As it stands the U.S. would have to undergo an internal revolution before Washington could enact the policies most needed to defend against the suitcase nuclear threat. Simply put, the country is not ready to accept such measures. The country is not convinced that such measures are absolutely necessary. Therefore, the government cannot accept the reality of suitcase nuclear bombs sitting on U.S. soil! To admit of such a thing would be tantamount to admitting that our form of government must come to an end.
The basis of our nuclear defense for half a century has been “deterrence.” Unless you can pinpoint your enemy, unless you can locate him on a map, you cannot send a missile against him. You cannot retaliate. In the case of terrorists hiding in remote mountain caves, there may be no deterrence even if you threaten to locate them and nuke their cave. Since they do not care about their own lives, since they are determined to die for their cause, deterrence is ineffective.
YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION??......
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I'll bring the beer and hot-dogs (pork-based of course).
Given the Chechen realities, if they had even one such device, they would have used it themselves in Moscow instead of staging movie theater hostage attacks. Therefore to believe that they had these devices and sold them instead of using them, strains one's imagination.
A major terrorist attack on this country would transcend any election. If, God forbid, it was nuclear all attention would be on the aftermath. Too many horrors would have to be addressed.
Yes we can retaliate, watch us, Tehran, Damascus, and I wouldn't rule out others.
True, but that could all change in an instant if there were a WMD attack.
Interview Friday, Nov. 21, 2003:
Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
I'm sick and tired of these pussies who are always talking about "deterrence being ineffective".
If all of a sudden several hundred thousand muslims disappeared in a mushroom cloud, not only would those particular ragheads now be harmless, the ones that are left would trip over themselves to rat out whoever it took to stay alive.
We would have their undivided attention.
Now I wonder why that is? Could it be because the liberal rats have been calling into question the war on terror day in and day out saying the President lied about it all? Could the fact that W is called the terrorist, and in fact is accused in some circles of sending the planes into the buildings himself have something to do with this?
The left has blood on their hands already, and if this happens, they will be the aiders and abettors of it.
Yes, no doubt even after a nucular event, sufficient suppression of racial profiling will still be of paramount importance over national security.
The handiest way of diseminating a dirty nuke would be a small bundle of explosives dropped from a private plane into an oil refinery tank farm upwind of a major metro area. The huge smoke plume could carry the material up into a steady wind for wide area dispersal.
Airspace over refineries should be restricted and any violations enforced with extreme prejudice.
The NRC studies prevailing wind patterns to determine dispersion patterns.
Anyway, here's the story as I recall. Back in 1999 there was a wealthy man in Florida contacted by ME men looking to acquire weapons. He was wealthy, because he was a very good con man, and diamonds were his specialty. He had never dealt in arms or anything like that. The feds finally caught on to him and his jewelry cons, and he was arrested. At some point he got a phone call from someone who said he "liked the way he did things" or "conducted himself" or something along those lines. He asked him if he would be interested in doing some "deal", including arms. He said he would, so this guy on the phone agreed to fly down from NJ to meet him and talk. The guy coming from NJ was an Egyptian immigrant who owned a convenience store there in NJ. By outward appearances he seemed to be a good example of an immigrant living the American dream; however, he appearantly was/is working for our enemies.
The man in Florida had no qualms about ripping people off via scams, but in reality he wanted nothing to do with illegal arms deals, especially with a ME man, knowing they could be used against US, so he contacted the feds and told them what was going down. I'm sure the feds were skeptical, but they rigged his car, house, etc. with mikes and cams to see if this guy from NJ was legit. By all appearances he was. He was sort of a middle man who connected the guy in Florida to another ME guy (Pakistani, I belive). The feds went undercover and got involved as well, acting as associates of the guy in Florida who could provide arms. They claimed they had US weapons taken from military bases. At first the bad guys were most interested in Stinger missiles (shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles that can take a plane out), but they were also interested in just about anything they could get their hands on. The feds even rigged up a room at a storage facility where they had weapons, including Stingers, to show these ME guys that they could produce.
Eventually, the talks went nuclear. The ME guys said they needed nuclear components, such as triggers and "heavy water". They said that without these, there would be no deal. They openly admitted that these would be for the Taliban/OBL in Afghan. When the feds said they could get these, the ME guys said they wanted to bring a Pakistani nuclear scientist over to check things out, which the feds agreed to. They even mentioned the guy's name. Of course he was checked out, and indeed he was a nuke scientist from Pakistan.
Keep in mind that all of this is on video and audio tape along with many pictures taken. Much of it appeared on MSNBC. They showed pics of these ME guys holding the Stinger missiles and smiling. They allowed their pics to be taken, actually they wanted their pics taken with the weapons because they took them back or sent them abroad to their ME contacts to show that they indeed were dealing with the real things.
My jaw was on the floor as I watched this. The guy in Florida talked about having dinner with these guys in NYC, including a guy that had just flown in from somewhere in the ME. They were cold and quite open about these weapons being used against Americans and one of them commented that they would have absolutely no problem with killing every person in the restaurant they were sitting in at that moment. They happened to be just a few blocks from the Twin Towers at the time. Again, keep in mind, this was all pre-9/11.
The guy in Florida asked them how they could travel so freely in and out of the country, and he was told "fake passports". The guy in Florida expressed skepticism about the ease of getting such a thing. A few days later he received a passport in the mail. It was a passport for him, but was fake. It had a fake name and said he was from Argentina, but it was perfectly done. It was exactly like a real Argentinian passport, official country stamp and all.
They finally agreed on a price of $32 million for these weapons, including the nuclear devices, but they got cold feet and never transferred the money. Did they catch on, or did someone tip them off? Who knows, but once the feds were convinced that they had gone as far as they could, they moved in and made some arrests, including the guy in NJ. Incredibly, he was free to go pending trial and was confronted by MSNBC in his store. Of course, he denied dealing in any arms. I believe he was sentenced to 30 months in jail. 30 months?! You try to acquire a nuclear bomb for terrorist bent on destroying us and you only go to jail for 2 and a half years? Unbelievable!
The larger point is this. That was FIVE years ago. If OBL was that aggressive in pursuing nuke materials that many years ago, what are the chances that he has been successful at some point from somewhere? (former USSR countries, for example)
I'm not a nuke expert, but how close are you to having a working bomb if you are just looking for a trigger and heavy water?
Now, a truly ugly scenario. What if they have even one nuke bomb of some sort and have it in some smaller US city, say Springfield, MO or some such size. They then blow it up prior to the election, killing thousands. They then say, they have 10 more planted in major cities around the US and will explode IF we don't (A) get rid of Bush and (B) pull out of Irag and Afghan and all of ME immediately. Again, all it would take is 1 bomb. God help us.
Well you know....we all want to change the world!
Well, you know, we all want to change the world.....
Kerry will negotiate our way to peace, and love. It must be a Prozac moment.