Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy : An Unrecognized Military Peril

In June 1981 a squadron of Israeli military planes destroyed a nuclear reactor under construction near Baghdad.Until then, few observers had imagined that one nation might attack another by bombing its reactors.Since then, the strategic debate has had to admit a terrifying new fact: a nation with nuclear power plants on its territory places weapons of potential mass destruction in the hands of its enemies. A major nuclear power station or waste storage reservation bombed as the Iraqi reactor was bombed--that is, with conventional explosives--could contimate thousands of square iles and cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives.Nuclear power plants turn conventionally armed enemies into nuclear enemies and make nuclear hostages of entire populations. In this book, Bennett Ramberg explains clearly, for both the lay reader and the technical community, the vulnerabilities of different sorts of nuclear facilities and lists reasons why they are likely to be destroyed in war.In a case-