Al-Qaida nukes in U.S. possible, says author

World Net Daily ^ | August 22, 2005 | World Net Daily

[AliVeritas]

Al-Qaida may already have nuclear weapons hidden in major U.S. cities, says the author of "Nuclear Terrorism" and former Defense Department official.

In response to reports last week that al-Qaida might hijack tanker trucks as a means of wreaking havoc in major U.S. cities, Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and former assistant secretary of defense, said smuggling a nuclear weapons into a major city is not improbable.

"While not likely, it is possible that al-Qaida is hiding nuclear bombs in one or several American cities today," he writes in the Chicago Tribune. "So who can say that the trucks the FBI warned about might not contain weapons of mass destruction?"

[atomicpossum]

Reading this article, apparently there is no data or evidence for this, just speculation. Personally, I think Osama may have thousands of rabid monkeys ready to release into Disneyland.

[finnman69]

Considering Osama pushed up 911 ASAP because he wa worried about being caught, there is virtually NIL chance he would allow for nukes to sit for months in the US where they could be discovered.

[Question_Assumptions]

Given that they were using radiation detectors sensitive enough to pick up people who had recently undergone medical tests using low-level radiation in several cities, I doubt that there are nukes just sitting around waiting to be used. I just hope the terrorists don't get smart and attack better targets, which I don't want to enumerate for their benefit. But there are plenty I can think of.

[x5452]

I thought the rumor was that Al Queda had gotten former soviet generals to give up the goods on where Soviet nukes were on American soil, so that they could use these for terror attacks. (If the soviets already had missles it would sure be easier for Al Queda to use those, than smuggle others across the border.)

[farlander]

Exactly. Those things are use or lose. It's too valuable for them not to use within hours of getting on US soil. AmericanDigest.org's San Diego scenario was probably the most realistic one (sneak across border with Tijuana and detonate immediately downtown).

Since any of that hasn't happened yet, I think the monkeys and disneyland is far more likely scenario.

[cymeckajax3]

I really get sick of this! If they had them they would have used them by now! Geeech!

[gandalftb]

If al Qaeda had any nukes in the US they would use them immediately before they got caught.

Smuggling in a nuke would involve many people who would have to keep a secret as big as bin Laden's home address. Someone would snitch it out for the money.

Transport of a nuke would require a tactical series of hand-offs between cells and that is where Al Qaeda security breaks down. They are the most successful when one cell has complete and autonomous control of an operation.

Al Qaeda will carry out Muslim crowd-pleasers only when it finds replacements for the Khalid Sheik Muhhameds and Muhammed Attas they've lost. Weaponry is largely irrelevant to that problem.

[x5452]

Where is the evidence that Al Qaeda would use nukes so fast? These guys have been slowly planning big syncronized attacks for years, a simple nuke explosion in the desert isn't their MO, they'd want to hit multiple cities simutaenously, they'd most likel have to slowly more nukes around to accomplish this. Rushing the job wwould draw attention to themselves.

[Dallas59]

[BenLurkin]

Don't tell anyone -- especially not the enemy -- BUT . . .

the crusaders have their Headquarters in San Francisco.

Shhh!!!

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"Where is the evidence that Al Qaeda would use nukes so fast?"

Once a nuclear weapon is handed over to al-Qaeda, there is a time limit (measured in months) for using it, lest it fail to detonate with a nuclear yield. That's because nuclear weapons have a lot of components that decay or go bad in the presence of nuclear decay.

[mikegi]

Where is the evidence that Al Qaeda would use nukes so fast? These guys have been slowly planning big syncronized attacks for years, a simple nuke explosion in the desert isn't their MO, they'd want to hit multiple cities simutaenously, they'd most likel have to slowly more nukes around to accomplish this. Rushing the job wwould draw attention to themselves.

There's no need to "hit multiple cities simultaneously" when we're talking tactical nukes. One is enough to do the job.

[gandalftb]

Look at al Qaeda's tactical habits: lots of development of the cells and operators. Al Qaeda understands that you don't need to possess weapons, just have the tactical ability to quickly acquire and control those weapons when the operators are ready.

Al Qaeda is highly paranoid about cell to cell security. The tactical operation would be entirely in place well before the nuke or other WMD would arrive. The WMD would be used very soon thereafter, why wait? Their habit is to microscopically plan every detail, use great patience, then hit fast and hard.

My point here is that we are still playing catch up and still examining rubble to figure out what they are up to, so scaring ourselves should be reserved for the most probable threats.

[Nathan Zachary]

This is just a continuation of the suitcase bomb theory.
It's all B.S. It's about as likely as terrorists being able to buy nukes on Ebay. I don't see any Jihadists walking around with lead suits on, maintaining their stash of nukes, or any showing up at hospitals, their skin peeling off from radiation poisoning. Those things aren't exactly easy to maintain, and for terrorists, finding replacement material to keep them up to snuff would be next to impossible.

[Gone GF]

Posted time and time again and refuted just as many times.

[gandalftb]

Very good point. Not only does the weapons grade fissionable material degrade, reducing yield, also the timers corrode and after more than five years probably won't sequence properly to get a critical mass. There would still be a dispersal of highly lethal enriched fuel, big trouble. The suitcase nukes missing from the Ukraine and elsewhere are over 10 years old by now and the fuel was almost certainly sold off for power generation while it was still highly enriched.

Some intel reports a few years ago that bin Laden bought one that had no fuel for $5m from the Libyans, Khan has stated that al Qaeda approached him for help in obtaining fuel.

[SlowBoat407]

Dear Pervez;

I realize you've been having a hard time tracking down AQ cells and strongholds in your country, and that there have been a number of training camps there that have somehow escaped your detection while their trainees have come over to our country to plot terror attacks.

Let me just say: I feel your pain. We are having exactly the same problem here. We have a big country here, and it's just so doggone hard to police every inch of it that some people who think you're not doing a very good job of controlling terrorism have taken the law into their own hands. Shucks, I wish I could find them all, but it's hard, hard work.

So if some of our rogue people manage to make it over there and, oh, I don't know, blow up some training camps or kill some of your folks, I hope you'll be as forgiving as we have been over your whole Taliban thing.

And if, by some chance, some of our nukes end up in the wrong hands and take out the same number of cities that are attacked on our soil, I hope you'll understand: tracking these rogue elements is hard, so very hard.

Sincerely,
Dubya

[reagan_fanatic]

a simple nuke explosion in the desert isn't their MO, they'd want to hit multiple cities simutaenously, they'd most likel have to slowly more nukes around to accomplish this

alQuaeda's intent is to do as much damage to the U.S. economy as possible. One exploded nuke would accomplish that quite nicely without having to wait for multiple units to arrive and be in place.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

To quote Ron Popeil: "But wait! That's not all!"

The nuclear material decays. As it decays, its energy is ultimately released as heat.

Well, when you expose explosives to constant heat, some of the explosive compounds start to evaporate.