A very good paper from the Kennedy School of Government concerning the dangers of nuclear weapons use by terrorists. Scary in that it details AQ's delusional notion that resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan was responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. According to the report, OBL also believes that the 9/11 strike cost the US economy $1 trillion in damages. A few more hits of that magnitude, according to OBL, and the US will be brought to its knees. Hence, he has said that it is a religious duty to seek WMD such as nuclear weapons.
The report also details the ease with which nuclear weapons can be made, particularly the "gun" type. It notes that to build the device, which is similar to the Hiroshima bomb, all that is required is about 60 lbs. of HEU, a knowledgeable person to download and interpret plans, and a technical jack-of-all trades type. It also concludes that the more complex "implosion" type of weapon, which requires far less fissile material, can be built by a terrorist group.
Also has the predictable policy responses, and a few more facts that should make everyone who reads the report very uneasy.
Long but worth reading:
nti.org
After Madrid, the Europeans seem to be waking up to the nuclear threat, too:
nti.org
As Sam Nunn aptly put it:
“We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe,” said Senator Nunn, co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). “To win this race, we have to achieve cooperation on a scale we’ve never seen or attempted before. Terrorists cannot hit the United States without staggering Europe, and they cannot hit Europe without staggering the United States. Our greatest perils are the threats that all nations face together, and that no nation can solve on its own.”
In preparation for a nuclear event, the typically pragmatic Israelis are distributing anti-radiation pills in the areas surrounding their nuclear reactors:
news.yahoo.com
And not to scare folks too much, the 9/11 Commission feels another 9/11 magnitude event is "probable":
>>Another Attack Probable, Commission Members Say
By Marina Malenic
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Another strike against the United States on the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks is probable, members of the commission investigating those attacks said yesterday (see GSN, June 23).
“We face a determined enemy who sees this as a war of attrition — indeed, as an epochal struggle. We expect further attacks,” said commission Chairman Thomas Kean, former New Jersey governor. “Against such an enemy, there can be no complacency,” he added in a press conference on the release of the commission’s report.
Other commission members echoed that warning.
“Now we’ve been told by everyone, from the president of the United States on down — it’s going to happen again,” said former Illinois Governor James Thompson.
The United States has made inroads against Islamic terrorist networks, added Kean, but a potent threat still remains.
“Put simply, the United States is faced with one of the greatest security challenges in our long history. We have struck blows against the terrorists since 9/11,” he said. “We have, we believe, prevented attacks on the homeland,” he added.
“We do believe we are safer today than we were on 9/11,” he went on. “But we are not safe,” Kean added.
White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice agreed today with the chairman’s assessment.
“We’re clearly safer. And I would agree completely with the commission’s statement that we are safer but not yet safe,” Rice said on the CBS Early Show. “The terrorist only has to be right once. You have to be right 100 percent of the time. And we’re never going to be right 100 percent of the time,” she added.
Rice said the Bush administration’s security strategy includes both a defensive element in protecting the country, as well as an offensive element in targeting terrorists abroad.
“You have to take away their territory. You have to defeat the enemy abroad and not just sit back and wait for them to attack again,” she said.
President George W. Bush said offensive measures against terrorist networks have made the country safer.
“Today, because we’re on the offensive against terrorist networks, the American people are safer,” he said yesterday in Illinois. “But this does not mean that our nation is fully secure. In a vast, free society such as ours, there is no such thing as perfect security. And no matter how good our defenses are, a determined enemy can still strike us,” he added |
