Inventor of neutron bomb weighs in.
newsmax.com
WASHINGTON – Top officials in the Bush
administration and in Congress have been urged
to use a small neutron bomb to wipe out Osama
bin Laden in a quick first strike in the war on
terrorism.
Sam Cohen, the scientist who invented the neutron
bomb, has outlined for these officials his plan to
'do in' the Taliban and terrorist Osama bin Laden,
and do it quickly.
That, says Cohen, would go right to the core of
the terrorist threat and at the same time satisfy
the typically American impatience.
The neutron bomb has a limited blast and causes
little collateral damage or lasting radioactivity
while killing its intended targets.
"My offhand guess is that the majority of
Americans couldn't care less how we 'do in' the
Taliban and bin Laden and company, provided we
get it done and [quickly]," he told NewsMax.com in
a phone interview from his West Coast home.
Cohen, whose views were often accepted by
President Reagan, agrees with President Bush
regarding the need for the American people to
resolve to hunker down for the long term.
The global terrorist threat is indeed "going to go
on for years," Cohen agrees, but he is telling
policy-makers in Washington, "the name of the
game right now is Afghanistan [and] bin Laden."
What we need, he says, is a quick, highly visible
strike to begin that war – one that Americans can
see now. That, he believes, would stiffen the
public's resolve for the future. The president has
already told Americans that the war itself won't be
quick and easy and could take years.
"I don't think they're going to be very tolerant of a
prolonged [ground war,]" argues the scientist. He
cites Korea and Vietnam as examples of the limits
of America's patience.
At the same time, Cohen points to the 1991
Desert Storm as an example of an air war of short
duration that did not do the job, given that Saddam
Hussein remains in office today, as powerful as
ever, plus the fact that resulting civilian deaths in
that conflict vastly outnumbered military
casualties. Hardy consistent with the first
President Bush's vow to wage "a Christian war," in
Cohen's view.
As a solution that would be both quick and
effective, the author of "Shame: Confessions of
the Father of the Neutron Bomb" proposes
reconfiguring Minuteman missiles. Remove the
thermonuclear "big bang" component (hundreds of
kilotons). Once that is done, these weapons could
be deployed to target the hideouts of terrorists in
Afghanistan.
Cohen says his sources tell him the U.S. has "fair
intelligence" on the Taliban and "where their units
and training camps are spread around."
The problem with "bombing the hell out of them" is
that "we don't know where these guys are, and
they’re nobody's fool" and now that they know
they're under attack, "they’re going to be on the
move." They will "burrow and bury themselves"
while continuing their training exercises.
To counteract this requires, first, the "element of
surprise."
Secondly, there will be a need for a weapon that
imposes "mass destruction" that is carefully
targeted.
Each Minuteman missile has three warheads. The
thermonuclear component could be defused, while
keeping the "trigger" at the kiloton level. "A kiloton
bomb would do approximately the same amount of
harm" as the hijacked airliners did to the World
Trade Center Building.
"We hit them unannounced. All the president has
to do is punch a button to put the plan into
operation, and [these reconfigured kiloton bombs]
can be retargeted practically within minutes."
Ridding the weapons of the thermonuclear
component can be done "within days," Cohen
argues.
Further, they would take "considerably less than a
half-hour" to reach their destinations. The "kiloton
fission" would be a "deadly force," with a radius of
about two-thirds of a mile "towards killing people
who are exposed." That would be about a square
mile, which "ought to cover the area of a training
camp." The radioactive fallout would be relatively
limited in terms of immediate death and death
from prolonged effects.
The neutron bomb stockpile was eliminated after
the Gulf War. The weapon had the potential for
destroying humans without destroying property.
Peace activists around the world had denounced it
for that reason.
In fact, Cohen noted, in contrast to his famous
invention, the kiloton bomb could destroy property.
Also, whereas the neutron bomb can produce
widespread radioactive fallout, the bomb he
advocates for a quick strike in the current war is
more carefully targeted.
Cohen's plan is known to have elicited a very
positive reaction in some Washington quarters.
Where it goes from there has yet to be
determined.Read more on this subject in
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