Posted on 11/18/2001 1:38:32 PM PST by codebreaker
A leading Muslim cleric Shaykh Hisham Kabbani, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of America (ISCA), insists bin Ladens network has bought more than 20 nuclear warheads carried in suitcases.
In 1999 Kabbani first warned the U.S. State Department of bin Laden's impending terrorism.
He told the U.S. Government bin Laden was training suicide bombers in Afghanistan ready to move to any part of the world.
Kabbani said the nuclear weapons, sometimes referred to as "suitcase bombs", were sold by the Russian mafia.
Do you really know him that well, to be able to predict his every move with 100% accuracy? I'm impressed! Me, I don't know what the guy will do, or when he will do it. I must be dense, because to me, he seems like the unpredictable sort.
"what's he waiting for?"
Perhaps he's waiting for us to convince ourselves that it's completely impossible for him to have and/or use them? You know, that "element of surprise" thing? Seems like one of the few things that're predictable about him is that he likes to use the element or surprise. You know, like on 9/11, for instance.
But then again, I'm dense, so forget I said anything. You're right, there's no way he would ever play things close to the vest, or "save the best for last". It would indeed be "silly" for him to reserve the option of upping the ante as he went along, and only a fool would even entertain the idea that he'd want to keep something up his sleeve for the day he's got his back against the wall.
Seems like I've read that various and sundry scurrilous characters have hired ex-soviet "nuclear guys".
If you were one of those guys, what do you think your "half life" would be the day after OBL discovered that the "suitcase" you advised him to purchase -- instead of going "Boom!", went "Sproing!" as a smirking clown puppet popped out the top?
Do you think its even remotely possible that the people who managed to coordinate the 9/11 attacks have taken some of these details into consideration, and taken steps to ensure that they've got a modicum of possibilty of carrying out what they intend?
I agree. Plus, why fly planes into WTC when you have nukes already. Why not just set all 20 off at once on 20 different cities. No way does he have 'em, or else he would've already used 'em by now.
I dont mean to be disrespectful but I think your ID says it all.
You give them (Al Quieda or any Muslim terrorist organization) too much credit.
As with most mindsets that are warped and prideful(in regards to reality) and they simply misjudged the situation.
Let's say for the sake of arguement that they did have 20 Nuclear suitcases...then why wait until the entire Arab population in this country gets put through a strainer?
Why use an airplane to attack the pentagon when you could've nuked it and been done with it?
No...if they were wanting to use them as bargaining chips then that would be stupid....once they used or produced one(required if the threat was going to be taken seriously)...then the whole country would be locked down, borders frozen and manned by the active military, Marshal law declared, DC emptied out (literally), shoot-on-site 24 hour curfew, and every single arab in this country regardless of descent would be rounded up and taken away until we found them or were comfortable that we could manage the threat and prevent a detonation...not to mention the military response everywhere overseas. The economy of the planet hinges on ours and when push comes to shove....Europe and the bulk of the rest of the planet would shake out their pockets too.
Obtaining and detonating a Nuclear device as a threat would guarantee the extinction of the Muslim terrorist.
The only way to appraoch this country from a nuclear standpoint is if you got em use em all at once.
Anything less is suicide. If they did want to use them as a bargaining chip then why wouldnt they have pulled that card to at least insure the survival of the lone country that they ran...Afghanistan?
This country has the Best and Brightest focused on the situation now...
There are no Suitcase Nukes inside of the United States that the US Military doesnt own and control.
As to the prospect of 20 of these nuclear suitcases being in the hands of terorists; I don't believe it.
But if they can manage to get their hands on one it will be a disaster.
Sadly there is still a "business as usual" approach in DC. As an example while everybody speculated about airport security they "ignored" the fact that airline lobbyist did not install adequate doors on their planes!
In addition; business as usual management of nuclear waste, industrial chemicals, and other potentially dangerous materials that could be leveraged as WMD remains.
While in many cases we have no choice but to move on and live our lives in our day-to-day fashion, the astonishing lack of the application of common sense is saddening.
When our government goes beyond "window dressing" solutions, that is to say cosmetic fixes that pander to special interest groups, then as a nation we can really address the problem.
IF... the hijacked planes had been flown into a nuclear power reactor the need for a suitcase is just a luggage issue.
The problems with materials stored illegaly and in industrial settings is another area where we are vulnerable.
I feel that the challenge that we are facing is one of an enormous magnitude and that simply putting a "feel good" solution on the problem is not the answer. (as in the case of the doors...)
As the public officials display there concern about the economy, and the need to fly, and the need to buy cars, and the need to shop at XMAS, what they are doing is worrying about a mouse in the attic while a fire rages in the basement.
Sadly you see who is first on the agenda, and it wasn't the donate a dollar crowd.
A few days ago I read a article that said that the WTC attack was the equivalent of approximately .25 KT. Of course, that was spread out over, what, an hour or so? A nuke would deliver its damage over the course of a split second, rather than over the amount of time it took for the jet fuel to burn.
To put that in practical terms, I can tap you lightly on the cheek a hundred times in a row, and you'd barely feel it. But if I delivered the same amount of energy in one blow, you'd be sent reeling.
OK, so now that we know about how much energy was released on 9/11, and know what level of damage it caused -- and know that the damage would have been quite a bit more severe if the .25 KT were delivered at once rather than spread out over a protracted period of time, we've got at least a rough benchmark of sorts.
According to the FAS site mentioned in post # 109 in this thread, the ex-soviet suitcase nukes have a yield of 10 KT. So, a "suitcase" would have about 40 times the yield of the WTC attack, except, of course, it would be delivered instantly rather than meted out over an hour or so.
Not nearly a "city buster", but nothing to sneeze at either.
Because this was orchestrated by the 'caste of untouchables', AKA the Russian oligarchs, all investigations were stymied.
I am somewhat calmed by the tritium decay argument. This stuff must be difficult to get or make without leaving a trail. So it would be difficult to re-activate the weapons secretly (of course, that doesn't mean that our government would inform us what they know -- no sense in panicking the public).
Sounds like we must be hitting some nerves....
From what I understand, it would take several feet of lead to make a plutonium bomb undetectable. BTW that also holds true for the type of irradiation they're going to be using on the US mail. The photography listservs have been in a tizzy because once that starts, it'll be impossible to mail raw film, or exposed film for processing. The lead-lined bags will be absolutely worthless. Fuji put out some info that said that film sent through that would receive enough radiation to be equal to taking the film out of a camera and exposing it to sunlight. That's a lot of radiation. (The USPS recently told Kodak that they'd work out a way for film to be sent w/o irradiation, BTW.)
Suitcase nukes have yields up to around 1 kiloton (sometimes much less, the smallest US nuclear weapons had yields of about 0.02 kilotons).
1 kt could cause a hell of a mess, but would nowhere near take out a whole city, or even a large chunk of one. Major destruction would be limited to a few city blocks, more than we saw in the WTC attacks, but not immensely so. Of course, there would be no time to evacuate as was the case for WTC before the buildings came down, so the number of fatalities could be a lot larger if a heavily populated area were chosen.
The area of more or less complete destruction would extend about 0.35 miles (1800 feet) from the point of a 1kt explosion. The amount of damage beyond that area would drop off rapidly, and buildings and people as little as one or two miles away would be relatively safe.
It wouldn't be at all like the results of the 20+ megaton (20,000 times as powerful) thermonuclear H-bombs that superpowers have in their arsenal. This is what most people think of when they hear "nukes", but those are the way upper end. And an H-bomb is *way* beyond the technical abilities of terrorists, or even Iraq and other countries.
As for radiation from a 1kt bomb, there would be time to evacuate most of the people at risk from the downwind plume. And the lingering radiation at ground zero would be dangerous for a week or two, but the radiation from the more powerful 15kt bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was down to relatively safe levels (5 times normal background radiation) eight weeks after the explosion, and Hiroshima has been continuously inhabited ever since.
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