Posted on 09/12/2002 10:15:38 AM PDT by Brytani
Fox News just broke in with an alert. Special Op's are now searching a Liberian flagged ship 8 miles off the coast of NJ looking for nuclear material. More information to follow.
Under water hatches on cargo ships were used by the Soviets decades ago to launch frogmen. One US destroyer in Hong Kong put to sea, and discovered a big chunk of its sonar dome had been "surgically" sliced out and removed. This is also an easy way to bring agents in and out of "denied areas" where ships and airports are closely watched.
One method would be to drop a nuke in a welded watertight capsule from the bottom of a ship when it was in a US port with a timer or other detonation device. Such a nuke could already have been dropped while the ship was in harbor.
9/12 National surface wind map - http://my.weather.com/maps/activity/aviation/uscurrentsurfacewinds_large.html
Winds offshore of NYC out of the NW 5-15kts but not nearly as gusty as yesterday. That's good if there is actually something "bad" on that ship.
jriemer
9/12 National surface wind map - http://my.weather.com/maps/activity/aviation/uscurrentsurfacewinds_large.html
Winds offshore of NYC out of the NW 5-15kts but not nearly as gusty as yesterday. That's good if there is actually something "bad" on that ship.
jriemer
For those who aren't familiar with these terms, traditional cargo vessels carried their cargo in large spaces called holds. Simplified, the cargo was loaded in any manner of container it arrived in (crates, drums, barrels, sacks).
The majority of cargo is comes to the ship pre-packaged in containers that look very similar to a semi trailer without the wheels and simly lifted onto the ship. These containers can hold all sorts of cargo in their own packing (crates, barrels, boxes, sacks).
Most container ships still have some internal holds but these are limited in size and are usually used for shipboard purposes only.
What we don't know right now is whether this signature is coming from the ship or from a container, but is most likely coming from a container. Keep in mind, besides the possible sinister threat, this container could have previously been used for moving certain other materials including hospital waste.
!!!
When the ship arrives? At that point, wouldn't it be to late?
Yep- they also need to check every single place in the US that ship has been for about the last year or so and search them. I wonder when the last time that ship was inspected was? Surely it makes many trips back and forth to the US.
TERRORIST NUKES - The Truth Is Out There
Terrorist nukes come in two types - comic book and really scary. What you know is probably wrong and what you don't know can kill you (see http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html - fortunately no American teenagers work for Al Qaeda). Most people worry about the former due to media cluelessness, deliberate falsification for political purposes, and general unwillingness to study a gruesome subject.
There is good news, bad news and worse news. The good news is that the most common conception of a "dirty" bomb, aka radiological device, is the least dangerous and least likely to be used. A radiological weapon which spreads radioactive materials around with an explosive charge is the least effective form of such devices due to the their relatively low energy plus the inverse square law - radioactive energy decreases as the square of the distance from the source. Dispersing radioactive material over a wide area makes it less lethal. Furthermore such radioactive material has half-lives measured in years and so is inherently less dangerous than "fallout" (half-life of hours/days).
Basically the exercise is pointless save to make nukaphobics go "Eeek!" and cost us billions in cleanup expenses. America has plenty of money. Ordinary explosives of the same mass are more effective against people, as the Iraqis learned during experiments.
It would be easier for terrorists to use existing high-energy radioactive point sources, used in medicine and food-processing, as expedient suicide radiological weapons. Authorities haven't considered suicide terrorists here.
Example - irradiation devices for food-processing are so potent that they can inflict lethal doses in seconds on persons who touch them, and incapacitate in a few hours. But one suicide terrorist could hack off a smaller chunk, drop it in a not-very shielded portable container, toss that to a better-shielded friend, and they leave. The first dies quickly. The second drives to a target (ballpark, theater, shopping mall, etc.), hauls the violently radioactive chunk out and sits there until he starts vomiting. Hundreds or even thousands of people could receive lethal doses without knowing it until days later. That is really scary.
Worse, there is no evidence of inventory controls to promptly notice theft of these devices, let alone security against their theft. But few terrorists have the fortitude to die that way. Most 9/11 hijackers didn't know their fate - some refused to hire prostitutes the week before because the ladies' prices were too high.
The most dangerous and likely radiological weapon of foreign origin consists of a "fizzle" – ineffective detonation of a small, concealable, xSoviet tactical nuke whose fissionable trigger has decayed to the point where its explosive yield is similar to that of an aircraft bomb (say 500 pounds - several tons of TNT). This would create a horrible radioactive mess as the radioactive energy in a tactical nuke's fallout is produced by the short-lived (and therefore high-energy & terribly poisonous) isotopes formed from the 99% of the trigger not turned into energy. Here there'd be far less radiation than from a full detonation (though incredibly more than from a device using greater amounts of less energetic radioactive material), but all would be confined to a small area - one to several city blocks instead of dozens of square miles. Several thousand people could die.
The bad news is that Al Qaeda likely has obtained at least one, and probably several, such devices from Russian criminals. The worse news is that Al Qaeda, or its successors, will probably obtain some real nuclear weapons, almost certainly from Pakistan.
Pakistan's nukes are the greatest threat because its army and security/intelligence service (ISI) guarding them are infested with Islamic fanatics who for years had an overt alliance with Al Qaeda to gain control of the Pakistani government, plus further Pakistani interests in Afghanistan and Kashmir. This alliance still exists concerning Kashmir, and that's not all.
The ISI's then chief, General Mahmud Ahmad, was in Washington on 9/11. That might have been coincidental, Al Qaeda's attempt to "dirty" the ISI, or evidence of misuse of diplomatic immunity to provide C3I for the 9/11 attacks. But the Times of India reported last October that General Ahmad had ordered payment of $100,000 to WTC attacker Mohammed Atta, and that he was fired as ISI chief when the US learned of this.
President Musharraf is trying to end these relationships, but he could be replaced at any time with an Islamic fanatic general. Pakistan is a failing, terrorist-supporting, state whose army is filled with Islamic fanatics that hate us almost as much as Osama bin Laden does. He might not have nukes yet, but will likely get them from his Pakistani friends once Musharraf loses power, either with permission or during the chaos after a coup.
Agreed. The sea bottom along the path of the ship should be checked for anything unusual. Chances are the plan of terrorists would be to retrieve the "package(s)" at a later time.
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