http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/08/rec.nuclear.attack/index.html
Nuclear attack: Now anything seems possible
November 9, 2001 Posted: 4:50 AM EST (0950 GMT)
By Jamie Allen CNN
(CNN) -- Not since the height of the Cold War have Americans seriously considered they could come under nuclear attack.
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John Lepingwell, a nuclear expert with the Monterey Institute of International Studies..... dismissed the possibility of terrorists building or getting their hands on a nuclear bomb and setting it off in the United States. "This threat is quite unlikely," he said.
Terrorists, he said, would have to surmount serious obstacles to carry off a nuclear- related attack. Among them:
-- Obtaining plutonium or highly-enriched uranium, the fissionable material of nuclear bombs. They'd have to buy it, steal it or produce it, and each case poses its own difficulties.
-- Building a bomb. "While creating a design may be possible, turning a design into a functioning weapon is not easy and would require time and substantial effort," Lepingwell said.
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Attacking nuclear facilities
If nuclear weapons cannot be built or found, U.S. homeland security officials acknowledge terrorists could possibly attack U.S. nuclear plants using a hijacked plane or a large truck bomb.
"This is far more likely, although the consequences are likely to be far lower," said Lepingwell, who said that an attack on a nuclear facility does not guarantee a meltdown -- the perceived goal of such an effort. "The terror dimension may turn out to be greater than the actual destruction in such a case."
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Leventhal also recommends installing "anti-aircraft weapons like surface-to-air missile batteries" that could intercept a hijacked plane about to crash into a plant.
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