Do We Have the Intel Needed to Prevent a Nuclear Terrorist Attack?
By Andrew Cochran
The subcommittee in the U.S. House which takes first crack at writing FY 2007 appropriations for the Homeland Security Department met yesterday and passed the first draft of that bill. The bill includes $500 million for the DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office "to coordinate global nuclear detection and tracking," and much of the discussion during the session centered around classified and unclassified briefings given to members by the Energy Department and the intelligence community on the risk of nuclear terrorist attack. I have no knowledge of what they've been told, but it must have been very serious, because many Members commented on the gravity and quality of the information (the chairman, Rep. Hal Rogers, said the classified briefing was one of the best he had ever seen).
Do we have the intel we need to prevent such an attack? I highly recommend a Congressional Quarterly piece a week ago titled, "FBI Under the Gun," about the problems inside the FBI's culture, including whether it can manage an intel function. The NSA phone record story raises policy and legal questions (see Daveed Gartenstein-Ross' post for one view), but from what I heard yesterday, Congressmen aren't confident that we're ready.
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