It is not building a bomb, it is having the U-235 or plutonium, that makes it hard to do...
Posted on 07/24/2005 7:32:10 PM PDT by Jomini
Last fall, the race to stop terrorists from acquiring a nuclear bomb passed through Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There, on the morning of September 19, a Russian Antonov 12 cargo plane touched down carrying two nearly indestructible steel canisters. Under the watch of elite security forces armed with machine guns, Uzbek officials unloaded the canisters and drove them to a remote, wooded area about 20 miles from the Central Asian capital. Waiting there at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, which houses a small nuclear reactor used for scientific research, was a team of Americans, Russians and officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency. With extreme care, they filled the canisters with 24 pounds of reactor fuel containing highly enriched uranium, the ideal ingredient for a terrorist nuke. Area roads were closed off as an armed convoy rushed the cargo back to the airport.
Amid the conflict in Iraq and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, this is a side of the war on terrorism you rarely hear about: the drive to prevent terrorists from acquiring the ingredients for a nuclear bomb. In recent years, operations similar to the one in Uzbekistan have been conducted in Libya, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. These efforts reflect an intense and growing concern within the U.S. government about the specter of nuclear terrorism. It is one of the few issues on which President George W. Bush agreed with his former rival, John Kerry, who called nuclear terrorism the greatest threat that we face in the world today.
Intent isn’t the same as capability, of course. But of more than a dozen nuclear-arms experts I interviewed, almost all agreed that assembling a crude nuclear bomb, though extremely difficult, is by no means impossible.
(Excerpt) Read more at popsci.com ...
The West could certainly use a quiet last week of July. If I can find a link to General Erfurth's classic treatise on the use of new weapons systems in surprise combat operations (which has been posted here before) I will try and post it.
It does appear a new style of attack has been intitiated.
J
Oh yes, if the terrorists continue to escalate the conflict and up the ante, they will assure President Tancredo the election. Something for them to think about.
Why bother with the expense and hassle of a bomb? Can they build/buy one? Sure. However, the low cost low tech methods currently being used work just fine.
Studies of early tank battles in World War I were his primary evidence offered as the expected breakthroughs failed to materialize. These writings were critical in the development of Guderian's thinking as he transitioned from a communications officer to a Panzer Leader.
Somewhere in the lower to middle echelons of the Islamic Entente many younger warriors are cutting their teeth in the early stages of World War III in a prelude to assuming leadership positions. If one postulates a very long war (count on it) then perhaps the new British tactic of executing suspected terrorists with no warning could best be utilized against these younger cadres.
Qaeda seems to have learned this lesson by virtue of their classic multiple-attack structure against economic targets. This bodes ill as the great weakness of the West is her flattening economy now being tested by globalization. Erfurth stressed always to wait with new systems of destruction until they could be delivered in such volume as to effect a decision.
Nuclear attacks are unlikely until they can be launched with multiple strikes aimed at key economic structures. When that day comes it will be wild elevator ride to the basement.
J
Those locks don't "prevent" tampering, although the mechanical ones may make it marginally more difficult. However it you stole a bomb, you'd have the "pit" and the implosion explosive "lens" already built. All you'd really have to build would be substitute electronics to set off the explosive lens that compresses the "pit" into a critical mass.
If they ever get a nuke on their hands, you can assure yourself it will have a 'Made in China, assembled in Pakistan' label on it.
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...perhaps the new British tactic of executing suspected terrorists with no warning could best be utilized against these younger cadres.
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We should by all means takes steps to insure all Islamists who die in battle (and any Islamist body parts laying around) are carried from the scene in pigskin bodybags-- and the more public this is, the better.
it depends. Nukes were not introduced en masse. The decisive point was that only U.S. had them at that time. When Ruskies refused to withdraw from Iran, Truman sent a friendly note to Stalin to the effects of the words: retreat withing 48 hours or we will drop a bomb only we have". Ruskies retreated in no time, but it solidified their intent to get a nukes of their own.
Think about the following: Islamists simultaneosly detonate 3 nukes: in Malacca Strait, Strait of Bosphorus and Hormuz. No U.S. soil touched but oil trasport is in tatters and U.S. and European economy goes to hell.
What next? Nuke Mecca or Pyongyang? Wait for the next strike in NYC harbor?
"Why bother" indeed - suicide bombers can just as easily carry dirty bombs to their intended targets (each bomb containing a bag of powdered radioactive material) as they can nail-studded ones. I'm sure the UK doesn't have radiation detection equipment everywhere with their people and bag-searchers.
Imagine what London (not to mention the rest of the world) would be like now if they'd BEEN carrying dirty bombs in the last two incidents.
A bomb goes off - you bury the dead, rebuild, and look at vodeotapes to see what the bombers LOOKED like.
A DIRTY bomb goes off - you do all the above plus DECONTAMINATE (which will hopefully be done properly and efficiently or you're going to have to start cordoning-off sections of the city and subways), and deal with a hell of a lot of problems the public will introduce once they find out there was radiation involved.
People won't care so much about the 'big picture' as "it hurt ME - what is the government going to do about ME? how will _I_ be protected in the future?". The easiest way to destroy a society is by making it overwork itself; not necessarily by killing its people.
Won't do much. Well, bombing the Bosphorus might cause the Turks to deconvert overnight.
Provided you were not filled full of holes for just being outside the bunker. There is nowhere to hide in a bomb dump.
FYI - figued some people on the TM thread would be interested in this.
Nighty-night!
Good night little jeremiah.
Sleep well.
Hopefully we'll never have to see such a day. Thinking such an attack unlikely until the terrorists can launch multiple strikes is not correct though. A single strike with multiple objectives is more likely as it requires terrorists to acquire a single device.
A dirty bomb blast in Tijuana would have devastating effects on the San Diego area, a major Naval installation, a major Marine base, and with prevailing wind currents spread death as far away as Phoenix and Tucson. Juarez, Mexico presents the same sort of scenario. Both area have sandy terrain that would raise great clouds of radioactive dust, and both areas have wind currents that move east-northeast toward the USA. A strike from either of these areas would have grave effects on our civilian population, our economy, the military, and all with a single device.
Most people think terrorists would have to be on our soil to inflict great damage. The best deterrent to such a strike is control of existing nuclear weapons and the primary ingredients. The same holds true of biological weapons. Barring that, people had better rethink the logic that dictates terrorists need to come across the border in order to attack us with such weapons. We've a very soft underbelly.
All you need is a few crude dirty bombs to spread around radioactivity on Wall Street and few other downtown financial districs in America. That would cause a lot of chaos and disruption. Cleanup would be expensive and take weeks.
They don't need to be able to assemble a bomb. They can buy one from NK, China, or Pakistan.
It is not building a bomb, it is having the U-235 or plutonium, that makes it hard to do...
Keep displaying that level of knowledge and you'll be classified as a person of interest and earn the shadow company of the guys in black suits, with sun glasses and ear pieces. ;-)
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