Posted on 07/13/2004 7:11:31 PM PDT by wagglebee
A new book written by a former FBI consultant claims that al-Qaida not only has obtained nuclear devices, but likely has them in the U.S. and will detonate them in the near future.
These chilling allegations appear in "Osama's Revenge: The Next 9/11: What the Media and the Government Haven't Told You," by Paul L. Williams (Prometheus Books).
Williams claims that al-Qaida has been planning a spectacular nuclear attack using six or seven suitcase nuclear bombs that would be detonated simulantaneously against U.S. cities.
"They want the most bang for the buck, and that is nuclear," Williams told NewsMax.
"I expect such an attack would come between now and the end of 2005," the author said.
In addition to writing several books on terrorism, Williams, an investigative journalist, has worked as an FBI consultant.
Williams' contention is not far from what U.S. intelligence believes, a source close to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has told NewsMax. The source said Ridge claimed that U.S. intelligence believes terrorists already have smuggled into the U.S. actual atomic devices as opposed to so-called “dirty nukes” that simply are conventional bombs that help spread radiation.
The Bush administration has warned for years that terrorists pose a nuclear threat to America.
Williams' book presents a review on the increasing spread of nuclear weapons technology, which the author says can be traced to India's nuclear tests in the early 1970s. It accelerated when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Shortly after the Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan made an all-out effort to join the nuclear club, the author says. Islamabad received "help" from sympathetic nations, namely China and North Korea.
Williams traces the rampant spread of nuclear bomb development to a leading Pakistani scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Khan, described as an "Islamic extremist," has also been depicted by former CIA chief George Tenet as "the father of Pakistan's nuclear program."
It is believed the Pakistani gained his expertise while working in the Netherlands, where he allegedly stole technology used in uranium reprocessing, a key procedure for building an atomic bomb.
Pakistan successfully detonated two nuclear weapons inside a northern mountain range in the late 1990s.
Khan, arrested by Pakistani police in February, under White House pressure, admitted selling nuclear technology to numerous foreign countries including North Korea and Libya.
Williams reports that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was investigating Khan at the time he was kidnapped and later killed (2003).
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, fearing a backlash from radical Muslims, granted Khan a pardon but restricted his travels.
According to Williams, another beneficiary of Khan's "contacts" was al-Qaida. The author reports that the U.S. got its first "hard" evidence of a connection when it invaded the Afghan capital of Kabul in 2001.
A former al-Qaida safe house was found to be loaded with documents detailing dealings with the Pakistani scientist.
The finding was so serious, says Williams, that Tenet traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to follow up on the discovery.
Tenet: 'They Are Coming'
Perhaps it was such intelligence that led Tenet to say in October 2002: “The threat environment we face is as bad as it was before September 11. It is serious. They have reconstituted. They are coming after us."
Almost from the moment 9/11 happened, the U.S. has been on heightened state of alert and worry over the possible use of nuclear weapons. On the day of the attack, President Bush left Florida and began criss-crossing the country in Air Force One in maneuvers consistent with a president preparing for a nuclear attack.
Shortly after Sept. 11, Taliban leader Mullah Omar claimed to BBC that the main intent of al-Qaida was the “bigger cause,” which he described as the “destruction of America.”
Asked pointed if this meant the use of nuclear weapons againt the U.S., he responded: “This is not a matter of weapons. We are hopeful for God's help. The real matter is the extinction of America. And, God willing, it will fall to the ground.”
Omar cryptically suggested a nuclear plan was already under way at the time of Sept. 11. “The plan is going ahead and, God willing, it is being implemented. But it is a huge task, which is beyond the will and comprehension of human beings. If God's help is with us, this will happen within a short period of time; keep in mind this prediction.”
The Russian Connection
The author points out that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 only made matters worse:
"The Chechen Mafia reportedly sold twenty nuclear suitcases in Grozny to representatives of Osama bin Laden and the Mujahadeen [in 1996]. For their weapons, bin Laden paid $30 million in cash and two tons of heroin."
Al-Qaida's leader, says Williams, is a major drug producer and runner in Afghanistan.
"It is the drug money, not the bin Laden family fortune, that is the financial engine for al-Qaida," he points out.
Today, Williams says, more than 40 Russian "nuclear suitcases" cannot be accounted for.
The suitcases are miniaturized tactical nuclear bombs (in some cases weighing less than 40 pounds) that were originally planned by the Cold-War-era Kremlin to be detonated inside the U.S. in the event of war.
These bombs were estimated to have an explosive power of between 1-10 kilotons, says Williams.
Most could cause damage equal to or greater than the crude device Washington dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.
The author says some of these weapons still remain stateside in a "sleeper" status controlled by Russian military officials who believe a war with the U.S. "is still possible."
Others, as many as 10, might be under al-Qaida's control, says Williams.
What kind of damage could such a weapon do? The CIA estimates the Russian nuclear suitcases to have an explosive yield approaching 10 kilotons.
Williams, referring to estimates by Theodore Taylor, a prominent American physicist who miniaturized the atomic bomb and visited the site of the World Trade Center in 1993, says a suitcase bomb could "emit intense thermal radiation, creating a fireball with a diameter that would expand to 460 feet. The core of the fireball would reach a maximum temperature of 10 million degrees Celsius ... ." The author says the heat that collapsed the Twin Towers never exceeded 5,000 degrees Celsius.
Had such a bomb been used in 9/11, Williams claims, "The World Trade Center towers, all of Wall Street and the financial district, along with the lower tip of Manhattan up to Gramercy Park and much of midtown, including the theater district, would lay in ruins."
Of those who might survive the blast, 50 percent of the survivors could expect to die at the rate of "250,000 people on any given day," Williams reports.
And how could al-Qaida manage to transport such weapons into the U.S.?
Williams points out that the borders with Mexico and Canada are still dangerously porous and not equipped to detect the smuggling of nuclear materials.
U.S. seaports are even more vulnerable, he argues.
Though New York City would seem to be the No. 1 target of another attack by al-Qaida, Williams points out other U.S. cities have been mentioned in intercepted intelligence chatter.
Among those discussed: Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, Miami, Washington and Rappahannock County, Va.
Why a small rural county in Virginia? Williams says it houses the underground command center the White House would use in time of war.
He hastens to add that time "may not be on our side."
"It was eight years between the World Trade Center attacks. Islam preaches patience. They will attack when they want," Williams concluded.
More chilling was the response from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
One official, speaking on background told NewsMax: "We have no comment. It is not within our responsibility to track atomic bombs."
Actually, it takes almost Three Critical Masses of 90% pure U235arranged in FOUR subassemblies [three ANNULUS rings and a Cylinder...said Cylinder driven into the Tri-ANNULUS subassemblies.
Why???
Because the Critical Mass is based on a SPHERE, and the Critical Assembly is anything but, given that the Little Boy Engineers drove that Cylinder with...TNT!!!
Plutonium implosion weapons compress a sphere of Pu239 using explosives with impeccably precise timers. The dozens of charges needed to perfectly compress the plutonium have to all go off simultaneously or the weapon will be a dud.
EXPLODING WIRE detonators, invented by a Harvard Chemistry George KistiaKowsky [sp??????] expressly for this purpose...ordinary detonators are Three Orders of Magnitude too slow!!!
The added complexity of the implosion weapon made testing critical. Implosion weapons have the advantage of needing far less fissionable material so they can be made much smaller. All our current weapons are implosion weapons.
Actually, IMPLOSION is the ONLY real way to handle Plutonium as a WEAPON...Plutonium spontaniously generates another Plutonium Isotope which gives off Neutrons...Spoiling the "loose" timing of the Gun type method. Implosion is a MUST!!!
IMPLOSION requires an "INITIATOR" at the core. NOTHING ELSE is classified about Trinity-Nagasaki than the "Initiator!
As to Speculation on the Trinity-Nagasaki initiators, as well as what has replaced them...please see reply 107.
This sickens me.
And Rockefeller and Kennedy, and the rest of the sleazoids keep playing games! Sickening!
"it would have been synchronized with some uprising in Iraq or some more spectacular terrorism incident in saudi sandpit..."
Like a US presidential election???
Which thread was that?
Who is this Clark guy?
1. If Al Qaeda was able to purchase five or more "suitcase nukes", then any reasonably proficient nuclear physicist could get at least one to go off.
2. It is my impression that the Bush Administration believes that Al Qaeda has or might have nuclear weapons, due to their reactions that accompany elevated threat levels, including the deployment of portable radiation detectors.
3. It is my understanding that radiation detectors are indeed sensitive enough to pick up tritium in luminous wristwatches, at the ranges you might expect from roadside detection operations. In fact, there have been reports of people detained in similar scenarios. The radiation intensity (and therefore, detectability) falls off with the inverse square of the distance, however. If the detectors mentioned above were effective as described at a range of 50 feet, they would need to increase their sensitivity by a factor of approximately 128x to be similarly effective at the range of one mile.
4. The narrowly averted recent attacks on Britain and Amman, Jordan using chemical weapons (Osmium in Britian, unknown quantity, unknown material in Amman, quantity of 17 tons) may well be the basis for the recent increase in institutional and government sensitivity, and this may also account for Sen. Tom Daschle's reaction to a recent briefing, in which he stated that the information imparted was "extremely sobering", and almost "certainly not partisan". Then again, they may not.
5. Significant research has yet to conclusively determine the existance of any Soviet "suitcase nukes". The closest I have been able to find are the (existance contested) nuclear mines distributed to the KGB and Spetsnaz troops, in central Asia and eastern Europe. These, if they actually do exist, have shelf life problems, probably in both the neutron initiators (1970's technology) and any pumping mechanisms that might have been used to reduce the naked sphere critical mass of necessary core fuel for these high energy devices. The reported nominal yield of these devices was 0.1 KT.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.
If not, we are beyond stupid.
This country has become so obsessed with political correctness that little will be done, so not to worry.
And please, don't come back with "they hadn't thought of it at that time." We have no concept of what they had and hadn't considered at that time. They tried and failed with "a minimum response" the first time.
I am a lot more afraid of ballpoint pen nukes than I am of suitcase nukes.
Not that either one actually exists.
I expect that this is true regardless of who sits in the White House or who holds a Congressional majority however big that might be. When it comes to caving to outside pressures and vacillating about a response we will be worse than Isreal. The Jihadis will soon find that we are a lot more fun to mess with than Isreal. Reaction on the street might be a bit different though.
LOL!
Watch it! You're making sense. Much better to rant and rave scream and holler threaten the entire world with death and destruction. It makes you FEEL so much better.
Part of me agrees with the "if they had them they would have used them" mindset, and of course, hype like this sells books. But, I remember in the months after Sept. 11, a lot of people were speculating about how soon the next attack would come. It seems to me that the events of Sept. 11 are still having the desired effect... people are still frightened, the "terror alerts" are still high... they are still getting a lot of mileage out of what they have already done. But, we are getting complacent. We are beginning to let our guard down in some places, and in other places it has become clear that we will not really raise our guard (i.e. the borders). Al qaeda can afford to wait, and in fact, gains by waiting. If the goal is simply the destruction of America, then getting nukes into major U.S. cities and detonating them in one swoop would seem logical... thus, the "if they had them they would have already used them" argument. But, if the goal is for certain elements to rise to power, to bring about a war that unifies all muslims in the world against non-muslims, then a bit more strategy would seem logical. Poking the sleeping giant America into swatting at cells of Muslim terrorists here and there was a first step, allowing the terrorists to carry the corpses of muslim children supposedly "murdered" by the U.S. in the streets as recruiting posters on al jazeera. Striking on 9/11 was another step, escalating the violence and the level of attention to "the cause". Arguably, the U.S. has responded exactly as the terrorists wanted us to... we have gone into predominantly Muslim countries, killed muslims, and "occupied" muslim lands. But, again, we have been unwilling to unleash the full force of our might, and we, as a country, have become more divided rather than more unified.
These are all just random thoughts, but it seems to be there in another side to the "if they had them they would have used them" argument... a certain strategical planning to unleashing of their terror attacks, depending on what their ultimate goal is, may be more effective in their minds.
Welcome aboard.
You're not a REAL Freeper until you've been flamed...soooo
You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up, drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set you loose to fly briefly before spattering the ocean rocks with the frothy pink shame of your ignoble blood.
There that's taken care of
During War 2, England was locked down, imminent invasion ect., travel was difficult and permits were necessary to relocate. Talk was guarded, roadblocks were numerous and all citizens were subject to questioning and search if deemed necessary. No one complained and everyone understood. It was not a police state, the citizens were mature enough to recognize that the nation was at war. The bad guys are here already and we are at war.
Your point re the open borders is more than valid, it is unbelieveable considering the times we live in. One school of thought holds that it is part of a long term plan to establish an economic block including both Americas, with open borders throughout, therefore the lack of enforcement would be intentional. Too soon I would think.
NewsMax plays this again.
I was reading some material on Los Alamos and didn't remember seeing anything differentiating the bombs.
But I did run across the verse written by an unknown author that was circulating around Los Alamos before the test, a "result of the anxiety surrounding the possibiity of a failure of the test." You probably have seen this before, but here it is for those who haven't:
"From this crude lab that spawned a dud,
Their necks to Truman's axe uncurled
Lo, the embattled savants stood,
and fired the flop heard round the world."
Heh!
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