I don't think it's safe to make those assumptions. We know that AQ would like for those cities to be targets, and have targeted at least NYC in the past.
IMHO, they will go with whatever target city is the closest to the place they brought the weapon either into the country or wherever it can be activated. I think we're speaking of the so called missing suitcase nukes from the "cold war." Alledgedly prepositioned by Sov agents for use in the opening fusillades of WWIII. Later disavowed by the Russian gov't at the end of the era of the USSR and KGB activities. If AQ has paid cash for some of these, I don't think they will risk detection by moving them far. Therefore, unless these are already prepositioned near NYC or the District of Columbia, they dare not risk detection in trying to move it closer. Yes it could be NYC or DC, but it could just as easily be Iowa City or Seattle or Brownsville Texas. Does this make sense?
One final point: Given the numbers of sophisticated detectors and the density of "boots on the ground" and engaged in the hunt, I doubt that any WMD of any sort will be activated or armed until it is going to be triggered to forestall any lucky or skilled intervention. The next strike has to be both devastating and skilled in the execution for the image of Jihad to be a credible threat.
I thought these things were somewhat difficult to detect? (NEST had to be "close" to the device, sometimes they are shielded by lead, etc).
Not like we can just do a general sweep of the area with a chopper or something and see a red dot pop up on a scanner..
For this reason, I'm not so sure about the feasibility of moving any of these or not..if they ARE hard to detect, movement becomes much more plausible.
Maybe you will know the answer to this: do these suitcase nukes have to be maintained as well as other nukes? How old would these be now? I'm not betting against a lot of damage from them, but are they going to explode as they were supposed to?
Hoping the islamonazis have some duds on their hands...
And I remember hearing recently, during the JFK administration, the Russian embassy in DC apparently had a bomb in that building, put together right there. (As told to Hugh Sidey by JFK himself.)
Makes sense, though I suspect that the nukes are and have been near critical targets for a long time.
That does make sense. Unfortunately, I recall reading an article posted here on the TM back in January or February (I think) that one or more of the cold war, suitcase nukes that you're referring to had been stashed in the Hudson River Valley/Catskill Mountain Region.
Not only the Russians, but Paki scientists reportedly gave/sold AQ several nukes. Now it is coming out the Libya was developing nukes for Iraq.
There have been several articles about Iran providing nuclear material to AQ.
And North Korea possibly providing AQ with nuclear mines.
A tangled web indeed.