LNG TERROR/Richard CLarke

Book details LNG terror risk
Former counterterrorism chief says threat of massive LNG incident in Boston Harbor was considered in wake of Sept. 11 attacks
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
By BEN RAINES
Staff Reporter
Prior to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, senior Bush Administration officials knew "that al Qaeda operatives had been infiltrating Boston by coming in on liquid natural gas tankers from Algeria," according to a new book by former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke.

The book further states "we had also learned that had one of the giant tankers blown up in the harbor, it would have wiped out downtown Boston."

The Mobile Register has also discovered that LNG tanker simulator programs available for sale on the Internet are designed to instruct crews in every facet of the operation of LNG tankers.

Terrorists who used these programs would be tutored in all aspects of running the vessels, including controlling the valves and gauges that regulate temperature and other critical factors that govern the integrity of LNG storage containers on the ships.

Federal and industry officials who have made presentations in support of building LNG terminals near residential areas on Mobile Bay have said that it is unlikely such a facility would become a terrorist target.

But that view is challenged in Clarke's new book. Clarke served as terrorism chief under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, until resigning in March 2003. He served in other national security posts under both President Reagan and the first President Bush.

Both his assertions appear to directly contradict statements top Bush Administration officials made to members of Congress and public safety officials in Boston regarding security issues at the Distrigas LNG terminal located near Boston.

He indicates in the book that shutting down Boston Harbor was one of the administration's first priorities after the terrorist-commandeered planes hit the Twin Towers. He states that government officials learned that al-Qaida operatives were entering the country on LNG tankers "after the Millennium Terrorist Alert" in 2000.

Register reporters were unable to obtain comments from the White House late Tuesday.

But federal officials have confirmed that LNG tankers sailing from Algeria were banned from Boston Harbor prior to Sept. 11, according to a report this week by the Boston Globe. Tankers sailing from Algeria still arrive at an LNG terminal in Cove Point, Md., which is three miles downriver from a nuclear power plant.

Federal security officials told the Globe that they have taken steps to prevent stowaways on board the LNG ships.

Simulators designed to teach all aspects of LNG tanker ship operation are widely available over the Internet. One such simulator provides instruction on driving the vessel as well as "the layout of the tanks, pipelines, valves and cargo handling machinery ... and cargo handling facilities in normal and emergency modes."

Scientists contacted by the paper said a terrorist armed with such information would have a tremendous advantage in terms of using an LNG ship to cause a catastrophic accident.

James Fay, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Insti tute of Technology and one of the fathers of modern LNG science, said he could imagine several scenarios in which terrorists armed with detailed operational data provided by the simulation programs could sabotage an LNG vessel.

"It certainly doesn't seem like a good idea to have this sort of information just sitting out there on the Internet," Fay said.

Clarke's statement about the devastation a terror attack on an LNG tanker might cause in downtown Boston runs counter to numerous statements from officials with the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission about the dangers such a fire might pose.

A controversial study performed by a company called Quest Consultants Inc. and commissioned by the DOE after the 2001 terror attacks suggests that such an LNG fire would be about 475 feet wide. Federal officials have used that Quest study in numerous public presentations, federal safety documents and reports to Congress.

That Quest prediction stands in contrast to nearly all of the existing scientific literature -- including many studies conducted by government agencies such as FERC, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Several leading LNG scientists familiar with these government analyses said that a successful terror attack on an LNG tanker could ultimately cause a fire more than a mile wide and so hot that it would severely burn people two miles away.

But it was the controversial study with the much smaller fire size predictions that the Bush Administration used in the days immediately after Sept. 11 to show that it was safe to reopen the Boston LNG terminal. The terminal was reopened by the end of October 2001 over the objections of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and that city's fire and police chiefs, none of whom had heard of the possible al-Qaida connection, according to the Tuesday report in the Boston Globe.

Subsequently, DOE officials used the controversial Quest study in presentations around the country as part of a concerted effort to encourage new LNG terminals near numerous coastal cities.

Recently, the author of the study informed the Department of Energy that it had "misused" his work. The Register reported previously that the controversial study never actually examined what would happen if terrorists attacked an LNG tanker.

"Quite frankly, we wondered why in the hell they didn't talk about terrorism," said a DOE official in Washington, who discussed the study in a December interview with the Register. The official spoke on condition that he not be identified.

Since then, both the DOE and FERC initiated broader investigations into the fire hazards posed by LNG tankers. The results of those efforts are expected soon, though it is unclear if they will ever be released to the public.

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass, a senior member of the U.S. House Select Committee on Homeland Security, said Tuesday that he had written letters to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other administration officials demanding to know why he and other decision-makers were not informed of the known LNG threats in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In the new letters, he points out that he had repeatedly asked about the exact nature of any known threats against the Boston LNG facility.

In a letter to Transportation Secretary Norman Minetta, Markey wrote, "I asked whether there had 'ever been any verified terrorist threat against an LNG facility either in the U.S. or abroad.' In response you stated, 'Not to our knowledge.' I asked you whether LNG shipments to (Boston Harbor) had been suspended due to any specific threats to the (Boston) facility, and you told me that 'the order (to suspend shipments after Sept. 11) was given in response to concerns raised by state and local officials, not a specific security threat.'"

Markey concludes, "If al Qaeda terrorists infiltrating into the country on an LNG tanker coming into the Port of Boston does not constitute a specific security threat, what does?"

In a letter to Secretary Ridge, Markey reminds Ridge that the congressman asked specifically about threats to the LNG facility over the course of several years, both as a senior member of the House homeland security panel and because the Boston terminal is in his home district.

He wrote on Tuesday that it appears, "that the Department was not telling me everything that it knew about the full nature of the potential al Qaeda threat to this LNG facility and the tanker ships that supply it."

In a prepared statement released Tuesday, Markey said, "If Clarke's assertions are true, the Bush Administration has ill-informed the Congress, state and local officials in Massachusetts, and the public about the risks that liquefied natural gas tankers and shipments pose."

The status of two LNG terminals proposed for Mobile Bay remains uncertain. ExxonMobil Corp. has said it has put a facility planned for Hollingers Island, two miles south of the city limits, "on the back burner," but has not ruled out the possibility of eventually building there.

Officials with Texas-based Cheniere Inc. have also said they would be interested in building another LNG terminal at Pinto Island, about a half mile from downtown Mobile, but have not yet presented a formal proposal.




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