Suitcase Nukes - The Facts
http://www.townhall <http://www.townhall.com/content/a156a677-11b0-4be7-b84d-63b2a8b2c197> .com/content/a156a677-11b0-4be7-b84d-63b2a8b2c197 Wednesday, September 13, 2006 <http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/a156a677-11b0-4be7-b84d-63b2a8b2c197> Suitcase Nukes - The Facts Posted by Dean Barnett | 11:12 AM So called Suitcase Nukes are <http://hotair.com/archives/2006/09/12/report-al-qaeda-planning-nuke-attack- for-ramadan/> back in the news again. That gives me the perfect opportunity to recycle and rework an essay I wrote a couple of years ago on the topic. As a preface to my comments, let me first say that contemplating worst-case scenarios is a healthy thing. Whatever happens, it would be a national disgrace if America (and its government) ever again moped about aimlessly as it did after the 9/11 attacks. We have to be mature and ponder disquieting matters, and figuring out how we should and could respond to even "the unthinkable" is a sadly necessary exercise. That being said, the Suitcase Nuke threat is a phantom and an urban legend. This particular urban legend has gained an inordinate amount of street credibility because of shrieking Cassandras and their credulous enablers in the press and even in congress. But anyone who knows the truth about Suitcase Nukes knows there's nothing to fear here. If you're scared about this particular threat, give me ten minutes of your time and you'll be able to climb out from under your desk and smack down this myth with the facts the next time it comes up. PART I: WHAT WOULD A SUITCASE NUKE ATTACK LOOK LIKE? There seems to be a common perception that nuclear detonations are fungible. This of course is ridiculous. On the one hand, you have something like a 1 megaton bomb which is on the large side of things, but hardly the biggest in most nuclear powers' arsenals. Such a weapon would flatten everything within 1.7 miles of ground zero. On the other hand, you have nuclear weapons like the <http://www.brook.edu/FP/projects/nucwcost/davyc.HTM> Davy Crocket Fission Bomb, America's foray into nuclear weapon miniaturization. The Crockett's yield was usually around 10 tons (.01 kilotons); the largest Crockett would have yielded a blast of about 1 kiloton. By way of comparison, <http://www.bellum.nu/armoury/wm/moab.html> a MOAB conventional bomb also has approximately a 10 ton yield, or .01 kilotons. <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020923.htm#fn30> The consensus of reliable sources is that if suitcase nukes exist, their yield is almost certainly no higher than 1 kiloton and probably a lot closer to .01 kilotons. By way of comparison, the atomic bomb at Hiroshima (a small WMD by modern standards) had a yield of 15 kilotons, or 1500 times the likely yield of a miniaturized Suitcase Nuke. So basically Suitcase Nukes are likely to have the explosive characteristics of a Daisy Cutter, perhaps a Daisy Cutter on steroids. But what does that mean? What would an explosion of .01 kilotons look like?.01 kilotons is 2-4 times the power of the ammonium nitrate bomb that destroyed the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Obviously a .01 kiloton blast in a major metropolitan area, to put it delicately, would be an adverse event. Still, when you hear your garden-variety Cassandra saying a city will be nuked, the clear implication is that the city will be utterly destroyed. A Suitcase Nuke can't do anything of the kind. The over-arching point here is that the menace we face from a conventional attack is in the same ballpark as the mythical Suitcase Nuke menace. And given that a conventional attack is a real possibility and a Suitcase Nuke attack isn't, it's rather obvious where we should direct our attention and concern. PART II: DO SUITCASE NUKES EVEN EXIST? In <http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020923.htm#fn30> a manner of speaking, but not as commonly understood. The Soviet Union spent decades aping our technology. It's a reasonable supposition that they aped the miniaturization of nukes represented by the Davy Crockett. There are also a couple of tactical purposes that might have brought such weapons into being. The small nukes could have been used as land mines, or they could have been the property of the Special Forces for counter-terrorism purposes, ironically enough. Or they could have been the exclusive property of the KGB. This being the former Soviet Union, we just don't know. Personally, I think there's a pretty good chance Vladimir Putin knows and hopefully he's shared his knowledge with our government. If they do exist, there are a few relatively positive signs: 1) They'll be low yield, like the Davy Crockett. The damage they inflict would be a lot more like that wrought by a Daisy Cutter than a 5 megaton "Day After" type projectile. 2) They were almost certainly built with safeguards that would make their operation by anyone other than the Red Army (or its proper Russian successor) impossible. Such safeguards were an obvious necessity given the devices' portability. 3) They almost surely require routine maintenance every 6 months. If the missiles haven't been properly maintained, their yield will be dramatically reduced; most experts think if not properly maintained in accordance with the owner's manual's dictates, they won't work at all. On this point, we certainly have Soviet craftsmanship working in our favor. Let's face it, the Soviet Union didn't produce many things known for their quality and reliability. Additionally, maintaining nuclear weapons in a cave on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border would certainly be beyond Al Qaeda's abilities. This is a serious problem for the terrorists; if Al Qaeda ever acquired these things, the bombs have missed probably 25 maintenance adjustments, or every scheduled trip to the shop since the breakup of the Soviet Union; experts familiar with their American counterparts (the Crockets) feel quite strongly that at this point in time the bombs won't function at all and if they do somehow function, they'll achieve only a fraction of their intended yield. Before leaving the question of their existence, I think a word on the "suitcase" nomenclature is in order. Even the smallest Davy Crockett weighs roughly 70 pounds. Estimates are that the smallest portable Soviet nukes weigh at least 60 pounds, probably quite a bit more than that. 60 pounds would obviously be an exceptionally heavy suitcase. The point of the terminology was to underscore the devices' portability. Indeed, in all likelihood two men should be able to carry one of the so-called suitcase nukes. A few years ago, Representative Curt Weldon took to the House floor with a mock-up of a suitcase nuke that was basically a briefcase with a thermos in it. This was either irresponsible or ignorant - likely both. The devices are portable in a military sense, not in a "you can pack one in your Flintstones Lunchbox" sense. The difference between the two apparently eluded Representative Weldon. PART III: DOES AL QAEDA HAVE SUITCASE NUKES? I'm glad to say, no. The rumors of Al Qaeda being a nuclear power began in 1998. <http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/News/WatanAlArabi.html> The London based Arab daily Al-Watan Al-Arabi reported that Chechens had acquired 20 suitcase nukes from Russian facilities with the intention of transferring the bombs to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in exchange for $30 million and two tons of opium. Given what we now know about Al Qaeda's poverty during that period, this report is laughable. Bin Laden couldn't even feed his own lunatic followers in 1998. This report played on the common misperception regarding bin Laden's wealth. Want more proof? Fine. If Al Qaeda were a nuclear power for almost a decade now, would it have not used one of their suitcase nuke devices on the Coale instead of the pittance of conventional TNT that it instead utilized? If Al Qaeda were a nuclear power for almost a decade now, would it be engaging in relatively penny ante activities like hijacking planes and bombing commuter trains? If Al Qaeda were a nuclear power and became one over eight years ago, what plausible explanation could there possibly be for the organization's "restraint" in not utilizing the devices over the past eight years? Moreover, the Al-Watan Al-Arabi report from 1998 describes a frantic search by the CIA and the free world's other intelligence agencies to pursue the then freshly nuclear armed Al Qaeda. Thus, if the story is accurate, America knew since 1998 that Al Qaeda was a nuclear power. Readers here know that I defer to no man when it comes to harboring disdain for Bill Clinton. Still, it is unthinkable that President Clinton wouldn't have put us on a war footing with Al Qaeda if he knew they possessed nuclear weapons and intended to use them. A nuclear blast on the homeland, after all, would have been devastating to his legacy. Moreover, Bush would have had this knowledge since he took office. Once again, it is unthinkable that if our government knew Al Qaeda had nukes, it would have been business as usual prior to 9/11. To be more explicit, the alleged deal with the Chechens is crap, total crap. So how did such a story ever make the rounds? Well, we know reporters like a juicy story, even if it's not true. And Al Qaeda would have obvious reasons for wanting to be considered a nuclear power. Even the Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, a reliably alarmist voice as far as nuclear perils are concerned, doesn't believe in the Al Qaeda - Chechen connection. <http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184621.php> The latest Suitcase Nuke blather comes from a Pakistani journalist who claims he got a scoop while doing some muckraking in Afghanistan. To keep things hyper-topical, this intrepid reporter tells us that the nukes were smuggled into America through the porous Mexican border. When I first wrote about this topic over two years ago, the inspiration was some kook on Fox News who was assuring us that eight U.S. cities would meet their demise in the Summer of '04. I decided to get some facts before moving Soxblog Manor to Idaho - I'm glad I did. I REALLY HOPE no one reads this piece and thinks we're safe. The fact that Al Qaeda isn't a nuclear power doesn't mean a dirty bomb isn't a real and grave threat. And that would be a mess. And there are hundreds of other kinds of potential conventional terrorist attacks that could shake this country to its core. In other words, we have plenty to worry about without concerning ourselves with phantoms and ghost stories. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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