Small Nukes, Big Threat

FBI Director Tells CBS News: Small Devices Sought By Terrorists Could Unleash Destruction Worse Than 9/11

(CBS)  In New York, cops armed with Geiger counters pull over trucks for random inspections.

Robotic underwater cameras crawl along the hulls of cruise ships looking for explosives and traces of radioactivity.

And from the air, sensors snoop for radiation hot spots. It is the last line of defense against an unthinkable threat.

"Terrorists — al Qaeda, bin Laden — have sought nuclear materials for a number of years now," FBI Director Robert Mueller told CBS News correspondent Bob Orr in an exclusive interview.

Mueller says terrorists would like nothing better than to hit the U.S. with a nuclear weapon.

"When we saw 9/11, everyone I think pretty much looking at those pictures thought this is about as bad as it could get," Mueller said. "Its not as bad as it could get. A nuclear device — if a nuclear device went off, you're talking about devastation that is far, far beyond what we saw on September 11th."

That kind of devastation was portrayed in the film "The Sum of All Fears," when a nuclear bomb leveled much of Baltimore.

That was just a movie, but officials warn the threat is real, and the bomb wouldn't have to be that big. A small nuclear device packed inside a case and left in the heart of Washington could take out the White House and everything else within a square mile.

"It could kill tens of thousands of people, and that's why it is a tremendously serious matter for us to address," Mueller said.

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Watch more of Orr’s interview with FBI Chief Mueller
Read Orr’s blog entry for Couric & Co. on the nuclear threat

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In Miami Wednesday, the FBI and security officials from 28 countries took part in a drill aimed at working together to detect and disrupt terror cells seeking nuclear materials.

Officials say it would not be easy for terrorists to get a nuke or enough material and know-how to make one of their own. But thousands of Cold War weapons remain in Russian stockpiles, and emerging nuclear powers such as Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea could make nuclear fuel more readily available for terrorists.

Since the early '90s, the United Nations' atomic watchdog has confirmed at least 18 cases of illegal trafficking of weapons-grade uranium on the black market. Most recently a Russian man was arrested for trying to sell the bomb material to a radical Islamic terrorist.

Intercepting the material, and keeping it from the terrorists, is the first goal. Nobody at home wants to deal with an explosion after the fact.

"This is a big deal," said New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. "God forbid something like this happens; we have to be as prepared as we possibly can be and do everything we can to deter and detect."

To date, al Qaeda has not been able obtain nukes, but Mueller says they're still desperate to get one.

"It's not hype. It's something we deal with day in and day out," Mueller said. "When you are talking about an improvised nuclear device, it is something that would be horrifying if it fell into the hands of terrorists or terrorists were able to manufacture such a device — and we can not let that happen. We just can not let that happen."

An unthinkable threat — not an impossible one.

[prinzowhales]

A responsible press would have asked Mueller for times, dates and locations to back up his claim that 'terrorists' had tried to obtain nuclear materials. The last claim regarding Saddam and the Niger yellow-cake that Bush trumpeted turned out to be based on forgeries and lies...no different, I suppose, than the basis for his immigration and economic policies.

I wonder why no one has asked Mueller about the American agents that German police captured with C-4 trying to get through the G-8 security cordon.

[prinzowhales]

You can put all of the catalysts that you wish into jet fuel and not come up with a fuel fire that cross-cuts structural steel and leaves a residue with the signature of Thermate.

Just look at the film footage of that idiot creature sitting in the Florida elementary school passing the time with his intellectual peers reading 'My Pet Goat'--this, after learning at the motel that a plane had struck the WTC...the Secret Service was tied into the FAA and they had knowledge, not only that the plane had struck but that planes had been hijacked. When the second plane hit he just sat there and the time passed..."America is under attack"...he just followed his script....the SS, knowing all of this, just let him sit rather than take him to safety. Later, in a speech in Florida, he quipped that he thought that the guy 'must have just been a really bad pilot' to try and explain his inaction--and incidentally, exonerate his security team managers from being in the loop on the attack as well.

Not everyone was as fortunate as Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco to get a warning from Condalezza Rice's office not to fly on 9-11.
Just a lucky guess, I suppose.

[dukeudevil]

Just the usual fear-mongering from a troubled administration.

Here's a decent read about "suitcase nukes," the type of weapon I bet everyone here assumes is being discussed: http://politicscentral.com/2006/10/10/was_north_koreas_blast_a_suitc.php

And, an excerpt:

"For now, suitcase-sized nuclear bombs remain in the realm of James Bond movies. Given the limitations of physics and engineering, no nation seems to have invested the time and money to make them. Both U.S. and the USSR built nuclear mines (as well as artillery shells), which were small but hardly portable%u2014and all were dismantled by treaty by 2000. Alexander Lebed%u2019s claims and those of defector Stanislev Lunev were not based on direct observation. The one U.S. official who saw a small nuclear device said it was the size of three footlockers%u2014hardly a suitcase. For now, the desire to obliterate cities is portable%u2014inside the heads of believers%u2014 while, thankfully, the nuclear devices to bring that about are not."

[pakaal]

the only way to stop a terrorist nuclear attack is with A PROACTIVE approach and not with a REACTIVE APPROACH..
Posted by xzavierbrown at 06:23 PM : Jun 14, 2007

There is NO way to stop a terrorist attack of any kind, period, and you're just going to have to deal with that. If your "proactive" approach includes trying to resolve the decades-old problems we started by our intervention in Iran's election process and on down in the Middle East through the past half century, more power to you. Diplomacy is the single best tool we have right now. However, if you're one of those "destroy the village in order to save it" types, you're as dangerous as any other terrorist.

[prinzowhales]

Before the plane impacted the WTC, William Rodriguez, building superintendant, was dealing with wounded people from a blast in the basement of the building.

Weeks after the buildings collapsed temps above anything that a jet fuel fire could achieve alone were registered in the basement of WTC 1,2 and 7.

Witnesses described molten metal in the basements. Perhaps the jedi 'physics professor' can explain to us why kerosene stoves don't melt and disappear when burning kerosene, which burns at virtually the same temp as jet fuel.

A real physics professor, Stephen Jones, has analyzed the 9-11 cut column samples and found precisely the chemical residues that one would expect if Thermate were used to cut the four foot diameter steel columns, 43 of which were in WTC 1 and 2. Thermate is thermite with added sulphur to increase the intensity of the cutting.

Mueller has even said that the FBI had no case against al Qaeda. The Bureau, on its wanted poster for Osama, don't even want this spurious 'mastermind'. The most damning fact of all is that accused hijackers ARE STILL ALIVE!!

There if film footage of people warning others away from WTC 7, telling them that it was going to "blow up". The leaseholder of the towers used the demolition term "to pull" to describe their decision to bring down WTC7. Guiliani said he knew they were going to fall.

[lastdance2]

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

This is easy.

All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked,
and denounce the pacifist for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

It works the same in every country."

Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII

[jedi08]

Realpatriot

Your right Realpatriot, Its more logical that our government was in on the whole thing with Barak osama, I mean Osama and fired a missle into the Pentagon and made the other missing plane disappear into thin air.

Its common Knowlegd to anyone who has seen these Conspiracy tapes and has done a little follow up research that there was jet fuel, in fact they found 1/5 of it on the other side of the pentagon. Most of the rest of the fuel would of burned up. ALso they did find parts of the plane, but nothing big, probably becasue when there is a huge explosion like that you don't often find much left. Finnally, they also didn't find any missle conponets or signatures which (considering the damage) would of been easly detectable (younger brother is a rocket sceintist for NASA) and since there was no evidence of a missle, unless it was God Its just like what spock said: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, however unlikely, must be the solution.

And didn't you say the Pentagon didn't collapse, well the outer wall did collaps and considering that the trade Centers are 100 plus stories tall and stood for a while after being hit with your missles that look like Planes I don't find it odd that the inner wall of the Pentagon survived.

[xzavierbrown]

the only way to stop a terrorist nuclear attack is with A PROACTIVE approach and not with a REACTIVE APPROACH..

[ralan40]

geeez, the freaks are really out in force, today, more than usual. One would have to be crazy to endow the government with intelligence, cunning, and organization skills that has never before been attained within any human organization. Even the potential of making huge amounts of money has not been able to motivate even private industry to act with a high degree of intellegence and orginization.

[katg21]

Did Rove put you up to this?
Come on, you can admit it to us :)
Posted by sjc_1 at 01:27 PM : Jun 14, 2007

Well...you got me!