Posted on 12/20/2001 10:32:38 PM PST by JustPiper
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:50:10 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Stay Safe & Cache all that may keep you and yours safe and sustained.
Not a chance! The only way I see us using any nukes would be if there was a military coup backed by the people. Remember this is not a war on religion. Islam must be protected at all cost. If a nuke goes off, I expect to see a federal law passed requiring any non-muslim U.S. citizen to publicly kiss at least one muslim rear end a day to show we are not anti-islam. A muslim family will be moved into the White House as permanent house guest....if it is still standing.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
China has built and successfully tested a miniaturized suitcase sized neutron bomb.
China closely supports Iraq and AlQaeda. Bin Laden gave two US cruise missiles to China after 1998.
Red mercury used in making miniaturized neutron bombs (baseball sized)was found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors.
Sam Cohen the father of the neutron bomb has written that red mercury can be used to make baseball sized neutron bombs for suitcase weapons. That is his science and not his speculation. Cohen also reported that red mercury had been found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors
It is very possible that China has helped Iraq develop a neutron bomb and that Iraq could give a suitcase neutron bomb to AlQaeda and Bin Laden to bring into the US. China for that matter could also directly give a suitcase sized neutron bomb to AlQaeda and Bin LAden.
Small tac nukes are scary enough without going off into tinfoil land. I don't think Chris Shays was smoking dope when he cited the number of missing Soviet nukes. The main question is a matter of whether these things have a long shelf life and whether they can be maintained in the field.
As for the argument that if they had them they would have used them: Hijacking is simple, so why ain't it happening every day? They planned and waited for what they thought was the optimal time and place. So it will be with coming attacks, nuclear or otherwise.
Makes you wonder doesn't it? Did they get in trouble for publishing it? Good thing freepers got it before it 'disappeared'!
Here is some information attributed to Sam Cohen on the existence and use of Red Mercury :
According to Sam Cohen, a new type of non-nuclear explosive is potent enough to light off a nuclear fusion reaction between deuterium and tritium. In the usual H-bomb, a fission bomb is needed as a match to light off the fusion. With the new type of explosive, the fission bomb is unnecessary. As nuclear bombs go, the pure fusion bombs have an extremely low blast, equivalent to 1 ton of TNT: a "pop, not a bang." But they release a flood of neutrons, lethal within 1/3 mile, causing death "from immediately, till shortly after."
They could be made by several countries known to sponsor terrorism, and could be carried in a sandwich bag. The new type of non-nuclear explosives are called ballotechnic materials. Cohen says that unlike other explosives, they produce no bang, no cloud, keep the same shape while they detonate, "but Boy!, do they get hot!" Ballotechnics may have already led to very small fission bombs as well as pure fusion.
Cohen identifies the mysterious "red mercury" (of TV documentary fame) as a ballotechnic material. He offers this "recipe:" take mercury-antimony oxide, compress it, and bombard with neutrons. He says it is slightly radioactive, with a half-life of a couple of days. Cohen says the Russians have built and tested mini-nukes, and that Americans and Russians are cooperating on pure fusion. He says that a Russian bomb was brought to Los Alamos ("by Federal Express" from a Russian plane in Washington) and successfully tested. .....
The terrorist potential of mini neutron bombs is horrifying. One possibility mentioned by Cohen involved a US State Of The Union address.
(Source for the above information:http://www.quackgrass.com/roots/ddp95.html)
Here is even more information attributed to Sam Cohen about neutron bombs and red mercury.
Most frightening for Cohen is the relative ease by which neutron bombs can be created with a substance called red mercury. Red mercury is a compound containing mercury that has undergone massive irradiation. When exploded, it creates tremendous heat and pressure - the same type needed to trigger a fusion device such as a mini-neutron bomb. Before, an obstacle to creating a nuclear bomb was the need for plutonium, which when exploded could create a fusion reaction in hydrogen atoms. But red mercury has changed that. The cheap substance has been produced in Russia, Cohen said, and shipped on the black market throughout the world.
Cohen said that when U.N. inspectors went to Iraq to examine the Iraqis' nuclear weapons capabilities, the U.N. team found documents showing that they had purchased quantities of red mercury. The material means a neutron bomb can be built "the size of baseball" but able to kill everyone within several square blocks.
(Source for the above information is http://www.manuelsweb.com/sam_cohen.htm)
And here is what others have reported about red mercury and nuclear weapons:
(http://www.antenna.nl/wise/368/3616.html)
published by WISE News Communique on March 6, 1992
Red mercury may be bomb detonator
It has been confirmed from several sources that the substance red mercury can be used as a chemical high-explosive to detonate nuclear bombs.
(368.3616) WISE-Stockholm- There has been widespread speculation about the use of the material, especially since it has become part of the post-Soviet black market (see WISE News Communique 366.3594). .......
According to Jonathan Eyal, director of the royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies (which is connected to the British Department of Defence) in London, England, "Red mercury is definitely used in the production of nuclear weapons with Soviet technology. Red mercury is of great interest to third world countries that want to make nuclear bombs, because the technology is different and cheaper than that used in the west. There is information from government sources in Bulgaria and Georgia that a type of red mercury is used in the nuclear weapons production process. Red mercury is used as a detonator, an ignition material, to make the bomb itself explode. The fact is that a very large black market exists for red mercury and there are many buyers prepared to pay in the range of millions."
Further confirmation comes from the USA, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and the IAEA.
In early February the IAEA stated that "red mercury can be used as a detonator in nuclear weapons."
The Czech news agency CSTK announced last September that "red mercury is a strategic material used in the production of nuclear weapons." In Hungary, Professor Gyorgy Marx, head of the nuclear physics department at Budapest University, has pointed out that, "Red mercury 20/20 can cause the type of explosion needed to start a nuclear reaction in a plutonium loaded nuclear weapon."
And in Italy, Judge Romano Dolce in Milano presided over a case where two kilograms red mercury are reported to have been sold for US$800,000. He said, "Red mercury is not a bluff, but a business for weapons purposes. Red mercury is viewed as an important ingredient in production of nuclear weapons and buyers are prepared to pay millions of dollars for it."
The monthly Arms Control Reporter, published by the Institute of Defense and Disarmament Studies in Boston, USA, quotes (in its October 1991 issue) Czechoslovakian sources as stating that, "Red mercury is a substance used to detonate nuclear bombs." David Bowersox, a top official at the Lost Alamos National Laboratory in the US, a center for nuclear weapons research and production since 1945, has stated, "Red mercury can function as a detonator for nuclear weapons because of the strength of its explosion. It could also be used in a cleaning process for plutonium or uranium".
Source: Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden), 10 Feb. 1992.
Uh-oh
Pucker Factor:
The degree to which one is in mortal terror while excecuting a dangerous task. Term credited to USAF A-10 pilots flying ground-attack missions
Could there be one of these devices in the U.S.? Unlikely, but not impossible. But many facts in this article are simply wrong.
• There aren't any of these devices made by the Soviets that are unaccounted for. (That was the allegation of a Russian presidential candidate a few years back, long since discredited.)
• The report about one of these weapons being intercepted in Israel has only seriously appeared in a previous Richard Sale article, and has been widely discredited by other sources.
• Finally, the allegation in this article that these weapons could be operated by one person is arguable at best. While they can be theoretically carried by one person, the weapons are estimated to weigh between 200-300 lbs. (Thus, the popular description of these as "backpack" nukes is not really accurate.) One person could carry one of these weapons, but not very far, and not without attracting a certain amount of attention. The assembly would also be difficult for a single person to accomplish, although again, it would probably be possible.
Keep reports like this in perspective. And whenever you see that "Richard Sale" byline, put the BS detector on extra-sensitive.
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.