Addressing Terrorism

For everyone in the nuclear field, that day has had profound effects. Terrorism was not new in the world, but such a large-scale attack on the United States made the nuclear industry focus on how terrorist acts could potentially affect both commercial and government nuclear facilities. The GILC set about building a Closing Plenary Session that would provide information about recent acts of terrorism and outline the reaction to date in both U.S. domestic and international nuclear arenas. To set the stage, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Supervisory Special Agent Mark Whitworth outlined recent explosive terrorist events. What stood out in Whitworth?s talk was the relative low level of sophistication used in the recent high-profile terrorist acts. Michael Weber, deputy director of the newly formed Nuclear Security and Incident Response organization within the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, then discussed how the NRC was addressing the changing threat environment. Weber indicated that while much had been done to address terrorism, much more work was ahead. Anita Nilsson, International Atomic Energy Agency, closed the session. She discussed what could be done to address the increased terrorist threat in a global manner and discussed the concept of a dirty bomb, a topic of considerable interest to attendees.