Posted on 09/22/2004 10:06:51 AM PDT by Area Freeper
A trained nuclear engineer using material the size of an orange could build an atomic bomb to fit into a van, proliferation expert Laura Holgate said, sketching a nightmare scenario of a terrorist attack on a major city.
She recalled that terrorists had attacked the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 with a van loaded with conventional explosives.
Holgate told reporters at a meeting in Vienna of the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it was "not widely shared and understood" how risky the current situation is, especially since terrorists would not necessarily need top-level scientists to build a bomb.
The nuclear threat remains the big one, and all too real, said Holgate, a senior member of the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) think tank and a former US Department of Energy (news - web sites) official for disposal of plutonium.
She said the "raw material for nuclear terrorism is housed in hundreds of facilities in dozens of countries and inadequately secured."
"That's the central point of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative" which the United States and Russia have launched to repatriate highly enriched uranium (HEU) and to convert nuclear research reactors from HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU) use.
"We know nuclear theft is happening already," she said, saying that one institute in Russia has documented "23 attempts over eight years to steal nuclear bomb-making materials."
"We know these failed. We don't know how many succeeded and went undetected," Holgate said.
She also said she did not think terrorists had yet a nuclear weapon. "If terrorist organizations had been able to do this (obtain one), they would have used it by now," Holgate said.
The stakes are high.
"A nuclear device going off in any large city around the globe is going to kill millions of people," she said.
"The economic damage can be in the trillions (of dollars) and it can also be global," she said.
"This is in contrast to a dirty-bomb threat that tends to be hyped," she said about concern that terrorists could use conventional bombs with radioactive materials, contaminating areas with radiation rather than destroying them with the blast of an atomic bomb.
Holgate said a problem in making sure that nuclear materials are not lying where terrorists can get them is that there is "lack of acceptance" within the Russian government that "their material is not adequately secured and that there is a relationship between terrorism and these materials."
But she said the Russians seemed to be more aware of the threat since the Beslan school tragedy and a recognition of "weaknesses" in the Russian system, due to bribes and poor security.
The United States and Russia have produced most of the highly radioactive material now spread throughout the world.
Holgate said the United States and the then-Soviet Union gave out 20 tonnes of HEU in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the Atoms for Peace program for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.
"Keeping track of where this HEU is now kilogram by kilogram is difficult." she said.
In addition, over 1,000 tonnes were created by the United States and the Soviet Union for their weapons programs, and there is no minute accounting for this.
William Potter, from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a California-based think tank, said that in addition the Soviet Union and now Russia have some seven icebreaker ships which use nuclear fuel enriched to about 60 percent, Potter said.
HEU is uranium enriched to over 20 percent, but weapons grade uranium starts at 80 percent enrichment for the U-235 isotope.
Holgate said terrorists could do without the sophistication needed for small bombs. "A truck size is probably a more relevant size," since such a bomb could be made with lower levels of HEU.
The British burned Washington DC and somehow we managed to survive. Only a small percentage of U.S. commerce is dependent on major corporations -- about half is small business. If the U.S. headquarters of Wal-Mart is destroyed, the local Wal-Marts will continue to operate. The local Midas Muffler shops will continue to operate, etc.
There is absolutely no way to cause a nuclear explosion like this.
Like a autoimmune disease, the reaction to terrorism is worse than terrorism itself. After 9/11, the effect of the security measures and the fear of flying caused more damage to the airline industry than the initial attack.
I don't think so. If the middle east explodes into general war, all oil fields will be the first casualty of war. And I don't mean their destruction. And once that happens, those oil fileds will never revert back to the sandmaggots. The spoils of war historically have been as permanent as permanent can be.
Unless it was sabotage or an accident, my guess is it was a large conventional explosion to test and calibrate their monitoring equipment.
The US did that prior to the Trinity test.
Retribution. By at least one order of magnitue, hopefully two. But they don't count. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. If they're not sharp enough to figure it out...
One would hope that the lessons of the World Trade Center were taken to heart. Concentration of vital records, services and communications is dumb dumb dumb.
When Iraq and Iran went to war in the 80's the oil kept flowing and the tankers kept moving through the precarious Persian gulf. Neither side wanted to mess with the supply because they needed the cash flow for the war effort.
Unfortunately the fallout from a ground level blast would be orders of magnitude worse then with an air burst. Lots more interesting radionucleides to deal with afterwards too.
I remember a few years ago (before 911) when you and I diagreed about the taking of terrorists families ... as I remember I was (WAS) against it I have since re-evaluated my position .... and find more in line with yours'
I think the liklihood of a nuclear weapon (in the 1 kiloton range) being used in a US City is high no matter if Bush or Kerry is president.
I think a nuke in the one kiloton range in the center of a city would probably kill 50,000 or more, and another 50,000 sick or seriously injured. I don't think it would kill anywhere near a million people as an earlier poster suggested.
That being said, you misplace emphasis on the center of a city being 'where few people actually live.' It is certainly a place where many many people work, and that would be disasterous - take no solace that it isn't a residential area.
A 1 kiloton bomb detonated at Citicorp Center in NYC, for example, just before lunch hour, would leave a crater a little bigger than a city block and ignite at least once city block in each direction. If that isn't at least 50,000 dead and 50,000 injured, I don't know what is.
You're only counting blast and fire damage.
Radiation would bag a LOT of people before they could get out of the danger space. This wouldn't be a airburst by a modern clean weapon; you'd generate a s**tload of radioactive crap and spread it downwind.
Whatever the number, let's just hope the theories are put to the test.
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Yes, the reaction to the threat of terrorism is worse than terrorism itself, except in actual attacks where casualty counts become a reality.
I'd personally like to see the media take a more responsible role by not hyping the terrorist threats. I'd also ask that they stop detailing how to accomplish such attacks. It's more than stupid and irresponsible journalism. It's downright dangerous.
Sorry, I meant NEVER put to the test!
I deserve a major slap for that error!
"A nuclear device going off in any large city around the globe is going to kill millions of people," she said.
A truck sized-bomb would most likely be a 10 KT bomb, similar to what we unleashed on Hiroshima and Nakasaki. Many of those structures in those cities were made of wood. The fireball killed many times more people then the center where everything vaporized for 200 yards.
Most of the buildings in any major metros of the USA are steel and concrete. The likely death rate probably would be about the same because of population density at the time of blast. However, I would think the cancer casualties caused by radiation over a decade would be very high, possibly into a million, but I am no expert.
The combined death rate and psychological effects would certainly throw our country into a major economic depression. It's not pretty and this event is now highly likely.
My biggest concern is that besides FEMA, we have no civilian defense plans. I had an idea for a private sector civilian-defense network called Patriot Alert. If the goverment collapsed for such a reason or any reason for that matter, it is up to "we the people" to rebuild and defend ourselves. Feel free to email me if any of you Freepers had similar ideas. Casualties in this war have to be expected. Not preparing at all for the worst is just foolish. I like the saying "better to have it and not need it then need it and not have it".
I'm not discounting radiation - it would awful. Just not millions.
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