Terrorist Hiroshima in America?

http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2143&cid=11&sid=61 ^ | 9/11/06 | Ryan Mauro

[The_Reader_David]

No, analysts didn't think, 9/11 was impossible: analysts didn't have the vision to think one way or another about the feasibility of such a plot.

[LS]

Gee, that's pretty close to the "Holy Hand Grenade."

[LS]

Don't kid yourself. While they are into the high-profile hits, a dirty bomb that closed down Manhattan or D.C. for 10 years would be every bit as satisfying to these whackos.

Watch the British movie "Dirty War" to see this in action. It's horrifying.

[CommerceComet]

>>Do you really think there are old Commie nukes hidden in the USA. That would make a cool made-for-TV movie plot.

The X-Files had an episode on this. Some Soviet sleeper agent in a DC suburb (IIRC) had one buried in his backyard in a bomb shelter. Usually, I found the X-Files too weird but this one was pretty good although for the life of me I can't remember what happened (other than the nuke didn't get detonated).

[TXnMA]

In that case, chopping up an old Coleman mantle and sprinkling it on a sidewalk (more than enough to give a Geiger counter the chuckles) would lead a prepared-in-advance media to panic half the nation. Like ABC and their 20 bags of fertilizer. Katie in the studio, and the standout reporter in a bright orange suit with a chattering counter- "It's reading 12, Katie, and that is terribly serious for the residents of Redondo Beach. President Hillary is ordering an evacuation of the southwestern United States, and President Obrador says that he'll commit troops to help..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now that is the scariest (and, by far the likeliest) scenario in this thread!

[MD_Willington_1976]

A lot of info here on older smaller nukes, these are American made.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/DoSuitcaseNukesExist.html

[PeterFinn]

Al Qaeda could nuke New York City and we'd do precisely... nothing. We should have parbroiled Mecca five years ago as that is the "root cause" of over thirty wars going on in the world today. You just watch: they're going to nuke us sooner or later and the wimps in Washington won't do any more than put on a dog and pony show.

[PeterFinn]

There's been a couple of movies and books with that theme in them.

[attiladhun2]

There is a limited amount of nuclear weapons, components, and fissle material on the market. Rogue states are also trying to get ahold of these materials and anyone having this stuff for sale would have a far easier time contacting an agent for a rogue nation than AQ. I would say this story is probably bogus because N. Korea or some other state would swoop on the stuff and eliminate any sand-nazis trying to muscle in. It is possible the terrorists have nukes and wmds (of course), but they probably would already have tried to use them if they had them. Why fly planes into bldgs if you have a far bigger firecracker? The maintenance on nukes and danger of contamination is high and chem and bio wmds are equally hazardous to a potential user without considerable expertise. This explains why there have not been too many wmd terror attacks already. Many of these wmd materials are also rather easily detected.