TERROR OF BIN LADEN'S 20 BACKPACK NUKES developing

Drudgereport.com ^ | drudge

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

PAPER: Osama bin Laden has bought nuclear firepower from renegade KGB agents, Tony Blair and George Bush have been warned... Developing...

[NautiNurse]

The Red Whale Flies At Night

Is that anything like, "Don't drink the coffee! There was a fish in the percolator!"?

[SSN558]

Ladies and Gentlemen the evening prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep, i pray the lord my soul to keep. If OBL detonates the suitcase Nukes tonight, Please god let them vaporize Berkley and San Francisco first. I will puke protons with delight knowing the leftists got to hell a few days in advance. Amen.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Drudge reads too much DEBKA.

[El Gato]

Looks like a tabloid to me.

That's the UK, if there's not a naked babe on the cover, or at least a teaser for one on the inside, it's not a tabloid in the sense of the types you find at the supermarket checkout here in the US.

[El Gato]

The half-life of the triggers for such atomic weapons is typically 60 days, after that, the weapon requires new radioactive material (as well as specialized electronincs maintenance).

The hardest part of making a bomg is getting the plutonium or fissionable uranium in sufficient quantity. Although making an implosion type device is no trivial matter either. Still, 20 backpack or suitcase nukes would surely provide enough material for a handfull of cruder, but still effective, devices, would it not?

If they had something they thought would go boom, they'd have used it already. Perhaps there is some fire amoungst all the backpack smoke, but they haven't yet fabricated the devices using the "Soviet Surplus" materials just yet.

[Southack]

Check the last paragraph of Post #97.

[cmiller623]

With this news, will somebody please tell me why the government continues to drag their feet in getting an anti-radiation drug approved quickly? AFRRI continues to plod along with testing on dogs and won't move into monkeys. We need this drug more so than the smallpox innoculation. For those of you who don't know, the drug is being developed by HollisEden Pharmaceuticals with a CRADA from the government. It would protect people from exposure to radiation from a nuclear bomb. Wonderful results on both rats and dogs....

[GOPJ]

bump

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Greetings! You possess a more realistic threat assessment.

Imagine the effect of several re-engineered dirty bomb "backpack/briefcase" nukes detonated as a coordinated attack against the USA and/or her allies. In a package which overcomes all the messy details of keeping it within the "backpack/briefcase" size limitation, expired initiators, and are easy to come by: http://www.uscg.mil/overview/article_meeting.htm

Our enemy is very resourceful. Before 9/11, who ever thought carefully timed, fully fueled passenger airliners would be used as cruise missles?

[A CA Guy]

It is a question that should be addressed at the next White House briefing.
I would think this is bunk and is a story to build up Osama who only perhaps has flagulent camels for weapons.

[TennTuxedo]

If even one were to be detonated, the entire Islamic world would be annihlated quickly and thouroughly by a furious United States. If they had even one that would work, they would have already detonated it in Israel, their biggest enemy.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Yesh... I'm glad someone threw some calm into the mix. Living near and owning property outside of Washington D.C. is quickly becoming my next thing to get away from. I just need a few years to wrap up details...

[Ronin]

Damn, but FReepers are a brainy bunch. I've learned more about nukes on this thread than I ever thought possible.

[Sender]

limited shelf life

Didn't both the US and the Soviets pre-position ADM's that could sit buried for years? With a very simple fission device, it would seem that all you'd need is a new battery, tops. Or maybe they kept some important part out of the "suitcase", to be supplied by the activating troops when the need arose?

[CJ Wolf]

Is that duct tape? If it is...we are all doomed. Those darn Russians are smarter then we thought.

[CJ Wolf]

Maybe they got some replacement sucide triggers set up.

[Brad C.]

It's just not in their best interest to nuke Israel, they want to live there too.

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

let them vaporize Berkley and San Francisco first

That would be my nightmare scenario. I'd rather let the Bay area contain those nutcases and have them feel safe. The millions of libs that survived the attack would have to leave the area. Odds are, several thousand would have to relocate here, a rural area 5 hours away. Please don't let them radiate the San Francissy gay area.

[Lael]

The half-life of the triggers for such atomic weapons is typically 60 days, after that, the weapon requires new radioactive material (as well as specialized electronincs maintenance)

Actually when the 'triggers' (the still classified Initiators) used Radio Isotopes to operate, that may have been true.

I understand from an article in the Economist that modern nuclear 'triggers' use a Vaccuum Tube to provide the requisite Neutrons.

The article did not disclose how it is constructed.