Japan’s poor nuclear security is a global danger

Japan Nuclear Plants Are Vulnerable to Terror Attacks, The Daily Beast, JAKE ADELSTEIN MARI YAMAMOTO, 8 Apr 16,

Poor nuclear security is endemic at Japanese power stations. It’s a ludicrous risk, not only for the Japanese, but for the world.

TOKYO — Given the febrile global security atmosphere, recent revelations that those responsible for the Brussels attacks also scoped out Belgium’s nuclear facilities have, understandably, caused great consternation in many countries.

In Japan, however, the issue of nuclear security is treated with a strangely insouciant attitude by the authorities; unarmed guards keep watch outside of nuclear facilities, there is poor surveillance of sites and, incredibly, there are no mandated background checks on workers, allowing members of organized crime gangs access to radioactive material.

There is growing awareness that this is a problem not just for this island country, but for the world.

There is every reason to believe Japan is a target of the so-called Islamic State, which was behind the horrific slaughter in Parisin November and in Brussels in March.

Early last year, amid worldwide outrage about the Charlie Hebdo attacks in France, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a speech in the Middle East vowing assistance to states “contending” with ISIS. That led to a de facto declaration of war against Japan by the jihadists and may have contributed to the death of a journalist they held captive.

Yet there is no serious effort to rethink the nuclear security issue. National Police Agency told The Daily Beast, on condition of anonymity, “The game has changed. We are not keeping up. We can’t trust the utility companies to deal with internal threats by themselves—they have neither the willpower nor the capability. We don’t have to worry so much about terrorists breaking down doors and blowing up nuclear power plants—we have to worry about them filling out job applications and just walking in.”

Japan has a large number of nuclear facilities staffed by guards who carry no weapons and who are otherwise poorly equipped to handle a terrorist attack. Past U.S. State Department cables note police officers who are asleep, express shock that Japanese guards are unarmed, and criticize the government for staging unrealistic training exercises while essentially outsourcing nuclear security to the utility companies.

Meanwhile there have been companies with ties to the yakuza crime organizations dispatching workers—in some cases, active yakuza members—to the plants. “Generally speaking, you don’t want sociopathic criminals around nuclear materials. Not a good idea,” deadpanned a Japan Nuclear Regulation Authority official, speaking on background, of course.

The guards do not carry weapons because Japan’s incredibly stringent gun laws make it almost impossible for civilians, including private security guards, to have them. This is good in that it keeps Japan’s annual gun-related deaths down to single digits. It’s bad in that unarmed men are probably unlikely to stop armed terrorists from storming the facilities. Some plants have armed police cars parked outside them at regular intervals, but few plants are fully guarded.

Oddly, this matter was given little if any attention at the recent Nuclear Security Summitin Washington…….

what is most disturbing to Japan’s law enforcement community is that long-debated plans to mandate background checks on nuclear facility workers in conjunction with the police have been effectively scrapped since the accident—even though they may be needed now more than ever.

Japan’s Nuclear Reprocessing Center at Rokkasho, in Aomori Prefecture, which is supposed to restart operations this year, is designed to produce eight tons of plutonium annually—enough to fuel more than 2,600 warheads. The International Atomic Energy Agency is supposed to ensure that plutonium cannot be removed or leak from the Rokkasho plant without detection. But the system it has installed there is only 99 percent accurate, meaning that, theoretically, enough plutonium for over 20 nuclear bombs a year could still be spirited away without a trace………http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/07/when-will-nuclear-terror-hit-japan.html

April 9, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, safety

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