Appearing on “DaySide” just now was Paul L. Williams, PhD, author of the forthcoming Osama’s Revenge. According to Mr. Williams, a former FBI consultant and adjunct professor of Humanities at the University of Scranton, al Qaeda and bin Laden have been actively seeking nuclear weapons since 1992, and that, with the help of the AQ Khan research laboratories, have been successful is acquiring them—having already, in fact, managed to forward deploy from Karachi many such weapons into the United States in preparation for what they call the “American Hiroshima.”
According to Williams, the poppy yield in Afghanistan has doubled since Operation Enduring Freedom—and a good deal of the proceeds from heroin sales are going to fund the nuclear operation. Williams is calling for the firebombing of the poppy fields, and is meeting with lawmakers in an attempt to jumpstart Congressional investigations into the nuclear plot.
I bring all this up because one of the lawmakers Mr. Williams met with recently is Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, who (in)famously reacted to a hypothetical about just such a nuclear attack against the US with the suggestion that one potential military response could be to attack Muslim holy sites (my take on that here). And I’m wondering if this meeting—and Mr Williams’ dire tale of an imminent nuclear attack within the US—fueled Tancredo’s hardline remarks. The timing is a bit unclear.
Be that as it may—I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would be very curious to know what exactly we’re doing to investigate Williams’ contentions and, if found to be true, what we’re doing to prevent such a holocaust.
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More here.
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update: Juliette points out that, pace the fears of a number of outraged armchair diplomats, Tancredo’s remarks—unlike, say, those of Dick Durbin—aren’t being trumpeted much in the Arab press.
I guess some rhetorical “missteps” from US lawmakers are more useful to terrorists than others…
You’ve got it precisely right. I heard Tancredo defend himself on local radio the day after his infamous remarks. He made it clear that he’d been responding to questions about an al Qaeda plot to set off nuclear devices in seven cities at once. He also said he’d received intelligence that indicated those nuclear devices might already be in place in at least some of the seven cities.
Obviously he was referring to info he’d received from Williams, although he didn’t identify him by name.
Well, that puts his remarks into context. I wonder, did he mention any of this on Pat Campbell’s show?
Well, I just listened to the sound clip (available here) and it was Campbell who brought up the nukes-in-seven-cities scenario. He’d heard it from, “Duval Aviv… a former Israeli counter-terrorism expert.” (My spelling of that name is probably bad.) So Tancredo doesn’t specifically mention that he’d heard of this plot from someone else, but he sure didn’t act like he was surprised by the news.
Williams’ overall contentions are plausible and have been discussed by reputable think tanks for a while. His specific citations are more problematic (i.e. 70 nukes already forward deployed, al Qaeda in bed with the Sicilian mafia, etc.) I’ll have to reserve judgement until I can read his footnoted sourcing. The fact that he’s been flogging his book on World Net Daily and the Art Bell and Michael Savage shows are also reason for skepticism.
I share your skepticism, JWebb, but what interests me here is Tancredo’s meeting with Williams as a prompt for his remarks.
Hell, I listened to this guy for 5 minutes today and wanted to dig a shelter and dip my kid in lead.
Criminy. Make sure there’s room in the bunker for me!
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would be very curious to know what exactly we’re doing to investigate Williams’ contentions and, if found to be true, what we’re doing to prevent such a holocaust.
The down side of well-kept intelligence is the faith required to wait while it works. Or doesn’t.
A cursory googling does leave me with the impression that Williams may be a bit of a crackpot, or at least more alarmist than the facts necessarily warrant, at a time oddly coincident with his having a book to sell.
Interestingly enough, he spoke to that point on “Day Side,” saying that his book doesn’t even come out until Septemeber, and that he was on the show to publicize a situation he believes is not being given enough attention.
Whether or not one believes him is another question entirely.
Now that I think of it, I heard Tancredo on Art Bell’s show, too. Talking about aliens. What does it all mean?
It means: Invest in the company that makes Maalox.
You guys might want to check out the following:
http://www.techcentralstation.com/040104C.html
It appears to be a pretty good reality check as to the technical hurdles faced by anyone wishing to use suitcase nukes (which, in the linked article, is what Williams is claiming as al Queda’s nuclear arsenal).
Of course, I pray that I’m not whistling past the graveyard here.
What else are we going to do but whistle, Percy? I suppose I could go door-to-door with my CITIZEN JOURNALIST badge and ask to inspect any misteriously heavy luggage, but I doubt I’d get very far.
Crikey. Spamword is ‘nuclear.’
Clearly the Islamists wouldn’t have nukes nor ever use them were it not for Bushitler’s Illegal War for Oil.
J.Webb: were Tancredo and Bell discussing ILLEGAL aliens or SPACE ALIENS? I’ll bet they talked right past each other and never caught on.
Tancredo: “See, Art, I’m trying to focus attention on the invasion of this country by illegal aliens, especially as it affects my home state of Colorado.”
Bell: “Indeed. Some people would say Denver Airport is a prime hub for the alien invasion.” *
* Google it. Seriously.
See Desperate Situations and The Suicide Strategy.
I’ve been to Denver Airport.
So, do the space aliens look like Hare Krishnas, or do they count on the Krishnas to distract people from noticing the aliens?
The whole “nuke in a suitcase” has pretty much been debunked. General Lebed who appeared on 60 Minutes and said that up to 20 suitcase nukes were missing was apparently telling tall tales so that additional funds from the American government for nuclear disassembling would be forthcoming.
Lebed was also a political rival of Putin, in typical Soviet fashion, died in a helicopter crash in 2002.
Not only that, as the Tech Central Station article linked above notes, nukes of any size need constant tending. This requires expertise. And while there have been reports of disappearing Russian, Pakistani, and Chinese nuclear scientists, the fact is that in addition to expertise, you would also need to replace elements in the nuke itself every few months or years.
Fortunately, most of those elements don’t grow on trees and are pretty carefully regulated.
Bottom line – the idea that 7 nukes are in the US is not impossible. But the chances of them working even if they’re here are almost non-existent.
Overheard in a terrorist sleeper cell safehouse, somewhere in America
First terrorist: Ahmed—um, I mean, Frank—I want to have a burrito for lunch but the microwave isn’t working.”
Second Terrorist: “No problem. Just put it in one of the suitcase nukes and pull the trigger. But be careful—if you use one of the newer ones it might get a little overdone.”
First terrorist: “Tell me about it. This place still reeks from that last bag of popcorn.”
Rick, your lips to God’s ears.
Besides, I can imagine the Russian Mafia guys saying, “Sure, Achmed, it’s a nuke, now where’s our cash?”… then Achmed and pals finding out they actually bought the Russian equivalent of a Ron Popeil rotisserie oven, with extra wires glued to the back and a little plaque taped next to the on/off switch that says “PRESS HERE FOR BOOMSKI.”
Now, could the jihadis assemble a dirty bomb? Or get an Iranian device that “fell off the loading dock”? That’s the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night.
Hmmmm.
@ Rick Moran
“The whole “nuke in a suitcase†has pretty much been debunked. General Lebed who appeared on 60 Minutes and said that up to 20 suitcase nukes were missing was apparently telling tall tales so that additional funds from the American government for nuclear disassembling would be forthcoming.”
http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.htm
Davy Crockett.
<1 kt nuclear weapon launched by RECOILLESS RIFLE
Weight of warhead= 51lbs.
I hope that helped.
Hmmm.
Let me point out something else. The Davy Crockett is very old technology and things have progressed a great deal since then. If you read up on the Orion Project(1) you’ll find out that the primary propulsion system depended on extremely small nuclear charges. To support this project a tremendous amount of research has gone into making such charges smaller and smaller. So the Davy Crockett is not only old and obsolete, but doesn’t represent the pinnicle of such development.
Now some people will say that the Russians aren’t capable of doing this stuff. But that was before the end of the Cold War. Since then high technology, including high speed computers, have been shipped to Russia. To make nukes smaller you need to simulate the detonation, which requires mathmeticians and high speed computers.
The Davy Crockett was topline technology in 1961. Now consider the implications of much greater computer processing power, 44 years to develop such technology and the Russian mafia.
51 lbs isn’t all that much. Even the Davy Crockett would fit in a car’s trunk.
(1) http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/O/OrionProj.html
Ed:
What does size have to do with it when they wouldn’t have the expertise or the parts to maintain the device?
Hope that helped.
It seems to me that if the OBL skunks ever manage to smuggle in an operable nuke they’d use it right away and not take the chance of it being discovered in storage somewhere with a sleeper cell. The guys are murderous psychopaths, not fools.
The scenario that gives me the most worries isn’t the not-all-*that* portable “suitcase bomb,” but a “shipping container nuke” detonated in a convenient port city. One of those, it could be as big (I think) as the Hiroshima bomb, and still operationally feasible.
Hmmm.
@ Rick Moran
“What does size have to do with it when they wouldn’t have the expertise or the parts to maintain the device?”
Frankly that’s nonsense.
The Russian military is currently undergoing a vast change from a conscription only force to a volunteer (contract) force much like America. The conscript forces are slowly falling apart because the Russians aren’t bothering to put money into them. The volunteer (contract) forces are much better because there is more money and fewer problems than in the conscript forces. Pointing a finger at the conscript forces and using that as an example is foolish.
Additionally there are several different forces operating in Russia today. Some of them are under the control of the military, others are under the control of the Kremlin. This latter force, the Border Guards, is ostensibly for guarding the borders, but it’s about 230,000 strong and very well equipped and trained.
As for maintaining the nuclear warheads, that’s just a technique for getting money out of the US. America has made it plain that it’ll spend huge amounts of money to take care of Russia’s excess nuclear weapons & materials. So why should the Russians spend any of their own money. And again, using that as justification for asserting that the Russians are somehow incapable, is just foolish.
Russian intellectuals, engineers, programmers and scientists are some of the best in the world. Look at how far they were able to go, and do, with the crapiest computers and the worst government system around.
But such ridiculous dismissals is frankly absurd.
But hey, if you’ve got an argument to make, then make it.
Hmmm.
@ David C
“The scenario that gives me the most worries isn’t the not-all-*that* portable “suitcase bomb,†but a “shipping container nuke†detonated in a convenient port city. One of those, it could be as big (I think) as the Hiroshima bomb, and still operationally feasible.”
Sorry wrong. A Russian, Soviet-era, nuclear artillery shell has a yield from 5kt to 200kt and weighs about 1,000 lbs. I.e. 1/2 of a car.
BTW 200kt detontating in lower Manhattan would largely destroy lower Manhattan, convert all the window glass and most buildings into deadly flying debris and extend the overpressure shockwave out to about 10 miles with enough force to convert window glass into projectiles (yes even at that distance). The primary zone, where everything is completely destroyed, is about 1 to 1.5 miles in diameter. Depending on wind direction and speed, usually eastward along Long Island, the fallout will extend for about 15-30 miles.
During rush hour, a favorite time for terrorists, lower Manhattan has a population density of around 250,000 – 400,000 per sq. mile. Casualties from a 200kt nuke would probably be around 1-2 million dead immediately, 1-2 million dead within one month from radiation and/or wounds, and another couple million with non-fatal wounds, maimed, crippled and/or suffering from prolonged radiation sickness
The only issue then of course is that, due to hospital consolidations and closings, there aren’t more than a couple thousand *open* hospital beds in the NYC Metro area. You can’t just count hospital beds, you have to count open ones because the ones already filled won’t magically clear themselves.
Figure triage would be immediate with many injured being classified as untreatable. How to deal with so many untreatable casualties without expending valuable drugs, like morphine, is a serious question that I don’t know the answer to. Perhaps a bullet to the head. Maybe opening a vein. Maybe something else.
*shrug* it gets worse from there on. Figure a few thousand patients could be flown around to available hospitals. As many Army/Navy medical units would be flown in to help. But the potential casualties would just simply exceed the ability to treat them.
Frankly I know that I wouldn’t care to be the one assigned the task of taking care of children deemed too injured to treat.
The simple fact is that people have an image of nuclear weapons from the 1940’s. Little Boy and Fat Man were huge weapons. The early jet bombers of the US military, from the 1940’s to early 1960’s, were enormous aircraft to handle the huge bombs. But nukes aren’t that big anymore.
In 1961 America manufactured a 51 lb 0.1 kt – 1kt nuclear weapon. There’s been a lot of opportunity for advancement since then and terrorists, and their financial backers, would pay a lot for a small but effective nuke.
Ed, OK, I see your point. I guess I’m looking at it from a slightly different angle – if I’m a terrorist, and *do* get my hands on a nuclear device (of whatever shape or size), how do I successfully deliver it to a good target undetected? To me, the “detonate it in a shipping container in the harbor” scenario looks like the most likely to work.
1. Congressman Tancredo’s remark were in the context of a hypothetical nuclear attack.
2. Congressman Tancredo requested briefs from the Dept. of Justice about the possiblity of nukes (suitcase nuclear bombs or dirty bombs) in the USA. If true, its frightening. Can we afford even a minimal risk like that? No.
3. Read this article – insightful and satirical
“Instead of Nuking Mecca Import Muslim-Mini-Market Franchise To Jewish American Cities”
at http://satire.myblogsite.com/blog
Hmmmm.
@ David C
“Ed, OK, I see your point. I guess I’m looking at it from a slightly different angle – if I’m a terrorist, and *do* get my hands on a nuclear device (of whatever shape or size), how do I successfully deliver it to a good target undetected? To me, the “detonate it in a shipping container in the harbor†scenario looks like the most likely to work.”
Oh I completely understand your point. What I was trying to show is that a shipping container is actually *not* the best method. The best method is by small powerboat. The reasoning is fairly simple and it has to do with emitted radiation.
Nukes are usually heavily shielded, but this dramatically increases their weight and bulk. The tradeoff is that there is a lot more radiation being emitted that isn’t blocked by the shielding. In our major cities, ports, airports and *official* border crossing zones we have radiation detectors that would very likely detect the radiation emissions from a nuke. Remove the shielding and the chances of detection become even greater.
But, to my knowledge, there aren’t such devices located in every single marina along both the west and east coasts of America. There are a lot of marinas and private docks so there are holes in that sort of coverage.
So transporting a terrorist nuke through a port, in a shipping container, is far more likely to be detected than if you were to load it onto a private power boat and just sail it to a private dock along the coast of, say, Maine.
Or you could use the St. Lawrence Seaway and eventually make it to Chicago. Though I don’t know if they have these detectors along that waterway. They probably do.
In either event they could leave the existing shielding in place and/or add even more shielding to escape detection. In such an event, a 200kt nuclear weapon onboard a private powerboat, the technique would be similar to a truckbomb, only much much bigger.
Additionally there are a few cities with extensive waterways that adjut the primary population centers. Washington D.C., Chicago, New York City (particularly lower Manhattan), San Fransisco, San Diego, Oakland, Portland, Miami and many others.
*shrug* I personally think shipping containers wouldn’t be used because of the threat of detection, passage of the nuke through a chokepoint (the port facilities), and the loss of control over the nuke as it has to be handled by longshoreman.
On the other hand a private power boat is just one of many, has many possibilities of landfall and is always under the control of the terrorsts.
Just my IMHO.
Are you kidding me? Plenty of Muslims heard Tancredo’s remarks, and predictably were outraged. Not as many heard Durbin, I imagine.