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Summary:
It would be difficult for terrorists to mount a nuclear attack on a U.S. city, but
such an attack is plausible and would have catastrophic consequences, in one
scenario killing over a half-million people and causing damage of over $1 trillion.
Terrorists or rogue states might acquire a nuclear weapon in several ways. The
nations of greatest concern as potential sources of weapons or fissile materials are
widely thought to be Russia and Pakistan. Russia has many tactical nuclear weapons,
which tend to be lower in yield but more dispersed and apparently less secure than
strategic weapons. It also has much highly enriched uranium (HEU) and weaponsgrade
plutonium, some said to have inadequate security. Many experts believe that
technically sophisticated terrorists could, without state support, fabricate a nuclear
bomb from HEU; opinion is divided on whether terrorists could make a bomb using
plutonium. The fear regarding Pakistan is that some members of the armed forces
might covertly give a weapon to terrorists or that, if President Musharraf were
overthrown, an Islamic fundamentalist government or a state of chaos in Pakistan
might enable terrorists to obtain a weapon. Terrorists might also obtain HEU from
the more than 130 research reactors worldwide that use HEU as fuel.
If terrorists acquired a nuclear weapon, they could use many means in an
attempt to bring it into the United States. This nation has many thousands of miles
of land and sea borders, as well as several hundred ports of entry. Terrorists might
smuggle a weapon across lightly-guarded stretches of borders, ship it in using a cargo
container, place it in a hold of a crude oil tanker, or bring it in using a truck, a boat,
or a small airplane.
The architecture of the U.S. response is termed "layered defense." The goal is
to try to block terrorists at various stages in their attempts to obtain a nuclear weapon
and smuggle it into the United States. The underlying concept is that the probability
of success is higher if many layers are used rather than just one or two. Layers
include threat reduction programs in the former Soviet Union, efforts to secure HEU
worldwide, control of former Soviet and other borders, the Container Security
Initiative and Proliferation Security Initiative, and U.S. border security. Several
approaches underlie multiple layers, such as technology, intelligence, and forensics.
Many policy options have been proposed to thwart or respond to nuclear
terrorism, such as developing new detection technologies, strengthening U.S.
intelligence capability, and improving planning to respond to an attack. Congress
funds programs to counter nuclear terrorism and holds hearings and less-formal
briefings on the topic. Many Members have introduced bills in this area.
This report is intended for background, not for tracking current developments.
It will be updated occasionally. Radiological terrorism is a separate issue not covered
here; see CRS Report RS21766, Radiological Dispersal Devices: Select Issues in
Consequence Management, and CRS Report RS21528, Terrorist 'Dirty Bombs': A
Brief Primer.
