Whether with a nuclear bomb (à la “24″) or with a so-called “dirty bomb,” there is no question that terrorists (bin Laden) wish to kill 1000’s or more with a weapon of mass destruction.  The real question is how likely it is to occur, and are we ready in such an event?  Is it the “worst case scenario?” and who are we to believe?

Make no mistake about my position!  A great threat is posed by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden…it is one of the reasons why I personally believe that the “head of the snake” must be cut-off.  Further, it is no secret that bin Laden wishes to acquire WMD or nuclear capability…but still…Certainly, all of what follow is simply my opinion and interpretation.

The current “debate” is based on a report published in Israel News, ‘Al-Qaeda trying to go nuclear’ quoting Rolf Ekeus, currently High Commissioner at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and formerly Director of the UN Special Commission on Iraq, who told reporters that the threat of a nuclear attack on a European city by al-Qaeda was tangible, and that steps are being taken to protect nuclear facilities from which terrorists can obtain enriched uranium. It may also be worth the trouble (and time) to read this interview by Jim Lehrer with Ekeus from September 22, 2003 on his belief that the reason that no WMDs were found in Iraq by the last inspectors was in fact that there were no stockpiles, and that Hussein’s WMD program was to develop the strategic capability

This “report” is relayed on Newsvine, American Israeli Patriot, and StrataSphere (to name just a few).  “No less than” NewsMax.com claims that FBI Director Robert Mueller has confirmed that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group desperately want to obtain
nuclear devices and explode them in American cities, especially New York and Washington, D.C.(yet there is no mention of such an interview elsewhere - like on the FBI website).  Of course, it should be noted that in Mueller’s January 11, 2007 statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he did say that  “Although a nuclear terrorist attack is the least likely to occur due to the required technical expertise and challenges associated with acquiring weapons-usable material, the intent of terrorists to obtain this material is a continuing concern.”

A four year old report published in the Washington Times is also cited as a precedent, and quotes a now debunked CIA claim that al Qaeda was “ready to use nukes.”  Notably, it was nearly two years ago that “no less” than WorldNetDaily proclaimed that al Qaeda had already smuggled nukes into the US and that it was prepared to commit to the American Hiroshima.

Make no mistake about my position!  A great threat is posed by al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.  There is no reason to doubt the intention of bin Laden’s fatwa.  I have read the reports.  It is clear that bin Laden’s goal is to obliterate millions of Americans if he can.  There is no question that mass casualty terrorism is still a great threat.  And there is equally no question that he would like to get his hands on a nuclear weapon.  But when the sources of such reports are “no less” than NewsMax.com and WorldNetDaily, it gives me pause to think, and to delve more deeply than either of these Internet rags…(and the Washington Times isn’t that far removed from litter box lining either).

What is the Risk?
Well, given our porous border security, as Bill West of Counterterrorism Blog writes in Border Insecurity as America Faces WMD Terror:

If 100+ hapless Haitian refugees on a decrepit wooden sailboat can evade detection by the best efforts of the US military and law enforcement to secure our borders from such intrusion, can we truly expect that a sophisticated and well funded terrorist organization, or hostile foreign intelligence service, will have any trouble penetrating those border defenses?

What is the Risk?
A study publilshed in the International Journal of Health Georgraphics in February 2007 - Vulnerability of populations and the urban health care systems to nuclear weapon attack – examples from four American cities - makes it clear that the use of a conventional nuclear weapon (versus a “dirty bomb”) would be catastrophic.

ABSTRACT
BackgroundThe threat posed by the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within the United States has grown significantly in recent years, focusing attention on the medical and public health disaster capabilities of the nation in a large scale crisis. While the hundreds of thousands or millions of casualties resulting from a nuclear weapon would, in and of itself, overwhelm our current medical response capabilities, the response dilemma is further exacerbated in that these resources themselves would be significantly at risk. There are many limitations on the resources needed for mass casualty management, such as access to sufficient hospital beds including specialized beds for burn victims, respiration and supportive therapy, pharmaceutical intervention, and mass decontamination.

ResultsThe effects of 20 kiloton and 550 kiloton nuclear detonations on high priority target cities are presented for New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Atlanta. Thermal, blast and radiation effects are described, and affected populations are calculated using 2000 block level census data. Weapons of 100 Kts and up are primarily incendiary or radiation weapons, able to cause burns and start fires at distances greater than they can significantly damage buildings, and to poison populations through radiation injuries well downwind in the case of surface detonations. With weapons below 100 Kts, blast effects tend to be stronger than primary thermal effects from surface bursts. From the point of view of medical casualty treatment and administrative response, there is an ominous pattern where these fatalities and casualties geographically fall in relation to the location of hospital and administrative facilities. It is demonstrated that a staggering number of the main hospitals, trauma centers, and other medical assets are likely to be in the fatality plume, rendering them essentially inoperable in a crisis.

Conclusion
Among the consequences of this outcome would be the probable loss of command-and-control, mass casualties that will have to be treated in an unorganized response by hospitals on the periphery, as well as other expected chaotic outcomes from inadequate administration in a crisis. Vigorous, creative, and accelerated training and coordination among the federal agencies tasked for WMD response, military resources, academic institutions, and local responders will be critical for large-scale WMD events involving mass casualties.

There should be no doubt that the effects of a terrorist use of a nuclear weapon, as so ably depicted by the Fox Show “24″ this past season, would be massive and nearly cataclysmic.  So why then do I minimize the most recent scare tactic reports?

How Likely is the American Hiroshima?
For an answer to the question about the American Hiroshima, first let us look at what What Bin Laden Sees in Hiroshima.  Apparently a question was posed to a convocation of 60 scientists about the likelihood of a nuclear attack by terrorists within the next five years (this meeting occuring in February 2005).  Only 3 or 4 scientists acknowledged this fear.  But certainly, the small number should not cause anyone to minimize the actual threat.

“There has been increasing interest by terrorists in acquiring nuclear weapons,” Mohamed ElBaradei, the Egyptian director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the world’s chief nuclear watchdog, said in a recent interview, excerpts of which were published in Outlook last Sunday. “I cannot say 100 percent that it hasn’t happened” already, he added, almost as an afterthought.

In fact, the Washington Post article goes on to admit that while the technical and scientific capabilities would be difficult at best for a private (non-state) entity to pull off, the possibility cannot be rejected, especially with the non-proliferators of Iran and North Korea out there, possible peddling their nuclear wares to the highest bidder, or with Pakistani nuclear secrets being thrashed about…or from the lost Russian nukes (alleged to be of the “dirty bomb” suitcase variety - nonetheless devastating in their effect)…

More on An American Hiroshima.

One can also look to Stratfor to assess the possibility of the occurrence of an American Hiroshima.  In their article, The Unlikely Possibility of an ‘American Hiroshima’ -  August 3, 2005 - (note again that the link is to Google through which you should be able to access the Strafor article)…

The publisher of online newspaper World Net Daily alleged in an Aug. 2 interview with daily political magazine FrontPage Magazine (dot com) that al Qaeda has nuclear weapons within the United States and is preparing to unleash an “American Hiroshima.”

Publisher Joseph Farah claims al Qaeda has been planning a large-scale nuclear attack for years, and that at least some of its nuclear weapons have been smuggled into the United States over the Mexican border with the help of local criminal gangs. In the same interview, however, Farah contradicted himself, claiming the devices were smuggled into American cities by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Although it is known that al Qaeda has long been interested in acquiring or developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the likelihood that the network possesses functional nuclear weapons is remote…[more]

Furthermore, it is well know that in his December 23, 1998 interview that Osama bin Laden publicly acknowledged that “I would say that acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a
religious duty … If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then this is
an obligation I carried out and I thank god for enabling us to do that
… But how we could use these weapons, if we possess them, is up to
us.”

Stratfor’s conclusive statement on the current (then in 2005) likelihood of an al Qaeda nuclear attack:

The idea that these devices are pre-positioned in American cities and that al Qaeda is awaiting a significant date to unleash them is simply preposterous. First, dates and anniversaries are not particularly important to al Qaeda. Second, such a weapon would be its crown jewel — and the network would never run the risk of it being discovered by leaving it hidden for long periods……The very existence of “briefcase nukes” also is questionable. Some have claimed that perhaps 100 such weapons from the former Soviet arsenal are unaccounted for. With so many of these devices supposedly on the loose, it is logical to assume that some trace of at least one of them would have been uncovered by either Russian, U.S., British, French, German, or Israeli intelligence. To date, this has not happened. It is important to keep in mind that these are complex devices that require a great deal of regular, careful maintenance. They do not have an indefinite shelf life.

Speculation about terrorists possessing and using nuclear weapons has been making the rounds for years. Because of the exponentially increasing risk associated with holding onto a nuclear device, however, any group that possesses one would use it sooner, rather than later. If al Qaeda had a nuclear device, it would have used it by now.

To bring this “argument” further, the Council on Foreign Relations recently debated the question of How Likely is a Nuclear Terrorist Attack on the United States?
The argument, or the question is debated in a series of letters.  In one, the author, Michael Levi poses that terrorists would likely have “only” a 10% chance of success…and in counterpoint, Graham T. Allison aruges that at 10%, the devastation is too high to discount or dismiss.

Are nuclear materials that could fuel a terrorist’s bomb more or less secure than they were a year ago? Thanks to initiatives like the Nunn-Lugar program, highly enriched uranium and plutonium in Russia are far safer from theft today than they were in the early 1990s. But the risk that terrorists will buy or steal nuclear material from a rogue state increases as more countries acquire the ability to produce weapons-usable material. Therefore it is vitally important to roll back North Korea’s nuclear program and to constrain Iran before it reaches its enrichment finish line. By becoming a nuclear-armed state, each will trigger a cascade of proliferation in its neighborhood.

Other reading on the subject
Al Qaida and the War on Terror after Iraq
Responding to Nuclear Attacks

Anyone who reads this blog with reasonable frequency, I think, will agree to my even levelheadedness when it comes to terrorism and our risks.  I do not minimize the potential and threat of a nuclear attack on the United States or Europe in the forseeable future.  To the contrary, I believe that we’ll see something on that order before this “whole thing” (the Global War on Terrorism) is over.  I will, however, opt to go with the opinions of Stratfor and the Council on Foreign Relations before, in fact, long before, I believe something written or alleged in NewsMax or WorldNetDaily, or even the Washington Times.  The risk is real, no doubt.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for your time and indulgence.

Also cross posted on RCP.

Also please read an interesting article (sort of from my own “technology what ifs”), Nuclear weapons and orbital combat systems at Right Truth.

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