Posted on 04/24/2008 2:19:33 AM PDT by Mount Athos
The next time Islamist terrorists attack us it could be with a nuclear weapon... Graham Allison is a Harvard professor who served with distinction in the Defense Department under Presidents Reagan and Clinton. He wrote a book in 2004 arguing that “on the current course, nuclear terrorism is inevitable.”
There has been no change of course since — quite the contrary. Ashton B. Carter, co-director of the Preventive Defense Project at Harvard, said recently that the threat of nuclear terrorism has been increasing due to Iranian and North Korean proliferation and the failure to secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal following the Cold War. The probability of a nuclear attack on an American city, he believes, is now “almost surely larger than it was five years ago.”
Gary Anthony Ackerman, research director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, also recently told Congress that “the prospect of terrorists detonating a nuclear device on American soil sometime within the next quarter-century is real and growing.”
And Cham D. Dallas, who directs the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia, says flatly: “It’s inevitable.” Testifying before a Senate hearing this month, he added: “I think it’s wistful to think that it won’t happen by 20 years.”
Should a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb explode near the White House, Dallas estimates that 100,000 people would be killed. A radioactive plume would lethally contaminate thousands more. In a densely populated city such as New York or Chicago, a similar blast would result in a death toll perhaps eight times that high.
Charles Allen, undersecretary for intelligence and analysis for the Department of Homeland Security, has said there is no question that Islamist terrorist groups are seeking nuclear materials. But the intelligence community, he added, is “less certain about terrorists’ capability to acquire or develop a nuclear device.”
Could the intelligence community be more certain? Yes, our spies could do more to increase our chances of detecting — and preventing — terrorist attacks of all varieties. But they are being denied the tools. The most notable example: The law that gave America’s intelligence agencies the authority to freely monitor the communications of foreign terrorists abroad expired in February.
A bill to restore that authority passed the Senate by a solidly bipartisan 68-to-29 majority. A bipartisan majority in the House would almost certainly vote in favor of the same measure but Speaker Nancy Pelosi — for more than two months — has used the power of her office to stop members from casting their votes yea or nay.
Why would she do something so irresponsible? Groups on the Left, important to the Democrats in this election season, demand that foreign terrorists abroad be given the same privacy protections enjoyed by American citizens here at home.
This policy may already have cost American lives. In at least one instance, U.S. officials labored for nearly ten hours to get legal approval necessary to conduct wiretaps to help them locate three American soldiers kidnapped by al-Qaeda combatants in Iraq. The soldiers were not successfully rescued.
“We are extending Fourth Amendment (constitutional) rights to a terrorist foreigner . . . who’s captured a U.S. soldier,” Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell complained to a congressional committee during a legislative battle over this same issue last year.
Also in the mix: Trial lawyers are suing telecommunications companies that cooperated with intelligence officials immediately after 9/11, allowing them to “mine” data for patterns of terrorist activity. If the trial lawyers — the biggest donors to Democrats — succeed, they will reap billions of dollars. They also will teach the private sector never again to assist government efforts to identify terrorists. The Senate bill would protect the telecoms from these laws suits.
Almost two dozen moderate Democratic House members sent Pelosi a letter saying that until this measure is passed, America’s national security will be “at undue risk.” But that was months ago. Since then, with few exceptions, Democrats have been keeping their mouths shut.
Is worrying about nuclear terrorism fear mongering? After the suicide-bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, and again after the truck-bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, most politicians exhibited not fear but complacency. They did nothing serious to anticipate or avert the next terrorist attacks. The consequence was the atrocity of 9/11.
Nancy Pelosi and those following her lead appear to have learned nothing in the years since.
The libs holed up just long enough to avoid getting punched in the mouth for saying the things they wanted to.
http://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Visions-Ideological-Political-Struggles/dp/0465081428
Read this, you’ll have a far better understanding of the situation than you do today.
(Jefferson was closer to accurate, but your wife has a facet of it)
There will be nuke terrorism, but the threat of a nuke blast in the US is extremely remote—not for lack of trying or tough security, but the technology actually doesn’t exist. There are numerous studies that disprove the hollywood notion of a “suitcase bomb”—the smallest any fissable weapon can be would require several foot lockers of equipment and shielding. The would-be terrorists have a much much higher likelihood of dying from radiation exposure in the time it would take to put one together. Then they’d have to create a trigger mechanism—no easy task and in some ways, much more difficult to figure out than getting the fissable materials (itself almost impossible). A dirty bomb (less-than critical mass of radioactive materials spread by conventional bomb) is a bigger threat, but again too many variables (wind, timing, radioactive poisoning killing the terrorists before they could trigger the explosion, etc.). Plus, dirty bombs of even substantial size would do minimal death (though arguably it would create much “terror”).
The only terrorist group known to have come close to access to a real nuclear device is Aum Shinrikyo, the ultra-nationalist Japanese cult. There have been persistent rumours that these guys did obtain nukes from former soviet states; it is known that they bribed guys working for Yeltsin to the tune of $100m (US) in order to get such access. These nutjobs went below the radar screen after the Japanese government busted them in response to the Sarin release back in the 90s that affected over 5,000 people (how soon we forget).
The real threat is a nuke delivered to Israel via conventional ballistic missle (e.g., modified SCUD) fired from Iran or by al-Qaeda (or both) either out of Iraq or Iran. As most Israelis know, Israel is a “one bomb” state, meaning that a nuke strike on Tel Aviv would effectively destroy the entire infrastructure of the government (they don’t have anything like FEMA) and would be the end of Israel in a single flash. People who complain about Israeli “fearmongering” of Iran’s nuke program fail to grasp this singular fact; but it’s something Ahmadinejad is very well aware of. This is why Jimmah Carter is such an incredible fool.
Another possibility to be considered is a nuke strike by Iran or terrorists on Mecca. Why? Because the damage to the qabah would be minimal, but by blaming such an attack on the US or Israel, they could ignite WW3. At any rate, I think the terrorist threat of a nuke may be real, but we are much more likely to be nuked in some way by Iran than al-Qaeda. And again, it’s not for lack of trying. Keep in mind, Iran is not so interested in the fate of the Palestinians, of whom they could care less; nor are they really seeking to establish a greater hegemony for its own sake. The radical apocalyptic cult that was established there by Khomeini is interested in triggering nothing less than the end of the world, and Ahmadinejad is on record as believing that he himself is the man who will do this.
When Hitler ranted and raved about his plans in Mein Kampf, it was written off in the west as mere bragadoccio and nearly 40 million people died as a result. We make the same mistake now in thinking al-Qaeda (who might well work with Iran to be the delivery vehicle) or Iran merely want some separate peace or influence for themselves, or more laughable, the right of return for Palestinians (neither al-Qaeda nor Iran gives a damn about the palestinians). When they say they want to burn the world, we best take them at their word.
I was poking around and found this guy he gave a little talk about how the leftist think and is on track with the Utopian view. I thought he made some very good points on the actual thinking process such as how the left strive to indiscriminate.
http://www.heritage.org/Press/Events/ev030507a.cfm
Is that the Evan Sayet link?
If not, that’s another GREAT speech to listen to/watch online.
Evan Sayet - Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals “Think”
yes it is
>>Just like we did with the Japanese. We should drop a couple of our biggest bombs on the middle east and bring them to there knees and knock some sense into them.<<
Don’t worry. We would.
That is one reason this scenario is not as likely as some think. Detonating a nuke in the US would be more suicidal for the perps and their country than most really understand. These Islamists are crazy, but not really all that stupid. I doubt we would have had a 911 if the parties involved had thought we would have nuked SA or Iran.
Rough nations = Rogue nations
Wrong.
The would-be terrorists have a much much higher likelihood of dying from radiation exposure in the time it would take to put one together.
Wrong.
Then they’d have to create a trigger mechanism—no easy task
Wrong.
and in some ways, much more difficult to figure out than getting the fissable materials
Wrong.
(itself almost impossible).
Wrong.
I would not have asked permission for this. I'd have gone ahead and done it and hang the consequences if it saves three American soldiers. Speaking of consequences, the people who blocked this wiretap should be fired from their jobs and escorted out of the office - in Baghdad, preferably.
You think a terrorist orginization could put together a nuclear weapon with out the recourses of a nation?
“When this awful event happens how will we respond? Will a President Obama negotiate a surrender?”
Yes, actually - I believe that’s EXACTLY what a “President Obama” would do.
Has he not ALREADY offered to meet with Islamic leaders, and “talk” about things? Straight out of Munich, 1938.
Paging Neville Chamberlain....
- John
Yep.
L
Or are you going to nuke the (un)holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Qom, just to make a point? (And essentially declare war on Islam...)
We won't nuke anybody, even if we're nuked. The Bleeding Hearts won't allow it.
Not exactly an argument there. Anyone can look up the facts and see that a suitcase nuke is a hollywood fantasy. It doesn’t exist and is nearly impossible to even try to make. What are your sources?
So... you’re saying that a terrorist nuclear attack on America is impossible because suitcase bombs cannot be built.
Hmmm...
Okay, obviously you think terrorists couldn’t put a big warhead in a cargo container and truck it in from Mexico.
In no way am I suggesting that we should not be vigilant, I’m just saying that the nuke explosion in DC scenario is the least likely of all possiblities involving the use of nuke material by terrorists.
A nuke warhead can’t just be rigged up to blow up like a time-bomb; so far, no one has shown me (or for that matter, anyone else) a triggering mechanism that could even approach being able to do what you seem to be contemplating. It just won’t work that easily—it takes teams of physicists and engineers billions of dollars and years of trying to come up with the technology to develop nuke warheads that detonate at, say, specific altitudes. I seriously don’t think that you can just hook up a PC and reprogram that so easily, if at all.
Mind you, I am not ruling out nuclear-tipped projectiles such as the W54, but I don’t think those are the types of weapons people have in mind when they think of nuclear terrorism. With that weapon, you’re talking a few blocks, down, at best at I believe a 1kt yield. Now something like that wouldn’t create havoc, but it’s not something that would cause a “decapitation”, which is what the Terrorists would want to do in DC or Tel Aviv. Likewise, SADMs are also not of sufficient yield for what, I think, most people think of when they think of a terrorist nuke. Plus, I think it’d be damn near impossible for terrorists to get one or figure out how to use one. Lebed said that 100 or so 1kt soviet “suitcase” bombs disappeared by 1997, but you have to believe that they would have used one by now if that were true.
I am not saying it’s impossible, but it’s a ridiculously expensive and inefficient way to start armageddon when they could easily put a nuke warhead, bought in North Korea or smuggled out of the Commonwealth, on a modified scud and hit tel aviv from just outside Teheran. That’s all i’m saying.
At any rate, miniaturization of nukes is a sophisticated process that only the US and Soviets are known to have accomplished. Iran is decades away from that. Now, it’s possible that some soviet stuff got into terrorist hands, but again these don’t have sufficient yield, if you ask me. Nearly all nuke experts agree that if there were such a thing in the hands of terrorists, it would have already been used. It’s not something they’re going to keep lying around.
Correction; a 1kt explosion would create havoc, not wouldn’t. Also, I have checked more sources and the W54 is more like 10-20 tons, not 1kt:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/DoSuitcaseNukesExist.html
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