Brace for A Real War at Home

DefenseWatch "The Voice of the Grunt" ^ | January 22, 2003 | Ed Offley

[Joe Hadenuf]

Some of the 'toughest' looking gun show crowds I've ever seen are at the Cow Palace in SF. And I've been going to shows all over the US for 40 years.

I always get a laugh out of those that think Cal is unarmed....Hehehehe....

[Travis McGee]

There is zero zilch nada technical reason why an enemy cannot fill cargo containers with steel drums loaded with explosives (fertilizer and fuel if that's the best they can do) and ship it into the USA labeled "Olive oil" etc.

The 98% of the boxes that come in unopened are put on trains and trucks by automated systems and shipped into the US hinterland to be unloaded at WalMart distribution centers, factories, etc.

Any moron with a boating catalog can order the items needed to put a GPS triggered detonator into the cargo box block buster, set to go off on a key bridge or in a key tunnel or in the middle of a city.

Think of the Oklahoma City bomb, times 50.

Think of a dozen such cargo boxes sent into the USA, and half of them going off.

Think of our eonomy when we have to stop every cargo box in its location, and open and inspect every single one, lest it be another block buster.

Now somebody tell me about the system we have in place which makes this impossible.

[Southack]

By "one day delay" I meant that what takes 24 hours now to deliver (re: packages) would take 48 hours, and that 2 day mail would take 3 days, and that normal mail would be stretched past 4 days, et al.

If you send in a letter to the FAA in Oklahoma, it takes an extra 3 weeks right now as all of their mail is being re-routed, irradiated, then sent back to OK. 3 weeks is fine for bureaucrats, but civilians will demand faster irradiations (and that's not a technical hurdle, just a matter of money).

Likewise, ground deliveries of produce, goods, and other daily business items will all have a full day added to them (if they leave a single city) as they get inspected by various feds after an attack such as you describe.

Ports would also get hit with delays, and I would suspect that all ships would begin being inspected at our territorial water limit rather than in harbors.

[okie01]

"As to the Anthrax in this country - Stephen Hatfill. Guilty as sin IMB."

Upon what evidence do you base your conclusion?

"TONS of Iraqi Anthrax? Ha! I don't BELIEVE that they have quantities ANYWHERE near that large ..."

Refresh my memory. How many tons of anthrax were the Iraqis found to have in storage after Gulf War I? About 18 tons of the stuff were destroyed, I believe.

They've now had how many years since the inspectors left to rebuild their stocks? I make it over four.

Now, what was your point...???

[Travis McGee]

Great one Howie! I hope your firewalls and AV are up to date!

[Mr. Mojo]

Hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. military personnel are also quietly preparing for combat right here at home.

Preparing for combat to fight whom? A virus? A chemical compound?

[Mr. Mojo]

You're damn right the Iraqis have anthrax....and tons of the stuff. We were sent some samples/warnings in the weeks following 9/11.

[Travis McGee]

Irradiation works as a point protection barrier or filter against non-leaky items.

It does NOTHING to protect the mail system itself against an intentional attack ON THE MAIL SYSTEM (not FAA offices etc) by 100s of leaky envelopes being mailed from ten cities in one day, getting wumped and whooshed through those mail smashing sorters. That's why the postal centers are still closed, but Tom Daschle's office is open.

So how do we run an economy with no USPS, FEDEX, UPS, subways, or airports?

[Howie]

It won't last long.

[The Great Satan]

CAN ANTHRAX REALLY BE USED AS A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION?

The answer is yes, though to date it has not been.

Fortunately, it's far more difficult to turn anthrax into a weapon of mass destruction than you may have been led to believe. First, only certain strains of bacteria are exceptionally deadly. A bioterrorist would have to have access to a particularly virulent strain and then brew a large batch of microbes. The bacteria would have to be dried and converted to spores, then refined into very, very small particles.

The recent distribution of anthrax through the mail system infected at least eighteen people and killed five. The mail system was paralyzed regionally. Congress was essentially shut down for four days, buildings were closed for months. The country was terrorized. But anthrax was not used, as it might have been, as a true weapon of mass destruction. The same amount of anthrax placed in the ventilation system of a building could have exposed thousands to a lethal dose.

For more than three decades, scientific, military, and health experts have tried to analyze the consequences of a large-scale anthrax attack. The worst-case scenario would be that some nation or group was able to spread anthrax from an airplane over a major metropolitan area. In an analysis that is over thirty years old and conducted long before we developed the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile and early-mobilization program, the World Health Organization estimated in 1970 that the release of aerosolized anthrax over a densely populated area with 5 million people could result in 250,000 casualties, 100,000 of whom could die unless treated.

In another analysis, the U.S. congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) estimated in 1993 that releasing aerosolized anthrax over Washington, D.C. could result in 130,000 to 3 million deaths--an attack as deadly as a hydrogen bomb.

Senator Bill Frist, When Every Moment Counts

>

They turned to the hot topic of anthrax. The powder in the letter mailed to Senator Daschle's office had been found to be potent, prompting officials to suggest its source was likely an expert capable of producing the bacteria in huge amounts. Tenet said, "I think it's AQ" -- meaning Al Qaeda.

"I think there's a state sponsor involved. It's too well thought-out, the powder's too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist, perhaps from Iraq or Russia."

"I'm not going to talk about a state sponsor." Tenet assured them.

"It's good that we don't." said Cheney, "because we're not ready to do anything about it."

Bob Woodward, Bush at War (2002), pp. 248-249.

It is protection for Saddam to have biological and chemical weapons, because, in the final analysis, if pressed, if he is surrounded in Baghdad, he will threaten to use them. He's capable of that. This is a sort of Samson complex--if you push me too hard, I'll bring the house down, on myself and on everyone else. Washington realizes that this is a possibility. For obvious reasons, it's not talked about openly. No one in Washington wants to tell the American people that Saddam is still capable of blackmailing us. They're acting as if he is capable of blackmailing them, but they are not going to admit it openly.

Said K. Aburish, author of Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge
Interview with PBS Frontline, January 2000

Iraq also has a more advanced capability for delivering biological agents than it possessed in the Gulf War, the officials said.

"In 1991, the bulk of their capability was wet agent" delivered in liquid form, which limited its spread and lethality, one expert said.

But Iraq has since developed dry toxins that spread in particle form in the air and are breathed in more deeply by the victim, the expert said.

Bio-weapon boom in Iraq since '98
NY Daily News, December 17, 2002

Richard Spertzel, a microbiologist and former head of biological inspection teams in Iraq for the United Nations, said he, too, had talked to federal investigators about the Senate powder.

"There's no question this is weapons quality," Dr. Spertzel said. "It has all the characteristics — fine particles and readily dispersible." Particles must be small to penetrate deep into human lungs, where they can start a lethal infection.

Al Zelicoff, a physician and expert on biological weapons at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, who is developing a computerized system to allow epidemiologists to track suspicious disease outbreaks, said his conversations with federal investigators had alarmed him.

"These people know what they're doing," Dr. Zelicoff said of the anthrax terrorists. "I'm truly worried. They have the keys to the kingdom." >

Contradicting Some U.S. Officials, 3 Scientists Call Anthrax Powder High-Grade, New York Times, December 24, 2001

BIOTERRORISM MONITORS TO BE PLACED THROUGHOUT USA... intended to tell within 24 hours whether anthrax, smallpox and other deadly germs have been released into the air, senior administration officials tell Wed NYT... MORE... system uses sophisticated data analysis which officials said had been quietly developed since the Sept. 11 attacks... MORE...

Bioterrorism monitors to be placed throughout USA...

[Mr. Mojo]

I always get a laugh out of those that think Cal is unarmed....Hehehehe....

Yep, I wouldn't be surprised if Californians were better armed than anyone else in the nation. They have excellent incentives to BLOAT.

[Travis McGee]

Hey GS buddy, now that you're here I'm going to sign off, knowing the thread is in good hands.

But I still think we are going to attack, regardless of the anthrax WMD threat at home.

[Travis McGee]

I'll bet! I wonder why it upsets them so? LOL!

[Southack]

"Irradiation works as a point protection barrier or filter against non-leaky items. It does NOTHING to protect the mail system itself against an intentional attack ON THE MAIL SYSTEM (not FAA offices etc) by 100s of leaky envelopes being mailed from ten cities in one day, getting wumped and whooshed through those mail smashing sorters. That's why the postal centers are still closed, but Tom Daschle's office is open. So how do we run an economy with no USPS, FEDEX, UPS, subways, or airports?"

You put postal workers back to work in the contaminated facilities by forcing them to wear chemical warfare gear or space suits. Then you irradiate every letter that gets delivered to Joe Civilian.

Like I said, a big anthrax attack will slow down the system, but it can't stop it.

[Mr. Mojo]

Make no mistake, Iraq is toast. I think we've determined that:

A) Saddam's post 9/11 anthrax warnings were just a bluff, and he just doesn't have the capacity to killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. .....or

B) We've successfully neutralized the very real threat. .....or

C) We know we could take a huge hit, but we've decided that we have no other choice but to go ahead and fight anyway.

[Mr. Mojo]

We'll probably see similar attacks here as what Israel has coped with for decades, including civilian sniper attacks

Yep...They now know that a couple of decent shots and terrorize/petrify an immense geographical area.

[The Great Satan]

A) There is no way we could determine that the threat is a bluff. No way.

B) We cannot neutralize the threat now or any time soon.

C) We are not going to risk losing New York, Washington, London, Paris, Adelaide, Sydney, etc. Fuggedaboutit.

You are very easily taken in by grandstanding and saber-rattling. I've been watching this very closely for almost a year-and-a-half. What is happening now is nothing new -- it's the same old same old. Remember Bush's UN speech? That was almost six months ago, now. Bush has his foot on the accelerator, but he knows that almost everybody else's foot is on the brake. And that suits him just fine. The net result is that we maintain forward momentum, he still looks like the tough cop -- not the helpless victim of a gangster's blackmail, which is closer to the truth -- and things keep inching forward, ever so slowly. Expect things to continue in the same vein for some time to come.

[Mr. Mojo]

So you don't think we're going to war at all? I have news for you: A quarter million American troops aren't going to be told to sit on sand with their thumbs up their asses for 6 months to a year. We're going in, and we're going in soon.

[Mr. Mojo]

A) There is no way we could determine that the threat is a bluff. No way.

B) We cannot neutralize the threat now or any time soon.

You say "no way" to both, but you don't present any argument to the contrary. How the hell do you know how many terror cells (or "sleepers") we've busted up in the last 15 months? And how do you know all our combined intel services (including the Mossad) haven't determined that Saddam is bluffing? I'm not saying we have do so for certain, but I don't completely dismiss the possibility altogether. You seem a trifle too emotionally attached to you whacked out theory. ....and you'll have egg on your face in a big way next month when we roll into Iraq.....and I'll be throwing them.