Posted on 01/23/2006 6:39:38 AM PST by Dark Skies
The Defense Department has scheduled a second major, three-day exercise to combat nuclear terrorism in the Charleston, S.C. area.
The goal is not prevention, but coping with the catastrophic results of a terrorist nuclear attack on a major U.S. port city. The Defense Department has scheduled a second major, three-day exercise to combat nuclear terrorism in the Charleston, S.C. area.
The goal is not prevention, but coping with the catastrophic results of a terrorist nuclear attack on a major U.S. port city.
The military's Joint Task Force-Civil Support, headquartered at Ft. Monroe, Va., will host the three-day drill for commanders and representatives of other federal agencies that would be involved in managing the consequences of a 10-megaton nuclear blast, enough to inflict mass causalities and devastation on an American city.
Like last summer's exercise, the Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 drill is centered around a hypothetical blast that affects nearly half a million people across a 900-square mile section of tidewater South Carolina. The scenario assumes 10,000 fatalities and more than 30,000 injuries.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and senior Coast Guard brass will be on hand.
Though the target of the attack is Charleston, no part of the exercise will actually take place there. Maj. Gen. Bruce Davis, the task force's commander, will oversee the exercise from Fort Monroe.
Joint Task Force-Civil Support – part of U.S. Northern Command, which oversees the Defense Department's domestic military activity – is a standing joint task force composed of active, reserve and National Guard members from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, as well as civilian personnel.
Last summer, a similar exercise, "Sudden Respond '05," was led by Virginia's Fort Monroe-based Joint Task Force-Civil Support. It, too, was designed to simulate a nuclear terrorist attack that the highest U.S. officials, including President Bush, have said is the No. 1 threat facing the nation.
Organizers say the nuclear drills should not frighten civilians but instead encourage them to learn how to protect themselves if such an attack – which some officials have referred to as inevitable – should occur.
The drill is strikingly similar to a scenario detailed by Graham Allison, former Pentagon assistant secretary for plans and policy and current Harvard professor, in his book, "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."
A month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Allison wrote, the Central Intelligence Agency presented Bush with a report that al-Qaida had smuggled a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb into New York City. The president, according to the book, dispatched Nuclear Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers to New York to search for the weapon, which was never found.
Allison described the devastation that a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb would visit on Manhattan, were it detonated in the middle of historic Times Square: some 1 million people would die almost immediately.
"The resulting fireball and blast wave would destroy instantaneously the theater district, the New York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, and every other structure within a third of a mile to the point of detonation," he wrote. "The ensuring firestorm would engulf Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison Square Garden, leaving a landscape resembling the World Trade Center site. From the United Nations headquarters on the East River and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, to the Metropolitan Museum in the eighties and the Flatiron Building in the twenties, structures would remind one of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building following the Oklahoma City Bombing."
As WND has reported, for more than 10 years, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has planned to use nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack on the U.S. The plan is dubbed "American Hiroshima." In fact, as first reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, captured al-Qaida operatives and documents suggest the weapons have already been smuggled into the country.
The military's Joint Task Force-Civil Support, headquartered at Ft. Monroe, Va., will host the three-day drill for commanders and representatives of other federal agencies that would be involved in managing the consequences of a 10-megaton nuclear blast, enough to inflict mass causalities and devastation on an American city.
Like last summer's exercise, the Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 drill is centered around a hypothetical blast that affects nearly half a million people across a 900-square mile section of tidewater South Carolina. The scenario assumes 10,000 fatalities and more than 30,000 injuries.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and senior Coast Guard brass will be on hand.
Though the target of the attack is Charleston, no part of the exercise will actually take place there. Maj. Gen. Bruce Davis, the task force's commander, will oversee the exercise from Fort Monroe.
Joint Task Force-Civil Support – part of U.S. Northern Command, which oversees the Defense Department's domestic military activity – is a standing joint task force composed of active, reserve and National Guard members from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard, as well as civilian personnel.
Last summer, a similar exercise, "Sudden Respond '05," was led by Virginia's Fort Monroe-based Joint Task Force-Civil Support. It, too, was designed to simulate a nuclear terrorist attack that the highest U.S. officials, including President Bush, have said is the No. 1 threat facing the nation.
Organizers say the nuclear drills should not frighten civilians but instead encourage them to learn how to protect themselves if such an attack – which some officials have referred to as inevitable – should occur.
The drill is strikingly similar to a scenario detailed by Graham Allison, former Pentagon assistant secretary for plans and policy and current Harvard professor, in his book, "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe."
A month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Allison wrote, the Central Intelligence Agency presented Bush with a report that al-Qaida had smuggled a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb into New York City. The president, according to the book, dispatched Nuclear Emergency Support Teams of scientists and engineers to New York to search for the weapon, which was never found.
Allison described the devastation that a 10-kiloton nuclear bomb would visit on Manhattan, were it detonated in the middle of historic Times Square: some 1 million people would die almost immediately.
"The resulting fireball and blast wave would destroy instantaneously the theater district, the New York Times building, Grand Central Terminal, and every other structure within a third of a mile to the point of detonation," he wrote. "The ensuring firestorm would engulf Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building, and Madison Square Garden, leaving a landscape resembling the World Trade Center site. From the United Nations headquarters on the East River and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, to the Metropolitan Museum in the eighties and the Flatiron Building in the twenties, structures would remind one of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building following the Oklahoma City Bombing."
As WND has reported, for more than 10 years, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida has planned to use nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack on the U.S. The plan is dubbed "American Hiroshima." In fact, as first reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, captured al-Qaida operatives and documents suggest the weapons have already been smuggled into the country.
Chaleston was destroyed by a nuclear terrorist attack in the early 90's. I saw it on TV..........
Though the target of the attack is Charleston, no part of the exercise will actually take place there. Maj. Gen. Bruce Davis, the task force's commander, will oversee the exercise from Fort Monroe.
Remember that cheesy TV, fake real time, movie about terrorists with a nuclear weapon in Charleston's harbor?
As I recall the feds kill all the terrorists but when trying to diffuse the bomb set it off...classic eighties TV.
anyone remember 'Special Bulletin'?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086350/
New York Times building...Rockefeller Center...United Nations headquarters
I doubt that Al Qaeda really wants to off so many of their allies at one time!
What it will do is completely stifle the Peacenik crowd, and that won't be good news for the 72 virgins.
Yep...see my post.
Yea, a hell of alot more then crashing plane into two buildings, and look at what that did to this country.
If the 'slami's get their act together and detonate a couple of nukes over here... we will see how all that 'homeland security' money was spent by the states. I believe that in many cases(especcially in the 'blue-states') the funds were spent unwisely and little has been done to learn from the lessons of 9/11.
Nothing backs this up more than what happened in NOLA after Katrina.
1,890 feet was the altitude the bombs were set to detonate at in order to achieve maximum blast effect.
So, while a container ship with a nuke will make a big mess, sure, and leave an ugly cloud....will it really cause very much physical damage? 10 kilotons is tiny compared to MIRVd ICBM warheads.
A 10 kiloton warhead detonated at ground level would do more damage then you might think. Not only would the blast destroy anything in the immediate area but it would also send out a very powerful precursor wind ahead of the main shock wave. This wind is powerful enough to lift tanks off the ground and throw them hundreds of feet downrange.
The article says 10 megaton - a huge blast.
Could the reporter have it wrong?
I do indeed remember it!
Personally though, any time there is an article about nuclear weapons in World NUT Daily, I just laugh.
These same people are the ones who publish Joseph Farah's dribble about Iranian EMP strikes on the U.S. and the 30+ Al-Qaeda nukes all set to go off at once in the U.S.
These kinds of drills are also useful in preparing for a chemical accident such as a derailment or a shipping disaster but of course World NUT Daily loves to over hype everything with the would "nuclear" in it.
NO. IT WOULD NOT! [I might think it would do a helluva lot of damage!!] :-)
I'm just thinking, for example, that it would likely do less damage than was done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, given about the same KT'nage and being at, at least we can say, "sub-optimal" height for maximum dispersion. And also due to the fact that most structures around and American port are not made from bamboo and paper, and the medical care/rescue response is going to be somewhat enhanced over 60 years.
I'm not dismissing the event, but I guess I am minimizing it from "doomsday" status. Many people, surprisingly close will survive, much better than they did in Japan. And unless it's a coordinated multi-port attack....it will hurt economically, but not strangle us.
The drill is a good idea, for preparedness' and awareness' sake, the speculation on death and destruction worst case scenarios only spurs the imagination of our enemies.
Oh, and for comparison, Hiroshima was 12.5 kilotons and Nagasaki was around 21 kilotons.
No more NY Rangers??
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