FBI's Mueller: Al-Qaida Has Intent to Use Nuclear Weapons [Important]

Robert S. Mueller, Director of the FBI, spoke this morning at the Global Initiative Nuclear Terrorism Conference in Miami. His comments confirm claims made in a new book "The Day of Islam" detailing al-Qaida's nuclear plans.

My thanks to Governor Crist and Mayor Diaz for joining us this morning, and to all those who organized this conference.

I also want to welcome Assistant Secretary John Rood and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak from the Kazakhstan conference. We appreciate your joining us, especially given the time difference.

We are here to discuss one of the most dangerous and deadly threats we face: nuclear terrorism. Few threats fall into the same class in terms of sheer devastation, damage, and loss. Few strike such fear in the hearts of the public. And few threats are so appealing to terrorists around the world, for the same reasons.

It has been said that the September 11th attacks were a "failure of imagination." We cannot fail to imagine the consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack. Nor can we fail to imagine that there are those for whom such an event is the end game.

Prevention must be our end game. Should there be a nuclear attack anywhere in the world, it would mean in some sense that we have failed in our mission. That is why we are here this week.

This morning, I want to talk about the threat of nuclear terrorism. I want to touch on our collective efforts in the United States to keep our citizens safe. And I want to discuss what we in the international community must do to contain this threat.

Our roadmap is clear. We must start with the source: we must secure loose nuclear material. We must share intelligence about those who wish to buy and sell such material, and we must stop those who do. Most importantly, we must stand strong together, for nuclear terrorism is a global threat that requires a global response.

By some estimates, there is enough highly enriched uranium in global stockpiles to construct thousands of nuclear weapons. And it is safe to assume that there are many individuals who would not think twice about using such weapons.

The economics of supply and demand dictate that someone, somewhere, will provide nuclear material to the highest bidder, and that material will end up in the hands of terrorists.

Al Qaeda has demonstrated a clear intent to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In 1993, Osama bin Laden attempted to buy uranium from a source in the Sudan. He has stated that it is Al Qaeda's duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And he has made repeated recruiting pitches for experts in chemistry, physics, and explosives to join his terrorist movement.

Bin Laden is no small thinker. Prior to 2001, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed – the mastermind of the September 11th attacks – suggested flying a small plane filled with explosives into CIA Headquarters. As noted by the 9/11 Commission, bin Laden reportedly asked him, "Why do you use an axe when you can use a bulldozer?"

If 9/11 was the "bulldozer" of which bin Laden spoke, we can only imagine the impact of a full-scale nuclear attack.

Unfortunately, Al Qaeda central is not our only concern. We face threats from other terrorist cells around the world, and from homegrown terrorists who are not affiliated with Al Qaeda, but who are inspired by its message of hatred and violence.

Several rogue nations – and even individuals – seek to develop nuclear capabilities. Abdul Khan, for example, was not only the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, he peddled that technology to North Korea, Libya, and Iran. Khan was one of many to prove that it is indeed a seller's market in the so-called atomic bazaar.

We have often said that the next terrorist attack is not a question of if, but when. If we up the ante to a nuclear terrorist attack, we know it is a question of if, but we cannot let it become a question of when. Now is the time to act.

I want to talk for a moment about our collective roles in combatting nuclear terrorism. While the FBI investigates all acts of terrorism in the United States, the prevention of a nuclear attack is a responsibility shared by many. Our investigations are joint efforts in every sense.

In October 2005, for example, a radiation sensor at the Port of Colombo, in Sri Lanka, triggered an alarm for an outbound shipping container. The container was sent to sea before it could be examined.

Working with their Sri Lankan counterparts, personnel from the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy determined that the suspect container could be on one of six ships, three of which were bound for New York. Officials around the world, from Italy to India, screened various containers on these ships as they moved from port to port. Scientists from Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory worked with FBI experts to analyze why the sensor may have been triggered, and whether any of the containers held weapons-grade nuclear material. FBI agents and analysts searched computer databases for criminal or terrorist ties to the ships in question.

We worked with our state and local counterparts in New York and New Jersey to put response plans into place. As three of the ships pulled into the Port of Newark, FBI personnel and officials from the United States Coast Guard, and Customs and Border Protection, screened and secured several containers.

Although this investigation turned out to be nothing more than the disposal of scrap metal mixed with radioactive material, it illustrates the need for a quick and a coordinated response.

That coordination begins with training. We need to know how best to respond to a pending threat before a real need arises. To that end, we routinely train with federal, state, and local agencies and first responders.

The FBI's Hazardous Devices School, for instance, provides bomb disposal training, using state-of-the-art equipment. In the past 36 years, we have trained more than 20,000 first responders, and nearly 3,000 bomb technicians stand ready to respond if we are threatened with a nuclear terrorist attack.

We also train our law enforcement counterparts across the country and around the world to detect, deter, and disrupt weapons of mass destruction. Field exercises include the smuggling, sale, transport, and use of hazardous material.

The International Counterproliferation Program, for example, is a partnership of the FBI, the Department of Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Together, we are training our foreign partners in WMD detection, border security, undercover investigations, nuclear forensics, and crisis management. To date, we have trained more than 5,000 participants from more than 23 countries.

This September, for example, four of our partners in this Global Initiative – Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, and Georgia – will participate in an integrated exercise. We will run a hypothetical threat of a radiological dispersal device from start to finish, to see whether we are solid, and where we need to improve.

By training together, we can better work together. In recent years, we have worked with many of you on highly sensitive matters related to the trafficking and threatened use of nuclear material. I am not able to discuss those cases today, because the details remain classified.

The mere existence of these cases, however, with buyers seeking to obtain nuclear materials and willing sellers peddling samples, illustrates the size and the seriousness of the threats we face. These cases also illustrate the continued need for information sharing and collaboration.

Let me spend a moment discussing how best to contain the threat of nuclear terrorism.

We all face the prospect that at some point in the near future, a terrorist will steal, smuggle, buy, or build a nuclear weapon. We must focus on prevention; we cannot afford to wait for a calling card to announce an attack.

Strong intelligence is our primary asset. We must collect intelligence from those closest to the threat, from port security and border control to state and local law enforcement. And we must share that intelligence with those who need it.

But intelligence alone is not enough. If we uncover information about potential nuclear trafficking or a pending plot, we must be able to move at a moment's notice.

We cannot sit back and wait for others to act. To do so is to continue to feed the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last, as Winston Churchill once said. Our safety lies in protecting not just our own interests, but our collective interests.

We cannot simply hope that stockpiles will be secure, that smugglers will somehow be stopped, that devices will fail to detonate. Hope alone will not suffice.

Each and every country must safeguard its nuclear material. Those who run the black market must be locked up and shut down. Possessing, peddling, and purchasing nuclear material must be prosecuted. And terrorists must be cut off at the source.

Our greatest weapon is unity. That unity is built on intelligence and interagency cooperation. It is built on the idea that, together, we are smarter and stronger than we are standing alone.

No person, no police officer, no agency, and no country can prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on its own. There are too many unlocked doors and unknown players, too many ports and porous borders.

Yet together, we can stop the smuggling of nuclear material. We can stop those who seek to buy such material on the black market. And we can stop terrorists from using this technology to threaten our citizens. We can, and we must.

Throughout the Cold War, the threat of nuclear attack loomed large. In 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy addressed the American people, saying, "My fellow citizens, let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out ... Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead ... months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing."

The dark days of the Cold War have been relegated to the history books. The United States and Russia ultimately resolved many of their differences through deft diplomacy. But terrorists do not want a seat at the diplomatic table. They do not respond to reason or rationale, nor do they share any desire for peace and prosperity. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Indeed, the greatest danger for each of us here today would be to do nothing. We must take action. And we must do so together. Our safety can only be secured with the help of the international community.

Years ago, we stood across from one another, divided by walls and different ways of life. Today, we stand together in this Global Initiative. We are united in a common cause. It is my sincere hope that in the years to come, we will have no need to meet to address this threat. Let us begin to make that hope a reality.

Agreed.
Then we go after the next “leader” without hesitation wherever he is.
If he is in a heavily populated tribal area then we bomb the hell out of them until they either give him up or die. hopefully disrupting any and all communication networks they have and totally deny them any time or place to plan and carry out any attempts to hurt us again.
Whatever we have to do to avoid losing one or more cities to this backwards evil death cult.

"And what would you know about that, Mr. Newbie?

Is your allegiance to the Constitution, or is it to one man?

I'll tell you what is sick, and it's the herd mentality of the kneepad wearing BushBots who would defend his flawed policies no matter how detrimental they are to the national security of the United States.

Take a look in the mirror, that picture is you."

I have eyes and a good brain, Mr. Oldbie. And they tell me what you haters are. That's what I know.

You're no different at all than the rest of the BDS sufferers on the US Left, in Europe/Canada, the MSM, the UN, etc, etc.

One little twist from you guys: It's Bush's immigration fault! Bush is reading "My Immigrant Goat! He is! It's TRUE!!!!"

Weak egos with "BushBot" and "kneepad" vocabularies. This is a thread about nuclear threats and you BDSers need to hijack it to be about yourselves.

W is wrong on this issue. Building big fences and "rounding them up and shipping them home" are what I want. Neither action will deter a terrorist, however.

Neither will obsessive self indulgence, that's another thing I know.

LOL @ "ALL". Did you say something so profound it has to be widely disseminated? Or is it more likely that you're weak and scared of being alone?

Take a look at Cindy Shehan's medical chart. That patient is you.

Well, well, well, Mr. "Sir Clean Plate Club" (whatever that's supposed to mean), what you're overlooking is that first of all, I'm no Bush-hater, I voted for that now-revealed RINO three times, and I have supported him in every way I know how, but he is derelict in his duties by NOT enforcing the laws regarding illegal immigration, and my past support for him, versus my allegiance to our Constitution means that I can no longer stand with him.

Now for someone like you who actually says:

"W is wrong on this issue. Building big fences and "rounding them up and shipping them home" are what I want. Neither action will deter a terrorist, however"

...your grasp of national security issues is abysmal. How can you possibly say that "building big fences and...shipping them home" will NOT deter a terrorist? Are you daft?

Those 'big fences' make it more DIFFICULT for terrorists to enter the United States, and 'rounding them up' means that by deporting illegals who have no business in this country, the odds are increased that potential terrorists will be among those rounded up.

This isn't about Bush-hating, which is the last defense of the BushBot groupies who worship the ground GWB walks on, regardless of his contempt for, and failure to protect our Constitution. You need to decide if you're going to put your misplaced loyalty to a President now way off the reservation above that of the Constitution of the United States.

You whine about this thread about nuclear threats being 'hijacked' with the immigration issue, but has it occurred to your Bushwhacked mind that an unprotected border combined with no effective enforcement of immigration laws makes it all the more likely that a terrorist group may be able to smuggle a nuclear device into the United States?

For all of your sputterings about what you 'know', it is evident that you don't know a damn thing about what you're talking about.

And as for the ';all' in my posting, FYI buster: I don't need reinforcements to deal with the likes of you, that 'all' was to bring your absurd statements to the attention of the entire thread.

So what was your prior FR screen name? You're way too cocky to be a true newbie except in date of registration, sounds more like you're a retread trying to get back in.

You know, kinda like an illegal immigrant sneaking across the border.

"first of all, I'm no Bush-hater"

Wrong again. That is second of all. The libs took first place with their refrain of: "WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS!"

If you think a wall and air tight immigration will deter a terrorist for a half a minute then you have half a mind. And when you tell people that then you are fully dangerous.

Yap, yap, yapping, like any other cult member.. all with the logic and integrity of the OJ jury.

You used to be one of the good guys. Get well soon, dude.

If you think a wall and air tight immigration will deter a terrorist for a half a minute then you have half a mind. And when you tell people that then you are fully dangerous.

Leaving the border virtually defenseless is an open invitation to terrorists and whoever else wishes us harm to enter this country undetected.

No one ever said building the wall would stop EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY, but the alternative of doing NOTHING is not only much worse, but from a national security standpoint and just plain old common sense, unconscionable.

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