URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7701773/

By John Mintz
The Washington Post
Updated: 7:21 a.m. ET May 3, 2005


When asked during the campaign debates to name the gravest danger facing
the United States, President Bush and challenger Sen. John F. Kerry
(D-Mass.) gave the same answer: a nuclear device in the hands of
terrorists.

But more than 3 1/2 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the U.S.
government has failed to adequately prepare first responders and the
public for a nuclear strike, according to emergency preparedness and
nuclear experts and federal reports.

Although hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved by rapidly
evacuating people downwind of a radiation cloud, officials have trained
only small numbers of first responders to prepare for such an event,
according to public health specialists and government documents. And the
information given to the public is flawed and incomplete, many experts
agree.

"The United States is, at the moment, not well prepared to manage an
[emergency] evacuation of this sort in the relevant time frame," said
Richard Falkenrath, former deputy homeland security adviser and now a
fellow at the Brookings Institution. "The federal government currently
lacks the ability to [rapidly] generate and broadcast specific,
geographically tailored evacuation instructions" across the country, he
said.

A chilling scenario
Security experts consider a terrorist nuclear strike highly unlikely
because of the difficulty in obtaining fissionable material and
constructing a bomb. But it is a conceivable scenario, especially in light
of the lax security at many former Soviet nuclear facilities and the
knowledge of atomic scientists in such places as Pakistan.

Two closely held government reports obtained by The Washington Post — one
by the White House's Homeland Security Council, the other by the Energy
Department — describe in chilling detail the effects of a nuclear
detonation, using the scenario of a strike on Washington. They make clear
the need for split-second execution by top officials of the Department of
Homeland Security if downwind communities dozens of miles away are to be
saved — a level of performance that some experts say is well beyond
officials' ability now.

U.S. officials say they are only in the first stages of planning ways to
communicate with endangered downwind communities, via radio, television or
cell phones.

Feds dispensing bad advice?
Members of the public who seek information from Homeland Security's Web
site, Ready.gov, may not be getting the best advice, experts said.

Take, for example, a Ready.gov graphic showing that someone a city block
from a nuclear blast could save his or her life by walking around the
corner. The text reads, "Consider if you can get out of the area." Nuclear
specialists say that advice is unhelpful because such a blast can destroy
everything within a radius of as much as three-quarters of a mile.

"Ready.gov treats a nuclear weapon in this case as if it were a big truck
bomb, which it's not," said Ivan Oelrich, a physicist who studies nuclear
weapons for the nonprofit Federation of American Scientists. "There's no
information in Ready.gov that would help your chances" of surviving a
nuclear blast or the resulting mushroom cloud, he said.

Homeland Security officials acknowledge they have lots of work ahead to
prepare for a nuclear strike — a task they point out is extraordinarily
difficult — but say they have made progress.

"A lot of good work's been done, and a lot of federal resources are poised
to respond," said Gil Jamieson, who helps run the department's programs to
unify national, state and local emergency response efforts. "Can more work
be done? Absolutely."

Department officials also say they have made strides in the monumental
task of establishing standard protocols and plans among federal agencies,
and with state and local authorities, on how to prepare for and respond to
different types of terrorist attacks.

Homeland Security officials point with pride to the nuclear response
training given to 2,200 first responders. But domestic defense experts
point out there are 2 million such firefighters, police officers and
emergency medical personnel nationwide.

More of them need crucial training in the dangers of radiation, how to
limit their own exposure to it, how to triage victims and how to
decontaminate them, they say. Many experts believe the government needs to
train responders in these techniques and, more fundamentally, decide what
their jobs would be in a nuclear attack.


The protocol problem
A 2003 report by the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA), designated "For Official Use Only," said the
government lacks rules and standards for sending first responders into
radiated areas to save people or warn them of approaching fallout. This
would include standards for radiation exposure for firefighters and how to
decide where to deploy responders.

The prospect of a nuclear strike "requires a fundamental shift in
radiological protection policy for members of the public and emergency
responders," the report added. Officials said work in these areas has
barely begun.

In detailing the consequences of a 10-kiloton bomb attack on Washington,
the NNSA document, and another prepared in July 2004 by the Homeland
Security Council (HSC), used different wind projections and assumptions
about the government's success in evacuating residents.

The HSC document, also stamped "For Official Use Only," shows a
radioactive plume heading east over Prince George's and Anne Arundel
counties, killing 99,000 to 190,000 people. The NNSA report describes a
cloud moving northeast over Prince George's and Howard counties, and,
assuming less success in evacuation, estimates 300,000 deaths.

A blast from a 10-kiloton weapon would destroy everything within a
half-mile, the reports say, and cause severe damage for miles beyond. Many
people would suffer "flash blindness" from the explosion.

First responders would be unlikely to enter the blast zone but would
establish care centers upwind to help victims who escape, the reports say.
"Triage will be a major issue," the HSC report said, noting that because
of the huge numbers of victims, responders will have to turn away people
too sick from radiation to survive.

In the end, years of cleanup of 3,000 to 5,000 square miles would be
needed, the reports say. They also raise the possibility of forever
abandoning many radiated neighborhoods. An atomic strike on this country
"would forever change the American psyche, its politics and worldview,"
according to the White House report.

The government also has failed to communicate well with the public about
nuclear dangers, terrorism experts said.

In late 2003, months after the debut of Homeland Security's Ready.gov Web
site, Rand Corp. released a detailed study advising individuals on
responding to various attack scenarios — but with starkly different
recommendations.

Conflicting recommendations
Ready.gov gave almost no information on which to base a hide-or-flee
decision, beyond advice such as to "Quickly assess the situation" after a
nuclear blast. In general, it advised going inside, underground if
possible, and fleeing by car rather than on foot.

Rand, which in the 1950s was an architect of U.S. nuclear doctrine, said
going indoors "would provide little protection in a nuclear attack." It
said Ready.gov's suggestion that people in the blast zone head underground
after a blast is "misleading" because few people would have time to take
that step.

Ready.gov made no mention of the critical factor of wind. But Rand advised
that if wind is carrying smoke and the mushroom cloud toward people, they
should immediately head perpendicular to it, on foot, for at least a few
miles, to get out of the plume's path. Driving would be futile because of
impassable roads, Rand said.

"Guidance from Ready.gov fails to indicate the time urgency involved,"
said Lynn E. Davis, a former undersecretary of state for arms control who
was the Rand study's lead author. "We must act in a matter of minutes to
survive."

Homeland Security officials said that some of the criticisms of Ready.gov
are valid, and that they might change its wording in some places. But they
said several experts they consulted believe miles-high winds could carry
radiation in a different direction from wind on the ground.

"We decided [advice to flee crosswind] was not necessarily the best
guidance for the American people," said Lara Shane, a Homeland Security
spokeswoman who runs Ready.gov.

Department officials said their strategy is not for people themselves to
decide what to do, but for them to listen for officials' advice over radio
or television. Some emergency response experts, however, pointed out many
radio and TV stations would be off the air.

"The threat information our leaders have given post-9/11 has often been
disorganized, not confidence-inspiring," added Irwin Redlener, director of
Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness. "It's
perilous to have a system solely dependent on central leadership to save
lives."

Retired Gen. Dennis Reimer, a former Army chief of staff who is now the
director of the Oklahoma-based National Memorial Institute for the
Prevention of Terrorism, said he prefers Rand's specificity. "The American
people can handle that," he said. "It's like the Red Cross's lifesaving
tips," he said. "Most of us aren't doctors, but we can help save lives."

Researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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