It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
The Iranian government asserts that the programme's only goal is to develop the capacity for peaceful nuclear power generation, and plans to generate 6000MW of electricity with nuclear power plants by 2010
But, in truth, Al Qaeda wouldn't even need nukes to do real damage to the U.S. A coordinated, simultaneous strike using high-powered conventional explosives in say a handful of top cities in high-trafficked areas could equal the foundation shaking we here in America feel would happen with just one or two nuke explosions
Originally posted by hogtie
I think biologicals will be the weapon of choice. Exist in abundance, easy to transport, terror and debilitation factor on the infrastructure is much higher. Release it in a train station or airport, and we do the rest of the work. The question is when.
al qaida probably cant'td a serious nuke, since they have no place to phsyically do this
A nuke would be far more spectaular than car/truck bombs.
Originally posted by marcopolo
I find this topic very frustrating as even though I cannot/will not discount it I find it so hard to believe a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda (ANYKIND) could possibly build a Nuke
...Intent isn’t the same as capability, of course. But of more than a dozen nuclear-arms experts I interviewed, almost all agreed that assembling a crude nuclear bomb, though extremely difficult, is by no means impossible...
A later GAO report, published last year, found that “the fence surrounding the [unnamed foreign research reactor] facility was in poor condition, security guards at the front gate were unarmed, and there were no guards at the reactor building, which we entered without escort.”
A study done by the federal Office of Technology Assessment in 1977 concluded that such a project could be done with “at a minimum, one person capable of researching the literature in several fields, and a jack- of-all-trades technician.”
Last year Senator Joseph Biden asked scientists at three national laboratories to see if they could assemble the mechanical components of a gun-style bomb with commercially available equipment alone. A few months later, they reported back that they had done it.
Even efficacious scanners might overlook nuclear materials that were smuggled into the U.S. in small amounts and then assembled into a weapon in the very city that the terrorists had targeted. That’s why most experts strongly agree that the best strategy is to stop terrorists at step one, by preventing nuclear material from being stolen in the first place.
Originally posted by marcopolo
thelibra thanks for your very detailed post I will have a look at your link shortly,
but I still believe the "threat" from nukes was the same kindof scaremongering tactics...
Originally posted by marcopolo
I find this topic very frustrating as even though I cannot/will not discount it I find it so hard to believe a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda (ANYKIND) could possibly build a Nuke, Whats everything been about recently on the news (PRE-Chavez-Speech) ? it was all about Iran and its Nuclear weapons capabilities, we then find out it would take from estimates 5-8 years to build one, so do you still really think that a "Terrorist" group is still capable of detonating a Nuke in the US?
The US is the safest country in the world with the latest technology generally beating any other armies forces hands down, as long as their Government doesnt see any need for war or has some unreasonable plan then the American and worldwide public usually continue to be alot safer.
The Iranian government asserts that the programme's only goal is to develop the capacity for peaceful nuclear power generation, and plans to generate 6000MW of electricity with nuclear power plants by 2010
here it states they hope to have nuclear power by 2010, a while off yet.
Iran Nuclear Programme
[edit on 21-9-2006 by marcopolo]