Posted on 04/13/2008 9:47:53 AM PDT by MaestroLC
Al-Qaida's nuclear attack against the US is in planning stages, top American intelligence officials have said.
Deposing before a Congressional Committee on Homeland Security early this week, these US intelligence officials told US lawmakers that the threat of nuclear attack by the Taliban was growing and there is need to enhance its security measures.
Charles Allen, Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis and Chief Intelligence Officer at the Department of Homeland Security; and Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the director of Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for the Department of Energy testified before this key Congressional committee on nuclear terrorism on April 2.
''There's been a long-term effort by Al-Qaida, to develop an improvised nuclear device,'' Allen said. ''I have no doubt that Al-Qaida would like to obtain nuclear capability. I think the evidence in their statements that they've made over many years publicly indicate this,'' he argued in his testimony.
Giving details of the Al-Qaida preparation, based on years on intelligence inputs, Mowatt-Larssen said: ''An Al-Qaida nuclear attack would be in the planning stages at the same time as several other plots, and only Al-Qaida's most senior leadership will know which plot will be approved.''
In keeping with Al-Qaida's normal management structures such as the role of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad in the 9/11 attacks, Mowatt-Larssen said there is probably a single individual in charge, overseeing the effort to obtain materials and expertise.
The intelligence officials commented that some nuclear experts / scientists may have joined Al-Qaida years ago, long before the world began paying adequate attention to the proliferation of the kinds of technologies that could yield a terrorist nuclear weapon.
Referring to the planning of the 9/11 attack, Mowatt-Larssen said it was operationally very straightforward. ''It had a very small footprint, was highly compartmented. Al-Qaida's nuclear effort would be just as compartmented and probably would not require the involvement of more than a small number of operatives who carried out 9/11,'' he said.
Mowatt-Larssen then went out to divulge his information about a prototypical Al-Qaida nuclear attack plot. This would have, he said, approval and oversight from Al-Qaida's most senior leadership, with possible assistance from other groups and a planner responsible for organizing the material, expertise and fabrication of a device; operational support facilitator, responsible for arranging travel, money, documents, food and other necessities for the cell; assets in the United States or within range of other Western targets to case locations for an attack and to help move the attack team into place; and finally, the attack team itself.
This hearing was followed by another classified session wherein other details about the possible nuclear attack by the Al-Qaida terrorist network were possibly explained to the US lawmakers in details.
''Beyond the basics I have outlined here, we do not know what a terrorist plot might look like. There is, however, a chokepoint in a terrorist effort to develop a nuclear capability. It is impossible to build a nuclear weapon without fissile material,'' he said.
The officials said that the task for the intelligence community is not easy. ''We must find something that is tactical in size but strategic in impact. We must find a plot with its networks that cut across traditional lines of counter proliferation and counterterrorism. We must stop something from happening that we have never seen happen before,'' he said.
Mowatt-Larssen said the US successes against Taliban in Afghanistan have yielded volumes of information that completely changed its view of Al-Qaida's nuclear program. ''We learned that Al-Qaida wants a weapon to use, not a weapon to sustain and build a stockpile, as most states would,'' he said.
''The nuclear threats that surfaced in June 2002 and continued through the fall of 2003 demonstrated that Al-Qaida's desire for a nuclear capability may have survived their removal from their Afghanistan safe haven,'' he said.
Observing that the Al-Qaida's nuclear intent remains clear, he said it obtained a fatwa in May 2003 that approved the use of weapons of mass destruction. Al-Qaida spokesman Suleyman Abu Ghayth declared that it is Al-Qaida's right to kill four million Americans in retaliation for Muslim deaths that Al-Qaida blames on the United States.
''Osama bin Laden said in 1998 that it was an Islamic duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In 2006, bin Laden reiterated his statement that Al-Qaida will return to the United States.
He said Al-Qaida has a track record of returning to finish a job they started. They failed at the World Trade Center in 1993. They came back in 2001. They canceled plans for chemical attacks in the US in 2003. ''We do not yet know when and where they intend to strike us next, but our past experience strongly suggests they are seeking an attack more spectacular than 9/11,'' he said.
''To delve a little into how they may be thinking about the nuclear option, at any given moment, Al-Qaida probably has attack plans in development. Nine-eleven was planned when the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen and when our embassies in Dar es Salaam and Tanzania were attacked in Africa,'' he said.
Losers don't "improvise" anything. They buy it, when financed by their supporters, the richest revenue producer on the planet, Saudi Arabia.
Surely, if they can purchase unlimited quantities of the most efficient explosives (which they can't produce themselves), buying a nuclear device (and their caretakers) or two is only a matter of time...
Tell that to the 3000 victims of the twin towers...
Or the 1946 victims of the Madrid train bombings...
Wouldn't "Retarded Whale" be more appropriate?
Perhaps they’ve been either 1) having problems constructing one, or 2) finding a loose Soviet one that will work.
Also all the left.
I am not sure what you mean. While it seems unlikely that a nuclear weapon could be slapped together from odds and ends, one might well improvise the acquisition of a nuclear device, or improvise a dirty bomb from any nuclear material that might come to hand. Frankly, I don't see the wisdom of underestimating the threat. You can deny the possibility that such a thing will happen, and rest peacefully until the day it does, but then it will be too late.
As to what would we do the day after, I am afraid we are so politically divided and confused that we will do nothing; we will not retaliate against anyone. There will be lots of talk, lots of grieving, and lots of anger, but nothing will come of it. It would (or will) take multiple such strikes before the general public begins to put our security where it belongs, ahead of everything else.
My “liberal” friends and relatives simply will not believe this no matter what evidence is presented to them.
I think this is the ultimate goal of the Muslims and that they are insane enough to do it.
I just hope that if this happens we have a President with enough manhood to retaliate totally on Islam and the middle East.
I’d give them a warning that if any nuclear device goes off in the US that the middle East and any and all Muslim countries will be GONE the next day and that we will have teams of hunter killers that will hunt down all the leaders and their families of every Muslim country, no matter where they are and kill every single one of them ASAP.
Never happen. Too many goody two-shoes in this country who would rather put us all perpetually at risk than end the threat.
“As to what would we do the day after, I am afraid we are so politically divided and confused that we will do nothing; we will not retaliate against anyone.”
I heard Michael Savage say that a military coup in this country is a possibility. I’m beginning to believe it and think that it might be necessary if someone like Hillary or Obambi is ever elected POTUS.
I believe in revenge, vengance and retalition. It’s the only thing that some people understand and fear.
This country was born in armed rebellion, perhaps it’s time to consider it again if push comes to shove and our survival is at stake.
Empowering an internal police state will do nothing thing but weaken us. Where do they find people like this?
Seal our borders, empower the militia to identify and detain enemies within, deport Muslims who commit any form of sedition, and kill the enemy by the cheapest means possible.
And just where is al-Qaida going to get their nukes? Iran? Pakistan?
With or without Government's involvement.
I don’t think a military coup will happen here, however, if it does happen it is wrong no matter who is President....... That is why this republic has been going on for a long time.
We have been facing the threat of total thermonuclear annihilation since the 50s. It is not possible to get cranked up over some pissant improvised dilettantes’ radiation contamination.
After the nuke attack, Pres. Obama’s preacher will tell us it was our fault.
Don’t forget Medina
You disagree about the erradication, or that it’s not a good thing???
(Note to BSR, see this is how I should have approached you on that last little misunderstanding we had...hehehe)
Muh bad...
W isn’t giving it 100%.
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