Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities

FoxNews ^ | Feb. 24, 2003 | FoxNews

[FairOpinion]

WASHINGTON

[pfflier]

Saddam Hussein would love to take credit for any type of homeland attack against the USA.

I doubt it. He will only use surrogate attackers (like Al Queda) because he is such a chicken$#it.

[FairOpinion]

"One R/C model airplane can hold a very small amount of agent, which means its lethal footprint is going to be very small."
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Suppose they get a 100 toy-airplanes and release each over school yards during recess, parks, beaches, a sports event, and maybe millions won't die, but thousands will. Just think of the panic that would cause. Just think of the panic a few letters with anthrax and deaths in single digits caused. (Every death is important, I don't try to minimize the loss of life during the anthrax attacks, but I am just trying to put it in context.) They don't need to kill millions, although they may. There are some of these chemical weapons, which stick to surfaces, and less than a milligram is lethal. And of course there are the biological weapons, like smallpox, where it may not be discovered until days later, by which time many more people are infected. The "Dark Winter" sallpox attack simulation started with just a few infected cases in I think just one city, and when they stopped it, worst case, there were over a million dead.

[FairOpinion]

"I hope that New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles (you know, where all the anti-US folks live) are on the short list"
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Hey, I live in LA!! And there are plenty of other conservatives, we just can't scream as loud.
But I think those cities most likely are on the "short list". My guess would be that the list would also have some smaller cities, that normally one wouldn't expect to be attacked, just to show that nobody is safe anywhere.

The tragedy is not that Saddam is willing to do these horrendous things, but that liberals are trying to keep us from defending ourselves, which in this case can only be done pro-actively, i.e. pre-emptively.

The longer we wait, the more time Saddam and the terrorists have to plan and mount an attack on us. Will the UN take responsibility, not to mention the Democrats?

[Jhoffa_]

Oh, goodness.. Who cares?

All this paranoia is ridiculous.

What's next, require all RC modlers to belicensed by the FAA?

You know, there ARE some risks inherent in a free society.

The government can't promise you complete protection from everything.. But they can certainly make your life miserable by trying.

IMO, our best defense against this kind of thing is deporting people who don't belong here, controlling our borders and making sure the people we do let in deserve to be here.

Otherwise we will just spend the rest of our lives jumping at shadows and passing Orwellian laws.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The lesson is not about Drudge in particular but about journalism in general. Journalism gets paid only by attracting attention, and to do that most easily/cheaply journalism produces negative, superficial reports.

And superficial negativity is cynicism--IOW, anticonservatism. Conservative commercially profitable general-interest journalism is essentially an oxymoron.

[KaiserofKrunch]

Just before they die, they'll blame it on Bush--He waited too long!

[FairOpinion]

You just pointed out how difficult, nearly impossible, it is to try to protect ourselves strictly defensively.

That's why we need to take out the sources of WMD, which would provide these weapons to terrorists.

A bomb exploding is sad and terrible, but nothing in comparison to people dying left and right from chemical and biological weapons.

The message I get from this article is not that we need to be afraid, or that we need to regulate ourselves out of existence, but that we take pro-active action ASAP, as in we are already way late, to take out Saddam, then the next and the next dictator/country who poses this kind of threat to us.

Without state sponsorship, the terrorists could blow up a few things, which, as I said, maybe sad, but no comparison in magnitude to an attack with WMD.

[null and void]

Nothing will convince them. If terrorists attack they will argue that we deserved it.

Aren't they doing that about 9/11 already???

[Jhoffa_]

You just pointed out how difficult, nearly impossible, it is to try to protect ourselves strictly defensively.

And that's exactly what makes me angry about this.. It's fearmongering.

Personally.. While I support the war, I am not afraid of Saddam and don't think he poses a significant threat to us domestically. I think he should be taken out for moral reasons, however.

This sounds like fearmongering and scare tactics to increase support for the War in Iraq and that bothers me.

[Jhoffa_]

PS: Turn this whole thing around for a second and think about a (gasp!) horrible "chemical attack" from Saddam, or Osama, Or both of them or whatever..

Now, instead of running around scared to death of a 2 lb remote controlled plane.. Think about some guy with a garden sprayer protruding through the bed of his pickup.. driving through town.

This is just fearmongering.

[farmguy]

Knew some folks that worked for a Texas autopilot company that built these things for what they described as being a "commercial customer".

All the control servos were standard RC stuff right from a hobby shop. Used a 20 hp two cycle (big weed eater) engine. Could do fully autonomic flight for eight hours on internal autopilot (slaved to GPS). Could carry ~100 lb payload. Cost about $15k to build.

[FairOpinion]

You can call it fearmongering. I would call it "reality check" for those who seem to be living in denial about the threat posed to us by Iraq.

The administration is "damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't." If they try to keep the people from knowing the severity of the threat, they are being accused of "not having made the case", if they do try to convey the seriousness of the situation, they are accused of fear mongering.

[Paleo Conservative]

Aren't they doing that about 9/11 already???

True, but it will increase exponentially.

[Jhoffa_]

Sure, you can go online and buy the parts right now..

Probably do it with a $10.00 PIC microcontroller, GPS, accelerometer and gyro.

You can get a garden sprayer at WalMart for about $10.00 also and a use pickup for a few thousand..

Or, you could use a large, industrial tank and an onboard compressor to pressurize it (maybe even put the vehicles own AC compressor and magnetic clutch to use here and save about $20.00) if you need more volume..

Or, you could do a million, zillion other things for a few thousand bucks.

This is just complete paranoia, what I am seeing here..

It's amazing. I have never been so ashamed of the US.

I can practically hear people duct taping themselves in their houses as I type.

[Jhoffa_]

The case is made..

He broke the deal that ended the war, so.. obviously it should resume. He's a war criminal, because he scudded the Jews (who were innocent bystanders) and torched the Kuait oil fields.

Let's go get him, I am all for it.

But don't hand me a roll of duct tape and tell me Saddam is going to kill us all in our sleep with RC planes.

Come on..

[GOPJ]

Maybe they should just wonder...

Bush needs to announce, publicly, and clearly, what the immediate, unilateral American response to any such attack would be.

[Poohbah]

Suppose they get a 100 toy-airplanes and release each over school yards during recess, parks, beaches, a sports event, and maybe millions won't die, but thousands will.

More like "tens will die."

Seriously, there's limits on how much payload an R/C plane can carry. 100 planes equals 100 operators flying them, and the tangos will start having OPSEC issues. Also, R/C planes ain't the easiest things to fly.

There are some of these chemical weapons, which stick to surfaces, and less than a milligram is lethal.

IN THEORY, less than a milligram is lethal.

The problem is distributing a small quantity of agent so that lots of people come in contact with a milligram.

It's not easy to solve.

And of course there are the biological weapons, like smallpox, where it may not be discovered until days later, by which time many more people are infected. The "Dark Winter" sallpox attack simulation started with just a few infected cases in I think just one city, and when they stopped it, worst case, there were over a million dead.

The "Dark Winter" worst-case scenario specifically excluded standard prophylactic techniques and assumed that the average American was dumb as a box of rocks.

[Cynderbean]

Does anyone have any resources on what drones (or specific airplanes) look like underneath (to people on the ground)?

[da_toolman]

12 gauge? Nah, 7MM mag. Reckon that was a bit more range to it.

[FairOpinion]

"The "Dark Winter" worst-case scenario specifically excluded standard prophylactic techniques and assumed that the average American was dumb as a box of rocks. "
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Ummm.... I could call that "realistic". Just take a look at the protesters and the liberals and then tell me that they aren't "as dumb as a box of rocks". In fact I take a box of rocks any day, it's quiet.