The doomsday detectives

Richelson says U.S. officials want prospective terrorists — and the nuclear scientists who may be tempted to help them — to understand U.S. capabilities. Denying them the certainty that they can attack without consequences, U.S. officials feel, is critical to preventing an attack…

To gather nuclear debris — the key evidence in the detective story — a specially equipped Air Force WC-135 aircraft called “Constant Phoenix” would be deployed. The plane is a modified Boeing 707 that carries debris sampling and air-sampling equipment as well as devices to track radioactive clouds. One problem with this part of the plan, Richelson and others note, is that there is only one WC-135 left, down from a Cold War total of ten. Energy Department officials have called for development of Predator-like drones to fill the gap.

The debris would be analyzed and compared against a database of nuclear signatures, which the United States has been gathering as part of its intelligence efforts on foreign powers. With this information, the United States should be able to determine, at the very least, which country originally produced the highly enriched uranium or plutonium.