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These are from 2001, the FBI is still hunting the nukes.

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FBI Focus: Portable (Suitcase/Backpack)
Nukes

http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20122001-044906-9007r.htm

FBI focusing on portable nuke threat
Nicholas Horrock
Senior White House Correspondent

Published 12/21/2001

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (UPI) -- The leading congressional expert on
Russia's small portable nuclear weapons told United Press
International that the FBI has stepped up its investigation of whether
al Qaida or other terrorist groups have acquired these deadly devices
from Russian stockpiles.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the Research and Development
Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday
that he was briefed by the FBI late last week and that the investigation
of whether terrorist groups have weapons of mass destruction,
particularly nuclear devices, is now a top priority at the bureau after
years of indifference.

"Now they're looking at everything and following up on every lead,"
Weldon said. It was Weldon, through his R&D subcommittee, who
produced over past three years some of the most exhaustive and
startling information about the Russian stockpile of weapons that
could be an advantage to Osama bin Laden, his al Qaida network or
other terrorist groups.

"The question is whether or not bin Laden has had access to nuclear
material," Weldon said. "I think it is better than a 50-50 chance that
he does."

"Do I think he has a small atomic demolition munitions, which were
built by the Soviets in the Cold War? Probably doubtful," Weldon said.
But he added that after Sept. 11 the FBI could not avoid running every
lead to ground.

In 1997, Weldon brought former Russian security chief Gen. Alexander
Lebed before his committee. Lebed testified that perhaps 100 small
nuclear devices were missing from inventories under his control.
Lebed said the devices were a "perfect terrorist weapon," made to
look like suitcases, "and could be detonated by one person with less
than 30 minutes of preparation," according to committee documents.

The Russian government immediately tried to discredit Lebed's
testimony, but Weldon's committee brought a prominent Russian
weapons scientist, Aleksey Yablokov, before the committee in 1998
who reported that he knew the Russians produced small nuclear
weapons for combat use.

Yablokov was vilified when he returned to Moscow as a "traitor" for his
testimony. Yablokov sued one major Russian magazine over this
vilification, Weldon said, and won a 30,000-ruble judgment against
the publication.

Perhaps the most startling testimony came from a defector from the
Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, who testified in 1998
that the Russians secretly pre-positioned weapons, including small
nuclear devices, in the U.S. and other countries around the world to
be used for sabotage by its agents in time of war.

This witness said it was his job while working undercover in
Washington from 1988 to 1992 as a correspondent for the Russian
news agency Tass to locate places where these weapons could be
hidden both around Washington and in other parts of the country.

Weldon has described the weapons in this testimony as "small nuclear
weapons that can fit into a knapsack or a briefcase or suitcase and are
designed to be delivered and detonated by one or two people."

He created a mock-up of one in a suitcase form that he uses in
speeches and Congressional hearings based on descriptions from
Russian sources. He keeps the mock-up in his office.

A Federation of American Scientists compilation, titled Soviet
Weapons, notes that there is very little information in the public venue
about the size and destructive power of the small weapons. The U.S.
backpack nuke weighs 163 pounds and can be carried by one or two
men. One Russian naval arms compilation talks about small portable
nuclear weapons weighing from 59 pounds to 154 pounds.

The yield, too, is hard to pin down. One former American scientist who
worked at the Department of Energy labs said that the "Davy
Crocket," which was the small bomb later converted to special
operations, had a one-kiloton explosive power and would level the
Capitol Building and everything in a half mile radius. It also would
spread radioactive waste across a wide area of Washington. The bomb
the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons. (Each kiloton has an
explosive power equal to 1,000 tons of TNT.)

The GRU witness, who testified using a pseudonym, Col. Stanislaw
Lunez, said that even after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the
Russians continued to frame war plans against a range of Western
nations including the U.S.

"According to Soviet military plans, very well advanced, maybe a few
months, maybe a few weeks, of course, a few hours before real war
would be placed against his country (the U.S.), Russian Special
Operations Forces need to come here and pick up weapons systems,
because they will fly here as tourists, businessmen.

"According to their tasking, in a few hours they need to physically
destroy, eliminate American military chains of command, President,
Supreme Commander in Chief, Vice President, Speaker of the House,
military commanders, especially to cut the head from the American
military chain of command," Lunev said.

He said that the Russians had a plan to sabotage industrial,
communications and power targets as well.

Weldon said later the FBI discredited Lunev, saying that he
exaggerated things, but another federal agency that Weldon declined
to identify protects Lunev in an undisclosed location in the U.S. He
said Lunev's credentials as a ranking GRU spy assigned to the U.S.
have never been questioned.

Later Vasily Mitrokhin, a KGB official, disclosed in his best-selling book
"The Sword and the Shield" that the Soviets had secreted weapons
and explosives near NATO facilities throughout Europe for use in a
war. Weldon said that Belgian officials located and dug up some
caches near NATO's headquarters.

The backpack nukes are part of some 12,000 tactical nuclear weapons
that the Russians possessed in 1991 when they agreed to a unilateral
arms reduction with the first Bush Administration. The Russians were
to destroy 2,000 warheads a year from 1991, which would suggest
there is only a handful left.

The U.S. destroyed the bulk of its weapons, but Weldon said that
there is no evidence that the Russians have conducted such a
program.

"That's part of the problem. I've continually called for a treaty with
Russian and really a worldwide effort to ban or to limit tactical nukes,"
Weldon said.

"There has been no effort and we have had no success in getting
Russia to decrease their tactical nukes. They feel they act as a buffer
for Europe; the proximity of European countries. We just don't know
whether they have total control of their atomic munitions."

-EOF-

Source: http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/160694.html

US Investigating Whether Nukes In Country
Posted Dec. 21, 2001
By Richard Sale

Federal law enforcement officials are investigating to determine whether
sleeper cells or freelance agents of Saudi terrorist mastermind Osama bin
Laden may have smuggled small, portable nuclear weapons or radiological
bombs into the United States.

The deepest concern centers on the chance that bin Laden has acquired and
will use a finished nuclear weapon. Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., chairman of
the House subcommittee on national security, told United Press
International: "It's possible, and it's very scary."

He added: "If you asked me if bin Laden really had these weapons, I would
say, probably not, but, on the other hand, I wouldn't be the least
surprised if there were a nuclear explosion in Israel or the United States."

One report currently being investigated by U.S. intelligence officials came
from Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence sources who had conducted an
interrogation of a "terrorist suspect" in early November. Under "coercion,"
the suspect said that agents of bin Laden had smuggled two portable nuclear
weapons into the United States, according to the report seen by a U.S.
government expert.

The government expert, who has had access to the Pakistani investigation,
said ISI provided "the highest levels of the U.S. government" with
materials from the ISI interrogation including a summary of the suspect's
confession, which this source had seen. The summary did not give the
specific dates of the smuggling, the method, or time of entry. The suspect
said only that the smuggling had been carried out, the U.S. government
expert said.

The sources of the report "were current ISI officers who had kept contact
with U.S. counterparts" they had known from the 1980s, this U.S. government
expert said. The summary was accompanied by "collateral" or supporting
documents, he said. The package was given to senior U.S. officials in
mid-November.

The ISI had not rated the report's credibility but felt it important enough
to alert the U.S. government, this source said.

"What was disconcerting about the (suspect's) information was that he knew
details of the activation of the weapons and their construction that are
not in the public domain," the U.S. expert analyst said.

It could be a nuclear backpack weapon "or some other Russian portable
nuclear weapon," he said.

National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack, asked Thursday about
the report, had no comment but echoed past statements that the
administration is working to ensure that bin Laden does not acquire or use
any weapons of mass destruction.

On Dec. 4, the FBI put 18,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies on "highest
alert" because intelligence culled from sources around the globe indicated
the United States could expect a new bin Laden attack between mid-December
and the holidays. The alert continues.

The FBI has dissolved its central command post, established after the Sept.
11 attacks, and set up separate counterterrorism teams. "They are all out
on the street, that's all I can tell you. They are out on the street
looking," an FBI official said.

Jim Ford, a former Department of Energy intelligence official who dealt
with nuclear smuggling, said: "The big, big fear is that nuclear weapons
have been sold" to terrorists or nation states that sponsor terror.

Peter Probst, formerly of the Pentagon's Office of Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, did not know of
the Pakistani report, but said that there is "a great fear" within the Bush
administration of a spectacular, follow-on strike by bin Laden aimed at
decapitating the U.S. government, using either a finished nuke or a
radiological device -- a core of conventional explosive wrapped inside
nuclear waste such as iodine 131.

Probst acknowledged that, in connection with the latest terror alert, he
had spoken with U.S. government officials who had expressed concern over
Russian-made "backpack weapons and nuclear suitcase bombs."

Shays said that official records had confirmed that Russia had produced 132
such weapons and that currently 48 remain unaccounted for. All disappeared
from Russian arsenals.

Shays added: "We know that bin Laden made strenuous efforts to buy these
weapons, we know that security at some Russian nuclear arsenals was
terrible, we know that some Russian officials were corrupt. We are told of
attempted thefts and of plots that were foiled, but we are never told of
the plots that succeeded."

Probst said: "It would seem probable that some (bin Laden) deals for
purchasing weapons did go through."

Because of this nagging fear, the FBI is monitoring the major port cities
of the United States mainland including New York, Los Angeles, and San
Francisco, among others, according to federal law enforcement sources.

Federal authorities are checking any "suspicious" cash rentals of trucks or
leases of private aircraft, including flight plans, since a small, portable
nuclear weapon could be dropped by terrorists via parachute into a remote
area and retrieved by other cell members, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Air freight, thought by U.S. intelligence sources to be particularly
vulnerable, is also being carefully monitored because, according to Probst,
"25 percent of air freight is carried by passenger aircraft and is never
inspected."

A nightmare scenario would be a hostile nuke exploded aboard a plane by
means of a carefully adjusted barometric detonator rigged to go off on
landing, said Probst, adding: "You could have a multiple take-down of
aircraft."

"We are not neglecting any possibility in this -- we can't afford to, no
matter how farfetched it seems," an FBI official told UPI.

According to U.S. intelligence officials, the weapons could easily have
been smuggled in by ship, if the Pakistan report proves to be accurate. "We
have zip port security," one such official said.

Stephen Flynn, senior fellow for national security studies at the Council
on Foreign Relations, said: "The United States has 16,000 ships entering
its ports every day. Adding in shipments entering by truck, train or air
freight, the total of import shipments to the United States is 21.4 million
per year."

He concluded: "You could put a nuclear or a chemical weapon in a container
aboard a ship leaving Karachi, and that ship will land at Vancouver or
Oakland, San Francisco, or the Gulf Coast, and we would never know the
difference."

Flynn added that only 3 percent of ship containers ever get inspected.

Stefan Leader, president of Eagle Research and consultant for the
Department of Energy, said that bin Laden is known to own 23 ships
registered to various companies in various countries. Once on the high
seas, "such ships are really difficult to find from a defense point of
view," he said.

Russian backpack weapons are also a worrisome priority in the current
alert. Said one former senior CIA official: "It's not a big reach at all to
say that it's probable that bin Laden has been able to obtain this system."

The Soviet nuclear backpack system was made in the 1960s for use against
NATO targets in time of war, U.S. intelligence sources said. It consists of
three "coffee can-sized" aluminum canisters, which must be connected before
detonation. In wartime, the system required a crew of five, including a
commander, radio officer and three Army non-coms.

The weapon was formerly in the custody of the Ninth Directorate of the KGB,
responsible for executive protection. Assigning a nuclear weapon to such a
group was like "assigning a nuclear system to the secret service," a second
senior CIA official said. Other CIA officials said that assigning the
weapon to that directorate probably meant that the teams "were close to the
Soviet leadership."

According to information derived from SVR defectors and given the CIA, the
three aluminum canisters are carried in green canvas cases with pockets on
the outside. All three must be connected to make a single unit in order to
explode. The detonator is about 6" long and carried in a "knife-like
sheaf." It has a 3-to-5 kiloton yield, depending on the efficiency of the
explosion, U.S. intelligence sources told UPI.

It is kept powered during storage by a battery line connected to the canisters.

During the first week of October, Israel's Mossad was reported to have
detained a Palestinian attempting to enter Jerusalem from Ramallah who was
wearing such a system on his back. The item was contained in a CIA Daily
Threat Report. UPI has several times re-interviewed its sources who
insisted that the item was in a such a report the first week of October.

Initially, there were conflicting reports as to whether the pack contained
a radiological weapon or a nuclear system. UPI re-interviewed the sources
who saw the Daily Report item, and they insisted that the weapon was
nuclear, not radiological.

Had the Palestinian been carrying a segment or the whole system? Israel has
steadfastly refused to comment, but a former senior CIA official told UPI
Sunday "the system is very small and could be easily carried and used by
one person." There would be "no necessity to take it in segments."

Another former CIA official said that the Soviet backpack device "was a
plutonium implosion" device and, said that UPI's description of it "is
accurate. The physics work."

Probst said of the Mossad item, "I don't discount the report at all. If bin
Laden were going nuclear, a backpack weapon is the way he would go."

The backpack system remains classified and is not to be confused with a
nuclear suitcase bomb, even though the two are often talked of as though
they were interchangeable.

A nuclear suitcase bomb is "as large as two footlockers," said former CIA
countererrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro. "Bin Laden hasn't got any
suitcase bombs. That's just total crap."

But Shays pointed out that "evidence isn't conclusive, and since it isn't,
we have to work with the worst case."

According to former Soviet military intelligence officer Stanislav Lunev,
suitcase bombs are actually Soviet-made RA-115s that can't be transported
by suitcase. According to Cary Sublette in an article for the Federation of

American Scientists, "Osama Suitcase Bombs and Ex-Soviet Loose Nukes," they
weigh about 60 pounds and have a yield of one kiloton. The dimensions of
the suitcase bomb are 24"x16"x 8."

They are difficult to set up, said Lunev, because a small current of power
is needed to store the weapon safely near its detonation site. This means
the operator of the weapon would need to run a fine wire up to a power
line. If someone discovered the wire powering the weapon and tried to walk
it back, the wire is so fine it would break, he said. If the battery in the
weapon runs low, then the backpack was programmed to send a signal to a
Soviet satellite or the nearest consulate.

If any one tampers with it, the nuclear materials are disabled, Lunev said.

Shays said that the Soviets had even made small nuclear weapons "that look
like rocks," a fact confirmed by Lunev.

The sources of UPI's information on the backpack weapons came from CIA
debriefings of SVR intelligence officers who had trained on the weapons.

Regarding the latest terror alert, "The pucker factor is very high," a
former senior CIA official said.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Continuity of Government procedures have been
in place that ensure, for example, that the president and vice president
never occupy the same spot at the same time. They also provide for the
orderly succession of power should a top U.S. leader be killed.

Some U.S. experts are skeptical of the use by terrorists of an "all-up" or
finished nuclear weapon. Leader, while conceding that reports of any
possible nuclear attacks must be treated seriously, said he still thinks
use of portable nukes by terrorists is "a low probability scenario."

Much more likely is the use of a radiological bomb or Radiological
Dispersal Device, chiefly "because it's simpler to make and easier to use,"
he said. Probst agreed with this.

But Larry Johnson, a former State Department counterterrorism official,
downplayed the threat, saying that while there should be concern over any
nuclear threat, he believes that the present concerns are "exaggerated." He
said: "It's not like a nuclear weapon has an eternal shelf life. If you
don't use one by such and such a date, you're likely not to be able to use
it at all. Look at your lawn mower that you left in the garage all winter
-- it requires some work before you can use it again."

The truth remains hard to come by. One administration official said that
nuclear threats are handled by "a host of highly-secret, highly
compartmented programs, requiring a Special Compartmentalized Information
clearance.

He declined to comment on the Pakistan report or any other threat issues.

And even Johnson conceded that U.S. concerns over terrorist nuclear weapons
"can't be dismissed out of hand."

Ignorance is what tortures U.S. intelligence officials as the terror alert
continues, especially the question of how many loose nukes were floating
around after the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991. "What's
reallykilling us is all that we don't know," said a former senior U.S. CIA
official. "There is so much we simply don't know, and because of that, we
can't separate fact from conjecture."

-EOF-

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