Experts: U.S. remains vulnerable to nuclear attack

RENO -- In these times of unstable world financial conditions and the growing threat of terrorists, the United States is a prime target for a nuclear attack, a panel of military and science experts says.

This country is vulnerable and must start to build a nuclear defense system, the group said during a discussion Monday sponsored by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank in Reno.

Frank Gaffney Jr., assistant defense secretary during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, said most members of Congress don't care about the danger and most of the public thinks there's a defense system already in place.

"We have no defense and that's a formula for disaster," he said.

Dan Fine, an economist at MIT, said "rogue nations" may launch attacks on the United States. And they may not aim for population centers, like Los Angeles, but for "resource targets" such as Hoover Dam, which supplies water to Nevada and Southern California.

The break-up of the Soviet Union and the downturn in the Russian economy creates an unstable financial situation, Fine said. And unless the Russian economy is shored up, there's fear it will lose control of its nuclear forces, putting the United States at risk, Fine said.

The West, Fine said, is willing to pump money into Russia if only to protect itself from nuclear attack. And other counties, with nuclear weapons, will ask for money if they run into economic difficulty.

Nations with nuclear capability and with a struggling economy may be willing to sell their secrets to terrorist groups. And they could fire missiles into the United States in cargo ships 100 miles off-shore, Fine said.

David Tanks, senior defense analyst with the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, said, "There's an increased willingness to sell information on the black market."

"Missile proliferation is probably here to stay," Tanks said. "If we get a missile defense, we can suppress that threat."

The Anti-Ballistics Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was signed 26 years ago. Panelists said that treaty is now void because the Soviet Union has drastically changed.

Building an effective defense missile system is practical and can be done without breaking the budget, the panelists said.

Robert Jastrow of the George Marshall Institute said Israel has built a successful missile defense system. "All the evidence indicates we can do this if the political obstacles are overcome."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Congress put $1 billion in the last budget for a defense system. But he added, "This country is more vulnerable than ever because of rogue nations." The United States, he said, must not only build a nuclear defense system but also improve its intelligence gathering system.

The greatest threats, Gibbons said, are the emerging terrorist groups that could target heavily populated areas like New York City and Los Angeles. And he said, "We do not have the intelligence capabilities to find out what is going on."

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