Iraq - Scotsman says Saddam has weapons to wipe out world's population, nuclear bomb within 3 years

The Scotsman ^ | September 7, 2002 | Fraser Nelson and Alison Hardie

[SevenDaysInMay]

The world stage is set for a global, total war. As OBL has told us, for infidels there is no difference between soldiers and civilians; the fatwa proclaims "Death to America." Your children and mine. Islamic networks, of the religion of peace, the Trojan Horse, are now well established in every city of the world.

Socialists' dithering and politicized obstructions subvert the USA's defensive prosecution of this declared war on America. Just which American cities are the Democrats, our allies, and UN willing to sacrifice to terror?

Iraq is just one of many failed societies craving to get even. Many world leaders consider their own populations but convenient human shields. This war will likely lead to nations' destructions, theirs or ours, or both.

We know what to do, but have we the will to win this brutal war?

[DB]

I do not believe you are correct.

I do not believe we can detect a nuke from any significant distance when reasonably shielded.

For example if one is placed at the bottom of a filled oil tanker I seriously doubt we would have much luck at all detecting it.

That is prior to detonation…

[varon]

He hasn't moved yet because he has an organized PLAN, not just a single strike...........

which will probably be in concert with others.........

[DB]

The beauty is Daschle has gone on record saying the "evidence" presented to him doesn't convince him. When that evidence goes public and the public IS convinced by it, what is poor Daschle going to say???

Daschle has cornered himself with his own mouth. I have to believe there is going to be a price paid by him and crew, especially just prior to a national election.

[DB]

Read 64.

[Skeptical constituent]

Scott Ritter is a traitor. He is now spouting off how Iraq is more than ten years away from development of WMD. Why won't the media play his former statements juxtaposed with his current statements re: Iraq? Remember the famous "above your pay grade" remark of Gephart? Or was is Dasshole? One of those socialists.

[Skeptical constituent]

Scott Ritter is a traitor. He is now spouting off how Iraq is more than ten years away from development of WMD. Why won't the media play his former statements juxtaposed with his current statements re: Iraq? Remember the famous "above your pay grade" remark of Gephart? Or was is Dasshole? One of those socialists.

[Terriergal]

:-) Except that it's really "Bomb Iran."

[Terriergal]

I think Scott Ritter has been duped. Maybe he really doesn't want war, feels sorry for the minions under Saddam...*sigh* but if so he's going about it the wrong way. They need to be liberated and given hope, and yes, some will die in the process.

[dark_lord]

You may be right. Fortunately, the lousy persian golf oil tanker smugglers don't come to our shores. The big tankers are run by the oil companies and they have sufficient security to prevent someone from sequesting a nuke. Not easy at all to do that. Would require quite a bit to get one on board undetected, I think; and require replacement of the crew with suicidal fanatics who would have to successfully sail the ship for several days to get it to our shores. Pretty risky for them.

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[DB]

You mean like taking control of a plane in flight and successfully flying it to its target?

Taking over an oil tanker at sea wouldn't be hard for those trained to do it. Like the plane, they don't have to "land" it, just get it near the target.

And how do you stop a loaded oil tanker going into San Francisco bay for example? Sinking it in the bay not knowing what a real threat it really is would be a disaster into itself as well.

And lastly, before the ship goes down, the bomb goes off, wherever it is.

[dark_lord]

Taking over an oil tanker at sea wouldn't be hard for those trained to do it. Like the plane, they don't have to "land" it, just get it near the target. And how do you stop a loaded oil tanker going into San Francisco bay for example? Sinking it in the bay not knowing what a real threat it really is would be a disaster into itself as well.
Au contraire. I have extensive knowledge of ships - spent 6 years in the US Navy.
"Taking over" the oil tanker at sea requires that (a) they find it, (b) they capture it, (c) they hoist a very heavy nuke on board.
Capturing it in the Persian Gulf while it is loading oil is the easiest - easy to find, easier to get aboard, easier to get the nuke on board. Ability to make the the corporation running it and the US Navy to think everything is okay while they do this and then run it all the way over here - NO WAY!
Okay, so they capture it on the high sea's, preferably only maybe 24 hours before it is scheduled to come into port (e.g. reach target from their perspective.)
Pretty hard. Its actually pretty hard to find any ship out in the ocean without satellite surveillance or a major Navy to be the eyes. Even if they have a couple of crewmen on board (and they would) they are likely to be "deck apes" or cooks. They might be able to get the position information and radio it - but the ship is moving. Takes time to match course and speed. And the closer they get, the oil tanker will see them. The control room sits pretty high up. Then, the capture. The sides of those oil tankers are like cliffs. Very difficult to try to run some Zodiacs along side and then climb those steel cliffs. Then they have to capture the control room and the radio room. You think the security measures for the oil tankers haven't thought of all the scenarios? You think they don't have a coded messages and means to yell "Help Help"? They do. Etcetera.

Like I said - not easy at all. Reaction time to the airliner highjacking was short - and they had the advantage that the US was not thinking it would happen. Reaction time to respond to a hijacked oil tanker is very long - plenty of time to respond. And that is a scenario that the military has trained for.

[DB]

If you have inside people the call for help is gone.

One satellite phone, one GPS and a couple armed crewmembers and the deed is done.

Once the ship's radio is out, armed crewmembers could hold the ship until their comrades arrive. It isn't like they want hostages they simply kill the others. Helicopter is the easiest way to board it. It doesn't matter if they can see it coming if you can't call for help or you're already dead.

You assume these people aren't willing to take years to train and gain the positions necessary to do the deed. I think that is a very dangerous assumption.

[another cricket]

It would not be hard to smuggle them into a large city.
That is a nightmare scenario.
However, it is highly dangerous to the person[s] attempting it.

Why do you think that means that it wouldn’t be done? I understand your reasoning but it is far too civilized.

It depends on how you do it and whom you use to do it. You seem to assume that they will be using the traditional method used by people who plan on coming home after the war. They won't. Instead they will find suicidal volunteers to fly planes loaded with gas, bugs or bombs to several targets. If only four or five hit we are talking about potentially millions of lives.

If volunteers are not forthcoming then you just grab a few pilots’ families. After they watch you cut off a couple of ears they will fly the planes.

a.cricket

[Polybius]

Fortunately, the lousy persian golf oil tanker smugglers don't come to our shores. The big tankers are run by the oil companies and they have sufficient security to prevent someone from sequesting a nuke. Not easy at all to do that. Would require quite a bit to get one on board undetected, I think; and require replacement of the crew with suicidal fanatics who would have to successfully sail the ship for several days to get it to our shores. Pretty risky for them.

Any such nuke would not come here on an oil tanker. It would come here in a sealed container on a container ship along with cheap Asian-manufactured junk on it's way to your local WalMart.

Any one of these containers (maybe that green one, far aft, starboard side on the Mexican Line ship) could have gone from Iraq to Saudi Arabia to Indonesia to Mexico to San Francisco without ever once being opened and inspected.

[dodger]

It is strange, indeed, what has become of Ritter. Weird.

[dark_lord]

Yep. Sounds easy. But. I say again. The corporations that run the tankers pay big bucks to security consultants, who employ and are owned by ex-CIA, ex-DIA, ex-FBI, ex-spec ops, ex-cops, etc. Those consultants come up with all the ideas - just like the way you proposed but in more detail. Then they come up with counters. Counter-counters. Etc.
So - it is not so easy as you think.

[dark_lord]

Yes - that is a bigger problem. It is a far more likely scenario than trying to get a nuke on an oil tanker.
And I don't think it would be easy to stop if the cargo container was down in the hold, below the water line, with shielding containers stacked around it.
Might be possible.

[hflynn]

Here is the problem Saddam faces. Ever since Mogadishu the prevailing view throughout the world is that the United States can be made to backdown if you inflict casualties on them. The Arab world is now convinced that if a bunch of ragtag Somalians could change American foreign policy by killing less than 20 American soldiers then imagine the possibilities if weapons of mass destruction were in Arab hands. America could be blackmailed into doing nothing whenever the Arab world so desired.

Good plan, bad timing. Clinton ain't in the White House anymore. If the current George Bush was in the White House on Sunday, Oct. 3, 1993 Mogadishu, Somalia would have ceased to exist on or about Oct. 4, 1993. I don't think Saddam understands that George Bush, not Tom Daschle and company and the media, will decide what the United States is going to do in a very short period of time.