissions have proposed solutions; and Norman J. Ornstein, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, has made a strong case for the House itself to take action.7 Yet the