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Can A Nuke Really Fit Into A Suitcase?
Time | October 29, 2001 | Bill Saporito

Posted on 10/22/2001 6:20:06 AM PDT by Stand Watch Listen

Could the next chapter of our national nightmare be a nuclear one? How hard would it be for operatives of Osama bin Laden to deliver a "suitcase nuke" to our doorstep?

The technical answer is that the threat is still considered to be remote; there is no hard evidence that any terrorist group, including bin Laden's, has a finished nuclear weapon in its arsenal. But not long ago, anthrax seemed a distant threat. And it is possible for the bad guys to assemble an atom bomb with contraband uranium and off-the-shelf parts. "It's not particularly probable, but it's possible,'" says Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "The difficulty is that we are dealing with a wide range of low-probability cases. We can't be afraid of any one, but we have to be concerned about all of them." Among those probabilities: "dirty" conventional bombs loaded with radioactive garbage and attacks on nuclear plants that cause massive radiation leaks.

For years, cloak-and-dagger stories have circulated that Soviet suitcase nukes (also known as atomic demolition munitions, or ADMs) had gone unaccounted for and presumably ended up on the Russian black market. The Russians have offered confusing and conflicting statements about the disposition of their ADMs, leading some to suspect the worst. The ADMs weigh from 60 lbs. to 100 lbs., according to Bruce Blair, a former U.S. Air Force officer and expert on Soviet nuclear weapons. They could be carried in a case 8 in. by 16 in. by 24 in. The fissile material inside the mini-nukes degrades over time, though, and it's unlikely that the Russians maintained them or that their new owners could. "There's no good evidence that any rebel group or terrorist has these," says John Lepingwell, a nuclear expert with the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

If terrorists can't buy portable nukes, they would have to make them. And in a frightening study done by the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonproliferation group in Washington, a panel of nuclear-explosives experts concluded that a group of dedicated terrorists without nuclear backgrounds could assemble a bomb if it had the right materials (such as plutonium 239, uranium 235, plutonium oxide and uranium oxide). It would take about a year to complete the job. "There's little question that the only remaining obstacle is the acquisition of the material," says Paul Leventhal, the institute's president. Less than 110 kg of active ingredients could yield 10 kilotons of explosive power--a Hiroshima-size weapon. Even if the terrorists didn't get the recipe quite right, a 1-kiloton yield could still devastate a city. And forget the suitcase: a truck will do, or a container ship to float the bomb into an American port.

Where would bin Laden get the material? Again, the most common answer is Russia, with its reputation as a fissile flea market. And a bin Laden associate has told authorities that the mastermind is shopping for nuclear ingredients. Adds Leventhal: "My feeling is that the prudent assumption is that bin Laden is nuclear capable in some fashion." Other experts are less certain that any terrorist group could pull off a nuke. A 1999 Rand study on terrorism noted somewhat reassuringly that "building a nuclear device capable of producing mass destruction presents Herculean challenges for terrorists and indeed even for states with well-funded and sophisticated programs."

Which is why the greater danger may lie in dirty bombs, conventional weapons used to spray radioactive material--anything from used reactor rods to contaminated clothing--over wide areas. Although the death toll wouldn't be great, the contamination and the public panic could be widespread. "The ultimate dirty bomb is a nuclear power reactor," says NCI's Leventhal. That someone will run a jet into a cooling tower isn't the only risk. Periodically the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has staged mock attacks against facilities, and the faux intruders won half the time--meaning they were in a position to cause severe damage. It's a target-rich environment: not only is the core vulnerable, but one NRC study also concluded that if terrorists blew up the cooling pool that holds the spent fuel, the radiation could kill 6% of the people living within 10 miles of the plant.

with reporting by Mark Thompson/Washington


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs
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To: Stand Watch Listen
You can pack a lot of junk radioactive material (i.e., cast-offs from power plants). And a plain old shrapnel-maker in the center, and you've got a contaminated area blocks wide.
21 posted on 10/22/2001 7:31:11 AM PDT by lds23
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To: Stand Watch Listen
A much better question is, "will a Nuke fit into a burnoose?"
22 posted on 10/22/2001 7:39:20 AM PDT by higgmeister
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To: Stand Watch Listen
Of course, I say we should try to put one down the back of every burnoose in the mid-east!
23 posted on 10/22/2001 7:41:41 AM PDT by higgmeister
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To: boris
Will Cipro help?
24 posted on 10/22/2001 7:44:25 AM PDT by mrgolden
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To: Stand Watch Listen
I dunno from suitcases and nukes, but here's another blast from the past.

" 02 October 2000

Secretary of Defense Cohen (remember him?) Cites Russia, China, Weapons of Mass Destruction as Top Foreign Policy and Defense Challenges Link to discussion of terrorism

Addressing an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) October 2, Defense Secretary Cohen: "With regard to weapons of mass destruction, we are now seeing at least 20, 24 countries let's call it two dozen countries who either have developed or are in the process of developing weapons of mass destruction. That's a word that doesn't mean a lot, I suppose, to most people who hear it.

And that's the reason why, when I went on television a couple of years ago, I held up that five-pound bag of sugar, because it loses its meaning when you use that phraseology.

If you take a five-pound bag of sugar and you say, assuming this were filled with, let's say, anthrax instead of sugar and you spread that with the right kind of temperatures and right kind of wind over a city the size of Washington DC, you could wipe out almost 70 percent of the population just with five pounds.

There are tons of anthrax in existence. There are tons that have been manufactured. And so this is just one element that we have to contend with for the future. How do we gain control over these weapons of mass destruction, which are proliferating and will continue to proliferate?" (Then Poet Cohen just had to lapse into girlie-man gobbledeegook )"If you recall the words of the poet Auden, he talked about a "man clutching a little case who walks out briskly to infect a city whose terrible future may have just arrived."

25 posted on 10/22/2001 7:48:09 AM PDT by YaYa123
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To: higgmeister
"A much better question is, "will a Nuke fit into a burnoose?"....or under a burka?
26 posted on 10/22/2001 7:49:11 AM PDT by YaYa123
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To: Stand Watch Listen
My wife can pack the entire house inside one suitecase. I don't think one nuke presents too much of a challenge.
27 posted on 10/22/2001 7:51:27 AM PDT by Caipirabob
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To: Stand Watch Listen
A "dirty bomb", also known as a radiological bomb, is not at all difficult to put together. All that is needed is some highly radioactive isotope of uranium, plutonium or cesium (possibly spent nuclear fuel) and a couple pounds of C-4. It will scatter radioactivity over a wide area and render it uninhabitable.

The Israelis recently intercepted one individual carrying such a device in a backpack trying to enter Jerusalem via Ramallah.

28 posted on 10/22/2001 7:52:43 AM PDT by Magician
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To: Stand Watch Listen
Periodically the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has staged mock attacks against facilities, and the faux intruders won half the time--

Shouldn't the failed faux intruders have died? Do the defenders use mock defenses? Mock bullets?

29 posted on 10/22/2001 7:54:15 AM PDT by packrat01
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Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

To: ThreadKiller
one match for "thread"; twenty matches for "killer"; no matches for threadkiller
31 posted on 10/22/2001 8:06:44 AM PDT by TrueBeliever9
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To: ThreadKiller
‘The Russians believe that he has a handful [of nuclear weapons], the Saudi intelligence services are very conservative, perhaps they are friendly to the United States, believe that he has in the neighborhood of 20,’ Bodansky said ‘...he is looking for and recruiting former Soviet special forces in learning how to operate the bombs behind enemy lines....”

If they really had nukes, why would they have put us on our guard with the 9/11 attacks? Why wouldn't they just put them in place and make that their first strike? They stand a much greater chance of failure now than they did before 9/11. It doesn't make sense.

32 posted on 10/22/2001 8:07:55 AM PDT by Physicist
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To: ThreadKiller
Tis something to think about - isn't it?
33 posted on 10/22/2001 8:09:10 AM PDT by TrueBeliever9
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To: packrat01
Do the defenders use mock defenses? Mock bullets?
These excerises are not a realistic scenario from what I have heard(some is from TV, so is suspect:)
I am under the impression that they give notice of an attack in the near future, and issue security and attackers special gear(I would guess something like the MILES gear that military uses for their training exercises.). This just doesn't seem realistic to me, but maybe I am wrong(hope! hope!). Because if I am not, then the odds are really worse, because this is their odds against a known attack within a specific timeframe, which would make a 50% sucess rate look really bad.
34 posted on 10/22/2001 8:12:18 AM PDT by danielobvt
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Comment #35 Removed by Moderator

To: mrgolden
Yes. You ARE guessing. One of the things that surprised me about the multi tiered and extensive Islamists networkS which I learned from Yossef Bodnsky's book on OBL ... is how many of the leaders had advanced degrees. Degrees from MIT, Harvard, Oxford ... you name it.

The leaders of these groups have either gone to the best schools in the west or come up through the ranks of para-military groups having survived dozens of conflicts and or terror attacks. Often both.

A third level of leadership are the mullahs or Imams. Only the smart ones make it to the top. Knowing this has also lead me to believe that for the leaders other than the religious leaders, this campaign is not as much about religion as it is about power. Religion is just necessary to unite Moslems across national boundries.

The other thing that amazes me is their level of dedication. Many of these guys have been going hard at it for thirty years or more. And it is not nationalistic fervor because their main focus is always Pan Arabic and or multi national. Why give over one's life to such a cause? I do not think it is religious fervor. It is not something that can be accomplished in a single lifetime. Even if accomplished, a united Islam would never hang together for more than a few years. I suspect a giant hidden hand behind the curtain. The same hand which caused fasicsm to spring up all around the globe in the '30s.

36 posted on 10/22/2001 8:18:04 AM PDT by mercy
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To: ThreadKiller
Do an Internet search on "SADM" (Small Atomic Demolition Munition) and you'll see how small the little buggers can get. And the unclassified information is from the 1950s and '60s, before we got real good at miniturization.

The yield on one probably wouldn't be much, but used on a building it would be the ultimate irresistable force. Used in 1993 instead of the truck bomb, a SADM would have easily brought down one of the Twin Towers.

Now, whether you could actually move something spewing tell-tale radiation around the country is another matter (search on "Nuclear Emergency Search Team").

37 posted on 10/22/2001 8:23:56 AM PDT by PLMerite
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To: Stand Watch Listen
I heard on the Discovery Channed just the other night that Russia...at one time...had some 130 suitcase bombs. Though there is no solid proof that any are missing....they said that around 40 were supposedly unaccounted for.

They said a suitcase bomb like this could cause as much damage as the nuclear bomb in Hiroshima. Also that the bombs could be carried in a back pack.

38 posted on 10/22/2001 8:25:12 AM PDT by Aerial
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To: Tai_Chung
Ah .... another report from the 'Sky Can NEVER Fall' coterie. Rule 3. NEVER discuss possible terr attacks. No mater there is credible evidence that the attack is technically feasible and even that there is substantial evidence that the terrs are efforting in this direction.

Always answer with ... REBUTAL No.1.****there has not been any credible information released that shows an attack of this type imminent ****

Follow up with SUBREBUTAL No.1-a is recommended if dealing with anyone with a nationalistic bent.:**** Spreading fear on false threats is not the only horrible tactic of big-media. They are also down-playing real threats toward the United States and trying to undercut all preparations for such a threat.****

39 posted on 10/22/2001 8:26:58 AM PDT by mercy
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To: Stand Watch Listen
Bomb Mecca if they do!
40 posted on 10/22/2001 8:27:16 AM PDT by Robert Lomax
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