A Terrorist’s Dream, An American Nightmare (How to destroy a civilization with one bomb)

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | December 6, 2005 | Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu

[Main Street]

“A terrorist’s dream; an American nightmare.” These words summarize the video presentation of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the United States in the dramatic, heart-chilling video on the new web site www.warfooting.com, sponsored by Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy. EMP attack is a subject about which far too many of us, unfortunately, know far too little.

A blue-ribbon Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack, chaired by the esteemed scientist Dr. William R. Graham, includes a short but highly impressive list of top American scientists, engineers, and military specialists among its members. Timing for release of its report – July 22, 2004 - was selected by the EMP Commission to be later than the eagerly anticipated report from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the “9/11 Commission”). When the 9/11 Commission delayed its report to a July 22, 2004 release date – exactly coinciding with the EMP Commission – it effectively drowned out the latter.

At the height of election year frenzy, the Democrats were desperately trying to hang charges of incompetence, irresponsibility, even dereliction of duty upon George W. Bush. All media attention was focused on the 9/11 Commission report. MSM sources salivated at the parade of witnesses that the Democrats hoped would dig a grave for the president. So the EMP Commission report – a paper that could have significantly more impact on this country than the highly politicized, incomplete 9/11 report – languished in obscurity. The threat is too great for this situation to go unchallenged. For this reason, Gaffney assembled a group of specialists and produced his important new book, War Footing (Naval Institute Press). (Full disclosure: I contributed a small part of the section dealing with North Korea and China.)

The executive summary for the EMP Commission report is short, well written, and easily understandable. It can be downloaded and printed (Find it here). At fewer than 50 pages, it is a document that will shock and horrify readers with disclosure of what a nuclear weapon and missile delivery system can do in the hands of terrorists. For those not familiar with the phenomenon, a quick summary is in order.

EMP is produced by atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device. The nuclear explosion sends out a spike of electromagnetic pulse – a wave – that shocks electronics and creates electrical currents in the earth. Effects are direct and indirect. The electrical devices themselves are rendered inoperable. This begins what the Commission report calls “unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures.” In other words, if a power grid is fried, then systems depending on that power grid: lighting, water purification and delivery, communications, banking, hospitals, emergency – all these and more are affected. If the initial explosion is large enough, the Commission concludes, “the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country’s ability to support its population” (Emphasis added).

This means mass starvation because food deliveries cease, urban deaths by dehydration as water systems fail, collapse of medical systems, breakdown of police functions, ineffectiveness of firefighters, loss of bank records, inability to move physically other than by foot, and a return of America to a “pre-industrial age” state. Americans who live in rural environments might survive. The larger the cities and the more densely populated they are, the greater the probability of mass death. An EMP attack, in other words, could be many times worse than nuclear explosions at ground level that intend to use explosive force to kill. Such an attack is indeed a terrorist’s dream - and an American nightmare.

It’s not like we’re just learning about EMP. Soviet and American nuclear scientists first discovered this effect during atmospheric testing in the early 1960s. An American detonation, Starfish, over Johnson Island, had the unpredicted side effect of knocking out street lights, alarms, and power generation facilities in Oahu almost 100 miles distant. As recently as 1995, a Russian general threatened EMP attack during raucous negotiations with US representatives, noting that it “would only take one” weapon to knock out America.

Technically, a large enough weapon detonated at 75-400 kilometers above the US would induce serious EMP damage. The larger the weapon and the higher the detonation, the greater the circle of damage emanating from it. Only a single large weapon detonating over mid-America could permanently cripple the country. The result would be direct and indirect deaths of millions of Americans and the transformation of the US in an eye-blink to a pre-19th century environment.

So why is this a terrorist threat? Isn’t EMP attack something that would come from a more sophisticated country, one, like Russia or China, that stands to lose as much as we do by such actions? And should we more properly worry about suitcase nucs and such from terrorists? The alarming answer is that delivery of an EMP weapon requires less than state-of-the-art technology. A rocket simply has to carry a nuclear payload to altitude and detonate it. Aiming can be very general, unlike targeting an installation or even a city. Alarmingly, such missiles exist, engineered by North Korea and sold to countries like Iran, Syria, and – we fear – soon to Venezuela.

The missiles do not have to be launched from land. They could, with rather conventional engineering modifications, be launched from the deck of a freighter off-shore from the American coastline. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda already possess a modest fleet of merchant ships. Both Iran and North Korea are furiously working to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. In the opinion of many, it is not a matter of if we are attacked by EMP but when. America has a surfeit of capable enemies – communists, dictators, and terrorists – and they form a deadly connection committed to our demise.

How do we stop this threat? There is no simple answer. America does not possess anti-missile capability of significance. If a Navy Aegis-class ship was in the neighborhood it might be able to intercept the terrorist missile attack. But to rely on such serendipitous circumstances to protect this country is madness. We could harden our infrastructure and try to protect against EMP attack, but because of magnitude that would be a futile undertaking.

The only sure defense, as General George Patton said is a “good offense.” And, he concluded, “the quality of that offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.” As a country we need to make certain that we have sufficient steel in our backbones to take on and to defeat the threat from Islamofascists and rogue states before they are able to launch a missile at this country. In short, we need to change our mentality from that of complacent peacetime and assume an aggressive War Footing. And we need to do so before our enemies can exploit our weakness.

[Main Street]

The Mega Threat: EMP Attack

http://www.warfooting.com/LookInside/default.asp?PageID=6

The Problem

A massive current of EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) could be unleashed with catastrophic effect on the United States if a nuclear weapon is detonated high above the earth's atmosphere. The energy of this pulse would interact with the Earth's magnetic field, affecting - and possibly destroying - every piece of unshielded electronic gear and power grids in line-of-sight of the detonation, all at the speed of light.

What is more, the higher the altitude of the weapon's detonation, the larger the affected area would be. At a height of 300 miles, the entire continental United States would be exposed to EMP attack, along with parts of Canada and Mexico.

As a result, America could be transformed from a 21st Century superpower into a pre-industrial society almost instantaneously.

This sounds unbelievable. But a blue-ribbon commission created by Congress confirmed this danger in a report submitted in August 2004. Thanks to the almost unimaginable power of an EMP wave unleashed by a properly configured nuclear weapon - approximately a million times as strong as the most powerful radio signals on earth - the devastation caused could make the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina look modest by comparison.

Given the magnitude of the danger it is astonishing that EMP is hardly ever mentioned when threats to this country from Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) are discussed. This might be considered the ultimate WMD - yet practically the only people aware of its potential for harm are our enemies.

In fact, the congressionally chartered commission discovered that knowledge about EMP is widespread in such places as: China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia. Several of these nations, and perhaps terrorists that they sponsor, could launch a nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a ship - the sort of attack that poses an especially grave threat to the United States.

What Needs To Be Done

EMP attack poses a clear and present danger to our national security, our technological society, and our democratic and cosmopolitan way of life. The EMP Threat Commission has presented a blueprint for protecting both US military forces and the United States homeland from EMP attack.

The Commission's plan includes three focused efforts.

1. Deter EMP attacks. Make it difficult and dangerous to acquire the materials to make nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. This will require:

vastly improved intelligence
the capacity to perform clandestine operations, throughout the world
assured means of retaliation in the event of attack
2. Defeat EMP attacks.

Protect critical military capabilities and civilian infrastructure from EMP effects. We must re-build our neglected scientific and technical base for conducting EMP tests of military and civilian equipment.
Deploy a comprehensive defense against ballistic missile delivery systems.We know that a catastrophic EMP attack can be mounted only by putting a nuclear weapon into space over the United States - using a ballistic missile.
Enhance the capability of existing defenses. We need widely to deploy anti-missile defenses on the Navy's fleet of more than sixty AEGIS air defense ships.
3. Reduce our vulnerability to EMP attacks. We must prepare for the consequences of an EMP attack, in the event that deterrence and protection fail. The EMP Commission plan provides detailed recommendations for protecting the nation's critical infrastructures, in four key areas:

Electric power grid
Telecommunications
Transportation
Food and Water
This will require close collaboration between government at all levels and the private sector. We must also ensure that we have, on-hand and properly protected, the equipment and parts needed to repair EMP-damaged systems.

4. Extend the life of the EMP Commission for four years. The Commission's report has so far received little serious attention - from the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, the Congress, or the media. With a renewed mandate and public and official support, the Commission can play a vital role in overseeing the implementation of the required corrective actions.

Contributors: Reps. Curt Weldon and Roscoe Bartlett

[Waco]

So? Why wait? Kill 500 million arabs and get this thing on the road. We don't really need to be putting up with these axxholes. They wanna see something destroyed? Show em!

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

bump

[globalheater]

yawn -

every student of physics in the whole wide world knows about this phenomenon. It' public since the 60ies.

Where's the news ? Why should we be even more mega affraid now ?

[mukraker]

A massive EMP pulse? It's been done, about a hundred years ago. Ever heard of Nikola Tesla?

[globalheater]

ok adolf

[gakrak]

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE REST OF YOU FOLKS BUT THISSCARES THE DEVIL OUT OF ME. I vote we get real aggressive with the Iran's, North Koreans and the rest of the trash in the world. We need to protect ourselves. Lock and Load. Amen.

[Forte Runningrock]

Beats me. This stuff is so old, cold war bomb shelters from the 60's have lead plates on them. I guess the message here is- buy some lead sheeting and wrap it around your pc. Keep a generator in a lead box. Shoot democrats who come and try steal your food and generator because they were too stupid to take the Jihad seriously.

[John Valentine]

An American detonation, Starfish, over Johnson Island, had the unpredicted side effect of knocking out street lights, alarms, and power generation facilities in Oahu almost 100 miles distant.

Let's set a few facts straight.

First of all, it is about 1000 miles, not 100, from Oahu to Johnston Island. That's 10 times farther than alleged. Big difference.

Second, I was in Honolulu when the referenced tests took place and they were followed with keen interest in Honolulu. The explosions were well above Honolulu's horizon, and the one I remember was quite spectacular. But, nothing was "knocked out" - not power generation, not streetlights, not telephone service, not anything as far as I know. Alarms did not go off as a result of the burst. Certainly there was no talk of any such thing among the people - and we would have noticed.

What did happen is that the ionosphere was severely affected and long-range radio transmissions that require an effective ionosphere reflection were disrupted for quite some time. Back in those days, there was a heavy reliance on radio communication.

The writer of this article won't be able to make his points effectively by relying on egregious distortions and misstatements of fact.

[Forte Runningrock]

Did you know Hiroshema was detonated 1800 ft above the ground? I imagine there was a good radius of pulse damage well beyond Hiroshema

[DB]

I still think this is BS.

First, it isn't easy to make a high yield EMP device.

Second, if they had such a big nuke to do it with, they'd use it to kill us, not knock out our electrical systems. Much more grand to vaporize a large city...

Third, the energy density falls quickly as you get away from ground zero. I cannot believe that even a nuke would be able wipe out everything electrical over more than a few hundred miles.

Then back to number two...

[Forte Runningrock]

At what hight was it detonated?

[jocon307]

"I imagine there was a good radius of pulse damage well beyond Hiroshema"

And, amazingly, people still live in Japan today.

[DB]

I think the whole premise is a misstatement of fact.

[Forte Runningrock]

That's why I'm curious about Hiroshima. You'd think there would be something recorded about EMP effect, even though it was detonated at 1800 feet. Still high enough to have an effect for a few hundred miles you'd think.

[John Valentine]

As I recall, it was about 200 miles up.

[John Valentine]

There is an interesting article I found on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

Apparently there were some minor EMP effects felt on Oahu, but they were nowhere as serious as implied by this writer who would want you to beleive that there were major power outages. That never happened.

[Roscoe Karns]

We're talking this morning via satellite from an undisclosed location with Number
One, head of operations for SMERSH. He agreed to be on our show on the
condition we not show his face. Good morning, Number One.

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A pleasure, Mr Russert.

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Our producer tells us, Number One, that you came here today because you
wanted to address the President of the United States and the American people. Is
that correct?

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That is correct, Mr Russert. We demand that President Bush resign by noon
tomorrow or we shall annihilate three of your major cities with nuclear weapons.

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A very serious ultimatum, Number One.

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A deadly serious ultimatum, Mr Russert! A very deadly serious ultimatum, Indeed!
Bwahahahahahaha! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

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Forgive me for interrupting , but we seem to have temporarily lost our picture.
What?... We have our signal back? OK. Please continue, Number One.

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As I was saying , Mr Russert, your snippy little, election-stealing president must
leave by...

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Al Gore!? Is that you?

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Er, no, Tim, it's me, Number One. Remember?

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We can all see your face in our studio monitors, Al.
Well, that's our show. Remember, if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.

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HE PLAYED ON OUR FEARS!!

[Forte Runningrock]

I guess a tinfoil hat is sufficient for a terrorist EMP attack then, LoL!

[coconutt2000]

I think to stop the EMP you have to wrap everything in steel plating.

[SIDENET]

I guess a tinfoil hat is sufficient for a terrorist EMP attack then, LoL!

A Faraday Cage for the ol' noggin!

[son of caesar]

i love the line about al queda having a modest fleet of merchant ships. WHAT THE HECK IS OUR NAVY BEING PAID TO DO? the correct line should read thusly. al queda had a few merchant ships, but since its being paid, the us navy did its job and sunk all of them. end of discussion.

[DTogo]

Sounds like a fear-mongering excuse to create a new government agency to (attempt to) protect the nation from such an attack and spend a few billion $$ doing so.

Meanwhile our Southern Border remains wide open and terrorists could much more easily sneak in here, buy some legal firearms with fake IDs, and create a Beslan II hostage/slaughter scenario in any small town in the US.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

An effective attack would require shooting a really big warhead (multi-megaton) to a height of 300+ miles.

This would require the sort of equipment not readily available from Fry's Electronics...

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"Meanwhile our Southern Border remains wide open and terrorists could much more easily sneak in here, buy some legal firearms with fake IDs, and create a Beslan II hostage/slaughter scenario in any small town in the US."

And, assuming you secure the southern border, you would still have the problem of the Canadians giving Islamists asylum, welfare benefits, and Canadian citizenship, thus allowing them to easily sneak in here, buy some legal firearms with fake IDs, and create a Beslan II hostage/slaughter scenario in any small town in the US.

Securing the US-Mexican border would drastically slow down illegal immigration from Mexico. It would not do one damn thing to stop terrorists from coming into the country. It would be like spending a lot of money on a good, sturdy front door for your house--while leaving your back door and windows wide open.

[DarthVader]

Lets introduce the Islamofascists to the full power of one Ohio class SSBN. This is how you destroy an enemy in 20 minutes.

[Dick Vomer]

......permanently cripple the country

........ yeah... right.

this is a load of crap. Have any freepers been to Hiroshima or Nagasaki....

If any want to see "permanent" damage I'd advise you to go there and walk around. This is hyped "sky is falling" for some creation of a "Department of EMP" or tax to develop "EMP Protection" or a fee to protect "vital EMP sensitive infrastructure". It will first need relatives of Congressmen, Senators or other bureacrats and lobbyists (look at Kennedy, Clintons, Powell, etc..)in order to study and come to recommendations on how to protect us from this coming "doomsday".

I think we should study meteors and develop a program to put old astronauts and oil field workers on rockets in order to plant nuclear devices on them to break them up into smaller pieces so we all won't die. ...... as long as the explosion is far enough away not to cause an "EMP"..

..yikes that would be funny... destroy a meteor but produce an EMP..

.. I should write a script, have a meeting and maybe send a "treatment" to a producer at Sundance next year...

Gawd I love the Free Republic... so many job opportunities.

[Abathar]

The problem is electronics are far more susceptible to EMP pulses now than they were 40 years ago. Most electronics were of tube design when those tests were conducted, now almost everything has a far more sensitive engineering design to them, remember they never shipped things in anti-static bags that ran off of microvolt power either.
If they conducted those same tests again this year the damage would be exponential to what it was then, I mean how many cars back in the 60's had a computer chip required to start it?

[daybreakcoming]

Why should we be even more mega affraid now ?

Wait just a minute. You do realize we would not be able to access Free Republic? Or maybe you haven't been here long enough to become addicted? :o)

[Old Student]

"I think to stop the EMP you have to wrap everything in steel plating."

Nope. Look up "Faraday cage" for info on protecting electronics. Also, the Soviets used vacuum-tube equipment long after semiconductors became widely and cheaply available because they are somewhat more resistant to EMP effects.

When I was stationed at a radar site in the late 80's, we had to shield stereo's, tv's, and such, from the side lobes of the radar system. The shields were made of wire screening, and often but not always grounded. BTW, if you hear the cracks and pops on your radio during a lightning storm, that is natural EMP. If you've had a lightning strike nearby, and lost electronics from it, you've suffered EMP damage. EMP can induce surges in transmission lines, power lines, and even in steel conduits or structural members in the walls of your house or other building. Even printed circuit wiring in your computer can carry those surges.

This site has a good bit of info on protecting electronics:
http://www.comm-omni.com/polyweb/appendixA.htm
More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
BTW, this is the whole point of a "tinfoil hat."

[Laz711]

200 Miles up? That is in orbit, the space shuttle only (usually) orbits at 100 miles.

[katykelly]

Ya, Bingo! If my wife is denied FR for more than 12 hours, food and water are the least of my worries. (Mr. KK)

[coconutt2000]

I'm aware of all that, but thanks for the info. My comment was more in the way of humor because the post I was responding to was talking about using lead shielding.

[coconutt2000]

And enclosing items to be protected in steel would probably work, even if it is overkill.

[Thermalseeker]

I still think this is BS.

Yep. It's the millennium scare all over again....

[lmailbvmbipfwedu]

No one mentioned the nonnuclear EMP generators. They come in sizes from hand grenade to artillery rounds. Effective ranges, of the EMP, is hundreds to thousands of meters. Now these devices won't wipe out state or region sized areas, but used in the right place sure will put a kink in someone's day and one he** of lot easier to build, handle, place, and detonate than a nuke......

[metesky]

Does this mean that my fully automatic weapons won't work anymore?

[quant5]

"That's why I'm curious about Hiroshima. You'd think there would be something recorded about EMP effect, even though it was detonated at 1800 feet. Still high enough to have an effect for a few hundred miles you'd think."

I think we may have that information but I do not think that this would be de-classified. The Japanese were very far behind us in nuclear reaction testing so would not have recorded if the lights went out in say, Tokyo for example. Also, they had bigger things to worry about with 1/3 million people vaporized instantly.

[quant5]

A great offense to stop our enemies from deploying WMD is a true statement, but I also feel that if we have a strong civil defense network, our enemies will not feel they can bring us down even if one or a few cities are torched. Every American should have sixty days of food and water. The earth is a violent place from man to nature. None of us truly know when a major disaster is going to occur next. As the writer suggests, more people die from a break-down of infrastructure of society then the disaster itself. I have also found this to be true.

A conquest of America is unlikely because of our armed civilian population. The Soviets were repelled from conquering Afghanistan with a thin but heavily armed population of light weapons and RPG's. A rifle can be used to hunt with in any part of the country if push came to shove. I like to stay education on this kind of information, but the agenda is to create fear to create long-term budgeting which is something I do not like.

[Old Student]

"And enclosing items to be protected in steel would probably work, even if it is overkill."

As long as it's sealed, surge suppressed, and grounded, yep. I suspect all the modern cars with computers would still crap out, however, despite being more or less wrapped in steel. I suppose I wasn't posting so much just to you as to anyone interested, and not well educated on the subject. I was an electronics technician my last 12 years in the USAF, and didn't find many people who knew what a Faraday cage was, for example.

I suspect lead would work, too. The boxes I wrote of in my previous post were made of copper screen, for example, and many of the older electronic devices I used to play with had steel cases, and monel-metal shielding on CRT's and such. Lead would certainly make the stuff less portable, though, wouldn't it? That 50lb boom-box one of my neighbors insists on walking down the street with would be a LOT quieter if shielded with enough lead!

[The_Reader_David]

Yes, and that was a 1.5 megaton fusion bomb. AQ, Iran and NK are all still working on fission bombs and years away from serious fusion weapons.

Still, it's worth hardening infrastructure, mounting a missile defense and prosecuting the war vigorously (the latter two for other reasons as well).

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Here ya go, John!

http://www.digitalfox.com/digitalfox/johnf-ingkerry/foilhat.htm

[USMCPOP]

Here's more info on conventional EMP bombs: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/kopp/apjemp.html

[Aquinasfan]

Why should we be even more mega affraid now ?

On the plus side, I could die tomorrow from choking on a chicken bone.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

For the doubters: Could we test the theory on Iran?

[Edgerunner]

I guess our military has never heard of this EMP thing, and are not rad hardened at all. Guess we're doooooooomed I guess...

[Washi]

Also, they had bigger things to worry about with 1/3 million people vaporized instantly.

Only about 50,000 died on the first day (from the blast.)

The Hiroshima memorial lists fewer than 300,000 total (radiation poisoning, disease, etc.) victims, but that includes people that died more than 50 years after the fact.

That's still a heck of a lot of people for a single weapon, but not as many as most people think.