Is this a credible claim ? Do you think the world intelligence agencies will ever come out and confirm it ?
and one more… How easy is it to get this stuff on the the black market? Do you just walk down to the terrorist 7-11 and say “I’d like 3 nukes, a slurpee and a nerve gas to go please” ?
-a concerned Canadian
The claim to have nukes only appeared in the English translation of the interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1648000/1648572.stm
The market for weapons grade nuclear materials seems to exist on the scale of a few grams here and there. Governments do not like the idea of having plutonium floating about in the black market, so they make some effort to keep the trade under control. So far those efforts seem to have been effective.
Im pretty sure some country would be happy to sell you one. I hope it’s not one that the US made.
At UCSD in the 70’s, I asked my librarian friend about how easy it would be to make one. She said that Central Library Patent collection has all the patents to make one; but she wasn’t about to show me the patents 
I think/hope this is BS… if the Al-Queda network had access to nukes, why didn’t they use them in the attacks of 9/11?
Please, please be BS… say it ain’t so!
The AP has reported it as well here are the following links:
http://www.canoe.ca/Canoe/canoecnews.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/10/ret.binladen.nuclear/index.html
The white house has said "While citing “credible indications” bin Laden has sought to obtain such weapons, Bush administration officials said they do not believe the al Qaeda leader has weapons of mass destruction or the means to deliver them. "
SO sleep well tonight
Well, we didn’t think he had the means to deliver weapons to destroy the twin towers either. Plainly he does not have ICBMs, but he can rent a truck.
First of all, the news reports say that promises to respond in kind to nuclear and chemical attacks, not that he has and will use. Only the English translations say that.
I tend to believe that he does not have nukes, because he would have already used them if he did. I hope this focuses the administration on non-proliferation.
Saddam Hussein has made an extraordinary effort to obtain nuclear weapons for the past twenty years, we believe without success. He is still trying. He has substantially more resources than Al Queda. While the know how to make nukes is pretty well distributed around the world, the raw materials necessary are not found in nature (plutonium or weapons grade uranium), and getting them attracts a bit of attention. If Hussein was not able to buy a loose Russian nuke, I don’t think that Bin Laden would have fared any better.
God bless you, sir. Whether you are right or wrong, I want to believe you more than anything.
On the other hand, a Pakistani paper (Frontierpost.com.pk) today broke the story that Al Qaeda already has at least one suitcase nuke prepositioned somewhere here inside the United States and that U.S. intelligence officials “have reached the conclusion that at least two briefcase nuclear weapons may have reached the US shores.”
The reporter provides a Russian serial number (9999) for the one nuke, as well as the supposed date of manufacture (October 1988). I’m, uh, hoping this is Al Queda disinformation, but one never knows.
Last, I’m not sure you can conclude that because a nuclear weapon was not used on the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda must not have them. It’s possible that they are attempting to get more–for a coordinated attack on several cities–and are reserving one or two as insurance policies until then. Time will tell.
BobT, please tell me this is a bunch of crap…
FROM SOURCE…
Al-Qaeda nukes may have reached US shores
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani and American investigators converge that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network may have successfully transported several nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction to the United States, The Frontier Post learnt Friday.
Already on high alert, United States security officials are having sleepless nights that Al Qaeda can strike in New York again on the occasion of United Nations General Assembly session.
Investigators from Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) and American FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) are jointly probing into the possibilities of Al Qaeda possessing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
They have reached a conclusion that at least two briefcase nuclear weapons may have reached the US shores, sources close to these investigators revealed to this scribe.
The investigators have been able to identify at least one briefcase weapon acquired by Al Qaeda from Central Asian rogue groups.
The weapon identified is small 8-kilogram device that carries at least 2 kg of fissionable plutonium and uranium.
The device, of Russian make, carries a serial number 9999 and manufacturing date October 1988…"
Well, let me throw this out there. It sort of falls into the paranoid conspiracy theory end of the spectrum, but according to a buddy of mine who works for Oak Ridge National Labs (where the US makes most, if not all, of its weapons grade material) the US can monitor the movement of any radioactive material from space. If true, this means the the Feds would know exactly where everything is and could be able to take the nuke out before it could be used. Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t placed into a container so well lined that no radiation could escape.
1988 ??? Don’t these things have an expiry date ??
If true (not to hijack my own post)I wonder how many the Soviets had in the USA at the height of the Cold War ?
YIKES!!!
8 kg? 17.6 pounds? For a nuclear freaking bomb? Not a chance, unless all they’re talking about is a “dirty” bomb, which I assume they’re not since they claim it’s “fissionable plutonium and uranium.” Obviously, whoever made up that story doesn’t know a thing about nuclear weapons.
What DPWhite said. More ressourceful people than bin Laden have tried - and failed - to get nukes.
More than anyone ever wanted to know about compact nuclear weapons:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/News/Lebedbomb.html
I’m not qualified to judge the info in the NWFAQ, but they would appear to have done their homework.
Now, the Pakistani paper’s description of the bomb:
According to the NWFAQ, an 8-kg device with only 2 kg of fissile material is not at all realistic. On constructing the lightest nuclear weapon, this is what they have to say:
In other words, a very small nuclear weapon uses 5 times the fissile material and weighs 80% more then the ones described in the Frontier post.
Nah.
S. Norman
Although I am not a Nuclear Scientist, I play one on TV.
I have heard elsewhere that nuclear devices have a definite shelf life. The shaped charges required to compress the core into a critical mass have a limited life. I have heard estimates of about twelve years. That would put the 1988 device a bit past its “best by” date. I too have also heard about satellite monitoring of nuclear sources and can only hope that it is true. This all remains one more reason for us to maintain a steely resolve in finding bin Laden and his maggot cronies as quickly as we can.
Im not a nuclear expert… but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I just hope it’s not true for all our sakes.
I suspect the “monitoring rad mat’l from space” thing mentioned in previous posts might probably relate only to GPS based reporting systems mounted on vehicles that are engaged in legitimate movements of government or power compnay movements of hot “stuff”.
Just can’t see a space based sensor net that could keep track of (say) a chunk of fissionable mat’l that someone’s got stuffed in a lead lined suitcase.
I would be surprised if the U.S. really possesses this technology. This sounds like something from Star Trek.
If it were true, wouldn’t we know whether Saddam, North Korea, or Iran have entered the nuclear club?
There is a Russian General on record as saying that there are a number of backpack nukes that are ‘missing’.
And I don’t know why all of you are saying that he can’t have them, because he would have used them already if he did. I see no reason to believe that whatsoever. I would find it FAR more likely that he would keep his ‘big guns’ in reserve and use them as a last resort.
The way I see it, the initial attack could have been done in hopes that it was a catalyst - that it would mobilize the muslim world against the west, and bring about the clash of civilizations that Bin Laden wants. Failing that, he could hope that the U.S. wouldn’t have the balls to retaliate.
Neither of those things happened, so now it’s on to phase II.
The nightmare scenario is that we get an ultimatum from Bin Laden soon, saying “I have nuclear weapons positioned in several of your cities. Withdraw your forces from Afghanistan, remove your forces from Saudi Arabia, and stop supporting Israel. You have 48 hours to begin withdrawal, or I will detonate a bomb.”
What do we do if he says that? Ignore the warning? You can’t search every city in North America.
So then we ignore the warning, and suddenly a 10 kt weapon goes off in Manhattan.
Now we get another ultimatum: “You have 48 hours to remove your troops, or the next city goes. I have several more bombs in your cities.”
This is the scenario that is probably giving the administration fits right now.
Oh, and if he has the weapons, he can kill a lot of people with them even if they can’t be used as nuclear bombs. He still has the Plutonium, which can be broken up and used in a ‘dirty bomb’, which is something like a fertilizer bomb with plutonium dust spread through it. Detonate one of those, and you can contaminate a city.
And 2kg of Plutonium could be used to make a dozen of those kinds of bombs.
Overall, I put the chance of this happening as ‘slim’, but considering the horrific consequences, ‘slim’ doesn’t make me feel a lot better.
Yes, I agree. See above.
Eerily possible, Sam, and I curse you for offering this chilling account.
However, at this point in your scenario, the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, thus allowing a U.S. “boomer” parked somewhere in the Indian Ocean to fire several nuclear missiles at key Afghani cities. In less than 15 minutes, Osama, most of the Taliban leadership and, um, untold numbers of innocent Afghanis are vaporized. Yes, Al Qaeda’s agents may detonate more bombs in response, but Osama’s personal quest for regional leadership would be finished. (Problem is, he’s a strategic thinker and the resulting regional conflagration is precisely what he hopes to achieve.)
BTW, some Western reporter interviewed Putin on television the other night and asked him about the supposedly missing nukes. He rather cleverly danced around the issue, saying something to the effect that “I should hope that this is not true…” If he doesn’t know, who would? Frankly, I think Putin is using this nuke security issue as a way of wresting more money from the west.
surfer, I have no idea if the US being able to monitor nukes from space is accurate. I only know what the guy who works there told me. I personally, think that its unlikely that Bin Laden’s got anything like a suitcase nuke. I know that an investigative reports team for one of the cable networks tried to buy weapons grade material a few years ago and came up empty handed. That doesn’t mean anything, of course, as they didn’t spend years trying to locate the stuff.
Still, I have to think that if someone like Bin Laden or Hussein were to somehow obtain nukes, they wouldn’t hesitate to use them. Bin Laden may be a strategic thinker, but that doesn’t mean he thinks rationally or that even his plans will come to pass. The Germans pioneered most of the military methods used during the 20th Century (they even had crude “smart bombs” that they used for a time), but they still lost both World Wars.