Al-Qaida nuclear attack in planning stages

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.

I disagree with the idea that it would not be a good thing if Islam were eradicated.

I think it would be a splendid thing!

I also don’t think it would be possible. There are too many of them. The best we can hope for is containment.

I would hope that we might deal with the world in a manner that doesn’t require nuking a quarter of it, but that is too subtle and nuanced for you.

NUKE ‘EM NOW BABY!!

I hope you have nothing more powerful in your house than a rubber band. You have a very dangerous mindset.

“You have a very dangerous mindset.”

Thank you. It’s better than being nuanced and subtled to death by talk from the passive aggressive but prolix and mindlessly garrulous.

Action usually trumps pseudo and chimerical dialogue.

“You mean the stuff the Iranians are working on?”

Exactly.

Iran WILL produce a weapon.

Iran WILL give it to Al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida WILL use it.

It’s a progression that is evident to anyone paying attention.

The world better wake up and understand that a preemptive strike on Iran is in everyones best interest.

"I would hope that we might deal with the world in a manner that doesn’t require nuking a quarter of it, but that is too subtle and nuanced for you."

If there's a serious question here, it would be: in the case of a terrorist nuke attack on the US, what doctrine should replace the old Cold War nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction?

Remember, under M.A.D.'ness, the policy was: if you nuke us, we will wipe you out. Specifically, we would target anything and everything that could produce weapons of war. "Bomb them back to the stone-age," we said.

Well, guess what? Our terrorists already live in the "stone age," so to speak. They like it there. They don't care what or who we bomb. They want to die martyrs' deaths. So they say.

So what do you do? Well, there really are not a lot of options. One of them is just what President Bush is already doing in Iraq & elsewhere.

But another is to ask, is there something they really do value, which could seriously motivate them to get their lunatics under control? I'm not saying that's the right answer. But note again the French president has already put Iran on notice -- don't mess with France.

Think about that! The French are talking tougher than we are!

"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. "

The attack will be carried out by OTMs slipping small dirty bombs across the southern border ORRRRRR... if you're thinking about an even bigger boom, a container ship entering a Pacific port to get the biggest bang for your radiation fallout buck.

If any country nuked us, we would respond. It’s a little more problematic if the nuke doesn’t arrive on the end of a missile where you can track its origin right away.

A nuke is detonated in Boston. No missile. It somehow got into the country, or was acquired within the country, or something. You don’t know.

The response is not to blow up 1/4 of the planet. Fighting terrorism is hard and the answers not easy.

"A nuke is detonated in Boston. No missile. It somehow got into the country, or was acquired within the country, or something. You don’t know.

The response is not to blow up 1/4 of the planet. Fighting terrorism is hard and the answers not easy."

Nor would I suggest such a thing. But you remember, bin Laden made no secret of having sponsored 9/11/01. So it's just as likely some terrorist group would claim responsibility, and that group would have state sponsors.

Also, you remember, after 9/11 (and other attacks as well), there were riots in Muslim cities, supporting bin Laden's victory over the Great Satan, and chanting "death to America."

The 9/11 attacks cost about 3,000 American lives. Suppose the next attack takes 300,000 or 3,000,000 lives. And suppose that many of those are your friends and relations.

Do you suggest the appropriate response then would be to send off a few more thousand marines to some other far-away mountains, to spend more years and years chasing chimeras?

A nuclear detonation in the US would require a response. That response is not to flatten every Islamic country, but it would require something more than a strong letter that Obama would send.

I don’t know what I would do. I think it would depend on who claimed responsibility, or whether you could tie it to a country of origin.

Let’s say you have strong indications of an Iranian influence. Do you nuke Tehran? There are a lot of innocent pro-western civilians there who oppose their own government, not to mention the embassies of numerous allies.

I hope it’s a decision we’ll never be forced to make.

"I don’t know what I would do."

Exactly.

Let us remember that the War on Terror is sometimes called "World War Four," and that like World War Two, it began for America with an attack that killed about 3,000 people.

But there the similarity ends. W.W.II involved ten times more Americans in uniform, a hundred times more Americans killed, and that was from a population about 1/3 the size of today's.

Nor in W.W.II, did we concern ourselves with the number of enemy civilians killed. And do you remember what our peace terms were? That's right: Unconditional Surrender.

And what was the result? The longest period of relative peace and prosperity in Europe and the Far East, that the world has seen since, oh, maybe the Roman Empire days?

Of course, no one wants to repeat W.W.II. Everyone says, if the allies had been smarter and firmer, W.W.II might never even have happened.

So now, with "World War Four," we're trying to figure out just what "smarter and firmer" might mean.

I think President Bush's plan has a good chance of long-term success.

But I also worry that it may be based on a key fundamentally false assumption: that terrorism comes from only a few radicals who have somehow "hijacked a great religion." So, it is assumed: if Muslim moderates can control their radicals, then the problem is solved.

If that assumption proves itself false, long term, then we may well have to rethink everything...

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