Study Groups for the Apocalypse

Today’s Washington Post online has an interesting op-ed piece by a former weapons inspector in Iraq, Jay Davis on the dreadful subject of what would happen after a nuclear 9/11. Mr. Davis serves on one of the alphabet-soup federal offices our government is so adept at creating: the “Threat Reduction Advisory Committee” of the Department of Defense. (No doubt they have some very spiffy letterhead). Specifically, Mr. Davis is concerned with the arcane field of “nuclear forensics” – in this context the analysis of “isotopic signatures” and other characteristics of nuclear explosions to determine the likely source of the nuclear materials used.

Mr. Davis points out that after 9/11, the time between the fall of the twin towers and “our response in Afghanistan” was a month, and Mr. Davis argues that we need to better prepare for a “nuclear 9/11” so as to better finger the perpetrators, because “current US nuclear forensics capability. . .can’t guarantee definitive information within a month of an attack” This is a concern because, among other things, “we won’t have months to respond. There would be enormous pressure to rapidly identify the terrorists and the chain of events leading up to the attack.”

Well, that’s an understatement if ever there was one. Mr. Davis suggests that we need to improve the speed and accuracy of our nuclear forensics: the better to obtain essential “international collaboration” and to assemble the proof that it will take for the “world to believe our analysis.” Finally, Mr. Davis says, “we need to manage expectations and prepare for the inevitable political pressure to respond quickly after an attack.”

I agree that Mr. Davis raises some valid concerns and good ideas, and that improving the US nuclear forensics capability would indeed be sound policy. But if anybody thinks that the people of the United States would tolerate lawyer bingo or interminable investigations by alphabet soup agencies to assemble proof satisfactory enough for the talking heads and the international UN bonzes to produce “international collaboration” in the wake of a city-buster, nuclear 9/11 type attack – then they are smoking crack.

“Manage expectations ?” “Prepare for political pressure ?” Brother. If Mr. Davis’s nightmare ever happens, we’re not talking about “nuclear forensics” anymore. A nuclear attack on an American city, by terrorists, foreign states, or whoever, would change all of the rules overnight. The alphabet soup/special commission/study group games that Washington so loves would go right by the boards, and quite possibly the Constitution and everything else we accept as normal. If for example, Al Qaeda were to launch such a nuclear attack on the United States, we would no longer be talking about the rights of detainees at Guantanamo; or US compliance with the Geneva Conventions; or the appropriate UN resolutions; or proof of culpability – but instead, the question of permitting the continued existence, period, of Al Qaeda supporters, and the cities and cultures that feed them – anyplace on this planet. Hopefully, we elect to put more money, talent and thought into apocalypse prevention than we do into apocalypse studies.