Posted on 07/02/2006 3:49:11 PM PDT by aculeus
To counter terrorists, you need to think like one. That will be the case to thwart terrorists who want to match, if not exceed, the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
September 11 came from the sky in a somewhat unconventional way. Terrorists turned fully-fueled airplanes with passengers into cruise missiles, crashing them into the symbols of U.S. economic and military strength: the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In their desire to at least match the destructive effect of those attacks, terrorists will look for another "creative," unconventional approach.
This time, it could come from the sea.
In recent months, the issue of port security reached fever pitch over the prospect that a government-owned company of the United Arab Emirates was to manage a number of U.S. ports.
Ports oversee the annual movement of some 6 million containers, of which the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Agency inspects perhaps 3-5 percent. Indeed, CBP has little counterterrorism intelligence to support its efforts.
In all, an estimated 7,500 foreign-flag vessels make some 51,000 U.S. port calls each year.
Yet, an attack from the sea may not necessarily come from a container offloaded from a ship.
Instead, merchant ships under terrorist control could be fashioned into floating nuclear bombs. It wouldn't take many such vessels and terrorists with state-sponsor support are assessed to have such a capability.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
And if they did not know how before, or, needed a nudge -here ya go.
Blech
I've thought about it and I think they could cause enormous financial damage. Oil platforms, locks and ports are vulnerable.
Nah it will be a nuke right in the middle of a city.
Yes, I've heard nukes launched from a tramp steamer or freighter into our cities.
But since we can't listen to their phone calls or monitor their purchases - even a tramp steamer ain't cheap - how will we know?
And it will still be Bush's fault.
Just get a ship full of ammonium nitrate, propane, or LNG into a port and blow it up.
Just about any set of locks along the St Lawrence seaway or the Soo Locks could be blocked and shut down simply by sinking a ship in the right place.
A chartered plane from overseas can carry in whatever.
It doesn't need to "land" so customs is completely out of the loop.
Not expensive and much more reliable than a missile and you can hit any target you like.
That's reality.
That's also why the war has to be brought to them. We have to stop it there. We can't stop it here.
Do you really believe they couldn't and haven't thought of these things already?
It will require constant communications and major international financing to accomplish this. Too bad the treasonous, evil New York Times destroyed our ability to monitor these two key factors.
They have. There was a lucky discovery in an italian port a couple of years ago of a contianer boat filled with an explosive substance. It was being ferried to a location where they think its Al Qaeda operatives were to rendezvous with the ship.
It was mentioned in one of Tom Mintier's books but didn't get a big media play due to the impact it could have on commercial shipping.
This was a fresh idea about 9/12.
Cavitating torpedos are also a great concern...given one could be a "pop-up"
missle and hit before we had a clue of what happened.
Whatever happened to the Alqaida Navy. They had three or six ships floating around someplace a couple years ago.
"I herd Bill Gerts say the other day that the Iranians have successfully launched a Scud variant from a steamer."
Yeah, it was a bottle rocket on roids. It's somewhere around here on FR, the video that is, and it's comical.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.