Risk of Nuclear Attack on U.S. Rises

[Graybeard]

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Risk_of_Nuclear_Attack_/2008/04/16/88469.html

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 1:48 PM

By: Newsmax Staff 

Witnesses told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the risk of a nuclear attack on U.S. cities has grown in the past five years due to the spread of nuclear technology and the growth of a global terrorist movement.

The Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs looked at the horrific consequences of a nuclear strike by terrorists, and experts said more could be done to save lives, the Washington Post reported.

"I definitely conclude the threat is greater and is increasing every year with the march of technology," said Cham E. Dallas, director of the Institute for Health Management and Mass Destruction Defense at the University of Georgia.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel’s chairman, said: "The scenarios we discuss today are so hard for us to contemplate and so emotionally traumatic that it is tempting to push them aside. However, now is the time to have this difficult conversation, to ask the tough questions, then to get answers."

Dallas gave the panel a report on the effects of a small nuclear device exploding near the White House. A 1-kiloton device that could fit into a suitcase could kill about 25,000 people, Dallas said. A 10-kiloton explosive, which could be hidden in a van, could kill about 100,000.

The 10-kiloton blast would destroy almost all buildings within a half-mile radius, and the intense heat would burn people for many blocks and spark fires, according to Dallas.

In addition, a radioactive plume would begin drifting from the blast point, subjecting those in its path to lethal levels of radiation, Dallas said.

"With proper communication, people can flee from the plume area," Dallas said. But, he added, authorities need to "put more effort" into testing their ability to swiftly alert those in danger, according to the Post.

Ashton B. Carter, co-director of the Preventive Defense Project at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, agreed, telling the committee that "much could be done to save lives" if the government made the right preparations in advance.

Dallas suggested training medical professionals such as pharmacists and veterinarians to provide burn care, and organizing community volunteers to clean wounds and help in other ways.

"Burn care is a nightmare, and we’re completely unprepared," he said. "Ninety-five percent of burn victims will not receive care. And most of them will die."

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller told Newsmax in an exclusive interview last May that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group desperately want to obtain nuclear devices and explode them in American cities, especially New York and Washington, D.C.


© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
 

[kevthebassman]

And let me guess, the Bush administration wants us to give them even more authority to wire tap and do searches without warrants so they can stop this threat.

It amazes me that people get all worked up over this scaremongering.

[PHATINJUN]

Yea who would of thought they could hijack planes and turn them into bombs and you surely would not want to tell anybody about it for fear of being labled a scaremonger. After all how much information do they really need . and it's not like they would attack MO. Kurt

[kevthebassman]

Hijacking the planes required a box cutter.  Nukes require billions of dollars worth of technology and materials.  No government, not even Iran, is stupid enough to give a 50 billion dollar investment to terrorists, and it would be relatively easy to trace it back to it's source.

Even if they did, those nukes would go first and foremost to Israel.

[muskeg13]

Don't be a blockhead Kev! 

With our open borders, it wouldn't be hard or take billions to smuggle in one or more of the unaccounted for ex-Soviet nuclear devices, say maybe the Russian equivalent of our SADM/MADM (small and medium atomic demolition devices), real live man-portable nukes, not science fiction.  These are relatively small packages, in kit form. 

The Russian mafia have proven themselves to be the most ruthless and materialistic capitalists the world has ever known.  There's nothing that doesn't have a price.  Don't you think with all of the billions of US dollars that we send the Saudi's (and others), dollars that are passed to terrorists to fund their operations, that the terrorists couldn't be able to purchase whatever they need?

Striking Israel would be important, but it might be more difficult to breech Israeli border security than ours, and besides, wouldn't such a heavy strike against the Great Satan, the world's largest economy, be just as symbolic?

[muskeg13]

If you don't believe me:

http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/madm.aspx

If we had them, the Soviets had them, and hundreds of ex-Soviet nuclear devices have gone missing since the breakup of the USSR.

[kevthebassman]

I'm told that the small sized nukes used nuclear fuel which had a short (5-15 year) half life, and would only be good for a dirty bomb today, but I can't recall where I found this information.  Regardless, nuclear weapons require regular maintenance in laboratory conditions if they're going to go "boom" when you want them to.  If it were 1995, I would buy the stolen Soviet nuke threat, but any nuke stolen from the Soviets hasn't had a check-up for nearly 20 years.

Regardless, a box truck full of ANFO explosive is much easier to obtain, much cheaper, easier to operate, and nearly as deadly if put in the right place.  If terrorists have been unable to put together an attack in the US using fertilizer and diesel fuel, I have a hard time believing that they're going to go through the trouble and risk of raising billions of dollars to buy a nuke, sneak it past scores of different intelligence agencies and through customs, and blow it up.

Remember, the Russians have their own terrorism problem, as do the Israelis.  Add the US, and you've got three crack intelligence organizations going all over the globe searching out these nukes and the people trying to buy them.  I bet that more half-witted A-rabs are picked up trying to buy suitcase nukes (full of stereo parts and rocks) from intelligence operatives each year than we ever knew existed.

You may think me a fool, but I just don't buy into the daily fear mongering Washington sends out.  We've got more to fear from our own criminals out on parole after serving 5 years for murder than we do from a bunch of semi-literate camel herders wearing bed sheets on their heads.  In the 5 years after 9-11, more New Yorkers were murdered by common criminals than died in all of the 9-11 attacks.  Small comfort for the people who lost loved ones on 9-11, but no less tragic.

My sneaking suspicion is that all of these threats and warnings are just another carrot on a stick that the .gov is using to manipulate the public perception to make us more receptive to a US move against Iran.  That's my take on the matter.

[Sourdough]

They have the money, and the skill to get a device into the US.  All they need is the technological expertise to put one together.  When they are ready they will do it.  While they often talk of wiping Israel off the face of the earth, there are too many Arabs living in Israel.  Also Israel is too small the nuclear fallout would fall on an Arab nation such as Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi, or Egypt.  If they come up with a Nuke, it will find it's way into the US.  Crossing the border into the US is so easy children can do it. 

[muskeg13]

Kev:
I do believe you are foolish on this issue.  Some of us old Cold Warriors actually worked with some of these devices.  What you heard was (partially) half right.  There were two designs for small atomic weapons.  One was more unstable, but I wouldn't bet my life, or my family's life that they won't work, even a hundred years from now.  The other (actually older) design uses much more stable components that I would guess to be lethal for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. 

The -10 operator's manual to employ these items is easy to follow by anyone who can read.  I'm sure the Russian counterpart is the same.

Wake up!

[no guns here]

I still say the "terrorists" ( I really hate that word) must have their heads on backwards.  If it were me... okay my mind works in weird ways sometimes... and I wanted to try to "shut down America", I would buy a few hundred hand grenades and smuggle them into the heartland.  Then, I'd wait for a nice Sunday and I'd split my 20 man team into about 10 2's.  I'd walk in to churches in several small towns and start chunkin grenades.  Then I'd drive to the next town and keep doing it until I ran out of grenades and escaped or someone took me out.  The surviving groups would then travel to another part of the county (say... New England) and hit some school yards the same way.  Why worry about the grandiose plans when something as simple as 10 guys with AK-47's and IBA's in the middle of rush hour in major city's could shut down the country.  Imagine what some IED's would do to the major interstate trucking traffic.  A couple on I-95, I-10, I-35 (pick one...) would do.  A nuke is a statement but it would guarantee a terrible response.  If it were me, I wouldn't hit NY or DC, I'd hit the biggest port... take out shipping and then our economy goes to crap.  Take out the NYSE and trading will just shift to somewhere else in a few months.  Not saying that it wouldn't be bad, but I think there are things that would be worse for our nation as a whole.

[magooch]

Yeah, and some people think the worst possible tragedy that could befall our country would be for our President to do all he can to stop another terrorist attack.  No worries though, maybe we'll get Osama for a President and we'll be saved.

[DalesCarpentry]

The simple fact is that there are missing nukes from the former Soviet Union. I read some where that something like only 5% of the cargo containers coming in on ships are searched. They could plant a nuke in a cargo container headed for New York. Track it with a GPS and set it ( IN THE HARBOR) off with a cell phone call from the other side of the world.

[kevthebassman]

The simple fact is that there are missing nukes from the former Soviet Union. I read some where that something like only 5% of the cargo containers coming in on ships are searched. They could plant a nuke in a cargo container headed for New York. Track it with a GPS and set it ( IN THE HARBOR) off with a cell phone call from the other side of the world.

Or they could get on a speed boat, hijack a LPG (Liquid Propane Gas) carrier ship as it is entering New York harbor, drive it into the harbor, and blow it up for the same effect.  Only they wouldn't need a multi-billion dollar nuke, they'd need a few thousand dollars worth of guns and a stolen speed boat, and a 99 cent bic lighter.

[PHATINJUN]

Those LPG ships scare me more than the nukes do. Kurt

[magooch]

So, if it's so damn easy to carry out a nuke, or LPG, or some kind of attack, why hasn't it happened?  It's a sure thing that al Qaida and who knows what other groups, sure as heck would like to get er done.  Could it be that we've kept the perps busy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe--just maybe we've killed off some of the worst of the worst?  Could it also be that some of our government's efforts toward security have been effective?  Naw, that would be giving the Bush administration a little credit and we sure can't have that.

[kevthebassman]

So, if it's so damn easy to carry out a nuke, or LPG, or some kind of attack, why hasn't it happened?  It's a sure thing that al Qaida and who knows what other groups, sure as heck would like to get er done.  Could it be that we've kept the perps busy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe--just maybe we've killed off some of the worst of the worst?  Could it also be that some of our government's efforts toward security have been effective?  Naw, that would be giving the Bush administration a little credit and we sure can't have that.

Iraq and Afghanistan are terrorist magnets, to be sure.  However, our continued presence in their lands is also their number 1 call to arms, what they use for recruitment.

On top of that, we took Iraq, which was NOT a friendly place for Al Qaeda, and turned it into an unstable nation that is wholly dependent on our armed forces and our dollars to maintain some semblance of order.  If/when we pull out, the odds are that Iraq is going to crumble into chaos, and chaos is what the terrorists feed on.

The situation in Iraq is benefiting the defense contractors, first and foremost.  You've got private security firms like Blackwater over there making a PROFIT off of the US taxpayer's dollar.  Bush and Cheney's buddies are looting our coffers thanks to this little war, and the taxpayer is taking the hit to the tune of 9 trillion dollars.  That's 9,000,000,000,000 and growing.  I wonder what kind of interest rate we're getting from China?

No, if the goal were national security, we could have gotten a lot more for our dollar if we had spent some of those trillions on securing our borders, inspecting containers coming into this nation (along with better port security in general), and running stricter background checks on people coming into this nation.  Since we have done very little along those lines, I would say that Bush's national security policy has been misguided at best.

[billy_56081]

The muslims are just biding there time. They are violent and ruthless. Anyone who believes they just wanna be left alone is a fool.

[ironglow]

  Goes without saying, the Muslims are doing their best to acquire nuclear weapons, and as soon as they can, the terrorists will "deliver" them to one or more of our cities.

    ...And to think that there are some folks here in the states that would elect as our CEO..anyone that has ever had any Muslim/terrorist ties is beyond comprehension !

[Chilachuck]

Kev, Saddam allowed al Qaeda to set up training camps in Iraq as part of the pay off for them not operating in Iraq. You will not get that from the news papers, nor will the people you talk to get it from their normal news sources. This site site has lists of bloggers you can link to and see what they have to say. Roggio and Yon are two big ones.

http://milblogging.com/

These are the people on the ground. They've seen what's real, and they know which reporters are reliable. They also know which reporters rely on the terrorists' press releases for their "impartial" news.

(Bilal Hussein is an example of a news savvy terrorist taking advantage of AP news bias. The average "Arab" is a better and more plausible liar than the average US politician, of course they tie Washington and the MSM in knots.)

The intelligence agencies took some nasty hits under Carter and Clinton. The survivors were the ones who had no problems with the idiocy of those two, and were not the best in the agencies. I think the agencies are slowly recovering, but keep in mind the mixed stories coming from the CIA, and the leaks. It's going to take a while to get the political factions out of the CIA management.

And, yes, they are rebuilding under Bush, the scare monger.

Renovating the nukes? Side note about the Eastern Orient culture ("Arabs", Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, etc). High status means knowing stuff, and no one with low status can let on they know more than someone with higher status. High status people do not work, even at jobs that require a lot of knowledge. Result: most skilled labor is done by foreigners. There's lots of highly skilled and hard working Russians looking for a paycheck, some of them are Moslems, and others are willing to work for Moslems so long as they get paid.

[kevthebassman]

Kev, Saddam allowed al Qaeda to set up training camps in Iraq as part of the pay off for them not operating in Iraq. You will not get that from the news papers, nor will the people you talk to get it from their normal news sources. This site site has lists of bloggers you can link to and see what they have to say. Roggio and Yon are two big ones.

http://milblogging.com/

These are the people on the ground. They've seen what's real, and they know which reporters are reliable. They also know which reporters rely on the terrorists' press releases for their "impartial" news.

(Bilal Hussein is an example of a news savvy terrorist taking advantage of AP news bias. The average "Arab" is a better and more plausible liar than the average US politician, of course they tie Washington and the MSM in knots.)

The intelligence agencies took some nasty hits under Carter and Clinton. The survivors were the ones who had no problems with the idiocy of those two, and were not the best in the agencies. I think the agencies are slowly recovering, but keep in mind the mixed stories coming from the CIA, and the leaks. It's going to take a while to get the political factions out of the CIA management.

And, yes, they are rebuilding under Bush, the scare monger.

Renovating the nukes? Side note about the Eastern Orient culture ("Arabs", Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, etc). High status means knowing stuff, and no one with low status can let on they know more than someone with higher status. High status people do not work, even at jobs that require a lot of knowledge. Result: most skilled labor is done by foreigners. There's lots of highly skilled and hard working Russians looking for a paycheck, some of them are Moslems, and others are willing to work for Moslems so long as they get paid.

Bloggers are not a reliable source of news.  There is no way to verify their claims, and they are held to no journalistic standard.  Anyone can set up a blog and start delivering "news," and people who read them will hear what they wanted to hear, and hold it up as fact.

If there was a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam, the .gov would damn sure be reminding us about it every day, as well as Hannity and the rest of the clowns on Fox.  As-is, nobody with any shred of journalistic integrity tries to push that connection, because it is flimsy and even the people in the CIA who once told us that have backpedaled.

And again I ask, if these nukes are floating around out there in the hands of terrorists, why have they not been used on Israel yet?  Why didn't they find their way into the "green zone" back in 2004?  How come they haven't come over in a shipping container?

The answer is that they are a carrot on a stick, brought out to incite fear in the public to remind them how badly they need Big Brother in their daily lives and in their pocketbooks.  There are far cheaper, far easier ways to kill just as many people, and one or two people can create enough terror to cripple an entire city, as evidenced by the Beltway snipers in 2003. 

[Chilachuck]

The Moslems could be doing a lot more to damage the US, but the audience is not in the US, the audience is in the Middle East, so they pass up things.

Kev, no one holds the /journalists/ to journalistic standards. You do recall Dan Rather being taken by the TANG memo, right?

How about the "Dean Scream" that knocked him out of the running? More fraud:

http://www.garlicandgrass.org/issue8/Edward_Wasserman.cfm

Know why the Florida election was almost a Gore win? Media fraud: The news media reported that Gore had taken Florida, while the polls in the heavily Republican Florida panhandle were actually still open. Know why people still believe the US Supreme court "selected" Bush? Media fraud. The (all Democratic Party) Florida court ruled to violate Florida State election laws, and the media still keeps it a secret.

Gun control? How about the pro-gun control clips showing full auto machine guns blasting away with the clear statement that the '94 gun control act would prevent criminals getting such machine guns. (They were being illegally imported with illegal drugs into Los Angeles by drug smugglers, who would dump the guns so they had less to worry about on the trip south for more drugs and guns.)

How about the 10/22's and single shot H&R rifles and shotguns being called "high powered assault rifles"? Media fraud.

Then there's all the "Pallywood" examples:

Mohammed al-Dura, the kid the Jews were supposed to have shot in the cross fire? You've seen pictures of him hiding behind his father as his father is hiding behind a trash barrel. It turned out the Jews did not have an angle to shoot him, if he actually was shot. (Exposed in the blogs.)

The Jenin Refugee Camp "massacres". Uncut video shows the "dead" falling off stretchers and climbing back on. (Exposed in the blogs.)

More here:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46286

I can go on for page after page, if you like. Especially when the subject is media fraud in favor of Moslems.

No, blogs cannot be taken uncritically. Start with the milblogs if you want information from the sources. Cross check to see which are reliable. The MSM is not reliable.

[kevthebassman]

I'm not saying that the regular news media is God's honest truth either, quite the contrary in fact.  However, nobody who is honestly searching for the truth should take as gospel something they read from a  random blogger on the internet.  Read the blogs, watch the news, listen to the radio, but take everything you hear with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of skepticism.

[ironglow]

  I always run blogs, TV, news programs etc through my own "logic filter"..I must however, admit to giving real patriots a bit more weight in my logic filter..than I give to
   terrorists and far left "hate America" liberals..both of whom have a historical tendency toward lying..

[Chilachuck]

Kev, I check several blogs specific blogs every day, and only go to "random" blogs to see what the full post quoted says. I try to remember what a specific blogger had to say before and try to track their real attitude on issues.

The only part of the paper I read is the local news and comics. The rest is trash.

[PHATINJUN]

"On top of that, we took Iraq, which was NOT a friendly place for Al Qaeda, and turned it into an unstable nation" I can't  believe you could even say this Kevin . But then Saddam was a very stable force in Iraq. Do you even read what you type or just spew left. Kurt 

[billy_56081]

  Kev where do you get your information? Please share with and enlighten us? First you start a thread about how the media is being used to manipulate us all, then you say that the blogs are fake. Does your tinfoil hat filter out the mind control and only let in the real news and events from around the world? The threat of a nuclear attack on American soil is real. Sure a truck bomb might have a similar blast radius to a small suitcase nuke, but the impact of the nuclear weapon will be much more than just a blast radius. You say a nuclear weapon will be much easier to trace back to its source. Yes very true, but to the terrorists care? I'm sure when this does happen, the blame America first crowd will be claiming it is some kinda conspiracy.

[handi243]

The blast would be bad for human life the EMP blast to our ever so life line of modern tech. would be very bad. Today people can't seem to function without there cell phones, debit cards,palm pilots, and such. Yes i'm glad i have such BUT i can live without it don't have to have it sometimes i wish i didn't. From what i've read the dirty bomb is cheap to make.

[Chilachuck]

Handi, I've read claims both ways as to how much EMP there would be from a nuke inside the atmosphere, but none of them say the pulse would be a problem further than the blast wave blows things apart.

EMP is a problem when the nuke goes off way up in low orbit or so. The bomb gives off particles, alpha, beta, gamma, etc, and they have a chance to spread out before they hit the atmosphere. I don't know how that works, but the upper layer of air acts as a huge antenna and fries electronics under it.

But, yeah, it would be a big problem.

Here's a link to a story about a family in Texas and how they survived the mess after several high altitude blasts destroy most of the electronics and take out the power grid: 

http://www.giltweasel.com/stuff/LightsOut-Final.txt

I came up with a few things I think the author had wrong, but I'll leave that for after people have read the story.

[muskeg13]

Why have they not hit either us or Israel yet?  (And I believe they may have smuggled WMDs into the US already) They want to execute a coordinated attack, just like they did on 9/11.  Maybe they are waiting on the Iranian nukes for the attack on Israel. They want to deliver a knock-out punch.  These evil people are willing to bide their time, for hundreds of years if need be, to plot and achieve what they believe to be maximum devastation for the maximum effect.

[kevthebassman]

Why have they not hit either us or Israel yet?  (And I believe they may have smuggled WMDs into the US already) They want to execute a coordinated attack, just like they did on 9/11.  Maybe they are waiting on the Iranian nukes for the attack on Israel. They want to deliver a knock-out punch.  These evil people are willing to bide their time, for hundreds of years if need be, to plot and achieve what they believe to be maximum devastation for the maximum effect.

The problem with that situation is that it wouldn't just be the end of Israel, it would be the end of the entire mid-east and possibly civilization it's self.  The Israelis have the bomb, and by God I believe they'll use it if the tanks start rolling into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, or if Iranian missiles start flying over Iraq bound for Israel.  Their national motto is "Never Again," and I think that they'll go out in a blaze of glory and scorch the land rather than be pushed off of it and shuffle silently into the gas chambers.

The Iranian government may be boastful and like to rattle their saber, but they're not so stupid as to think that they can get in an attack on Israel without being turned into ashes.