What if Iraq were Nuked?

What if the Sunni Triangle, the area of concentration where all of the death count goes up daily, were to be used as a pawn by the Muslim extremist....and Nuked?

The Shiite strong holds would be down wind & likely welcomed with open arms in Shiite Iran.

The Kurds have Kurdistan to flee to if need be.

The net-net?
The demoralization of the American occuppying forces via high death count.

The moderate Iraqi governing authority, which is being pushed into place for a sooner transition because of an escalation of violence, dead & the "sell outs" are "righteously" dealt with.

The World's 2nd largest oil producer indefinitely crippled.

Thoughts?
And the whole mass death of Muslims angle: remember, the fundamentalist mind set will perform 'honor murders' ( to kill a child if dating outside of the faith, or dating at all in some circumstances), so this is not such a stretch.

Also,

I put it out there before that Saudi Arabia is going to be blasted, just didn't know who would use them as a pawn. Thoughts on this as well?

And who would nuke them?

The US - not a chance.
Islamic terrorists - not a chance.
Iraq's neighbours - not a chance.

Add to that factor that there would be no strategic gain in nuking the area that you are talking about and I'm afraid that your theory holds no water.

And as a radical move, I disagree & believe it's worthy of considering.
The strategic milestones of terror are....well, terror, and disruption. To cripple is about as terrifying & disruptive as you can get.

And who might these terrorists be?
To use a nuclear weapon on such a large area, you need to be very sophisticated.

Al Qaeda or any other Islamic extremist group would have nothing to gain by destroying a Muslim population in one of the oldest countries in the world.
They're hardly going to nuke cities like Tikrit and Baghdad even if they did hate Saddam. The whole Muslim population would turn against them including probably their own people.

[Edited on 14-11-2003 by Leveller]

i see your point but i think they would much rather attempt to get a nuclear divice into the u.s. for some real terrorism.

or i think they might want to nuke isreal

I'm talking about a localized nuke, or several, al la the briefcase nuke, that bogeyman used to scare us pre-Patriot act.
Think about a US military death count in the thousands via a single or rapidly consecutive explosions. Think about it having an absolute demoralizing effect.

Which would have the US military machine stop /pause/recalibrate/recalled/regrouped

AND

Which would have massive mobilization striking every fence straddling target making the Afgan/Iraqi bombing campaigns a world tour......

An Iraqi strike with no US property damage & only military dead, though massive....

or

A major city?

what if iraq was to be nuked.....*shakes his head*
the side effects would be devastating....look at what chernobyl did to us, even now radiation levels have apparently affected mutation capabilities' in a certain species' of plants(and THAT WAS AN ACCIDENT!!)
imagine the possiblity of mutating arab zombies'....
on a more serious note...
if that would happen, it wouldn't stop at iraq, it would take out the entire hemisphere with it, life on this side of the globe may cease to exist.
admittedly that is a little too far-fetched
where...would GB's administration draw the line??if they were to start nuking,(providing they are provoked) russia would almost certainly be part of their collateral damage scheme
therefore...if that was to happen, this user would be-- no more

Originally posted by Bout Time

Think about a US military death count in the thousands via a single or rapidly consecutive explosions. Think about it having an absolute demoralizing effect.

Which would have the US military machine stop /pause/recalibrate/recalled/regrouped

There is nothing to gain. US forces number 100,000 but they are spread out all over the country, from the central area to the North.
Any nuclear strike by terrorists would have a far more devastating impact on the local population than it would American forces. Apart from the death toll - irradiation of Muslim land would be a crime that no Muslim would tolerate.
As for making the US pause? It's far more likely that if a nuclear strike were undertaken in the region, that this would galvanise the whole world against Al Qaeda. Any sympathies that it may have had would be destroyed.
The negatives far outweigh the positives.

If Al Qaeda were to use WoMD they are far more likely to use them outside of that region.

If they did that , that our response should be to nuke every Muslim country on the face of the earth!

Originally posted by Walt
If they did that , that our response should be to nuke every Muslim country on the face of the earth!

Are you serious?

Originally posted by baked

Originally posted by Walt
If they did that , that our response should be to nuke every Muslim country on the face of the earth!

Are you serious?

Yes. He is...

do you think that the terrorists have nukes yet?that would be pretty crazy and would change alotta things...i personally dont think they have one yet.....yet

I would imagine for the right amount of $$$ they could.
Pay someone to build it that knows how.
Im sure all the materials could be found if they knew where to look or knew the right people.

Originally posted by Walt
If they did that , that our response should be to nuke every Muslim country on the face of the earth!

you cant be serious
that would pretty much mean eliminating 2million muslims from the U.S alone, you seem to have been affected by 9/11....you are, im sure, a republican
all the same....it's people like you the rest of the world dreads, who knows....in a few( i give it 20 years') decades' from now we'll be witnessing your wishes granted
is that what you really want? islam is a religion, it dosnt mean all muslims are devoted to the wills' of a minority...
i am a christian, what you just said ran my blood cold...i hope, in due time your oppinion will change.
in shock
Cyrus

Let me start by leaving a little thought in folks minds on something I mentioned before:
"Comments on Russia's Atomic Suitcase Bombs"
Link:
www.pbs.org...

Topics listed by this article:
* Do "backpack" nuclear weapons exist?
* How powerful are they?
* Why were you raising the issue?
* Did you ever talk to General Lebed about this?
* Why did you testify before the US Congress?
* What was the reaction in Russia to your statements in America?
* Can you tell me about your work?
* Do you think Russian officials are misleading the public opinion?
* President Yeltsin's former Science Advisor, Alexei Yablokov, testified to the American Congress regarding the so-called suitcase bombs; the small, atomic demolition devices. Can you confirm the existence of these weapons?
* You're referring to the tritium; the half-life of some of the materials?
* Were we ever able to confirm that suitcase bombs existed?
* Could [Lebed] have been talking about the backpack-size devices rather than suitcase bombs?
* Could you tell me how you first found out about the existence of suitcase bombs?
* What is the scale of damage that a terrorist could do with one of these things?
* etc.....etc.....etc....etc....

"Russian �Sure� of Bombs"
Link:
more.abcnews.go.com...

""Suitcase" Bomb"
Link:
www.foxnews.com...

"Ongoing Speculation about missing Russian 'Suitcase Nukes'"
Link:
www.acronym.org.uk...

Also found this:
"Can Osama bin Laden go Nuclear?"
Link:
www.ciar.org...

Linked from this site was this article:
"Bin Laden has several Nuclear Suitcases"
Link:
www.cdn-friends-icej.ca...

Excerpt:
"US Nuclear retaliation.... extract."
US Nuclear Doctrine, Nonstate Actors, and WMD Under US nuclear doctrine, the 20 August 1998 attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan could have been carried out with nuclear weapons. US doctrine allows strikes against terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In Doctrine for Joint Theater Nuclear Operation, a Joint Chiefs of Staff publication, "likely targets" for US nuclear weapons include "nonstate actors (facilities and operation centers) that possess WMD". "Nonstate actors" refers to terrorist organizations like the one US officials claim is headed by Osama bin Laden. At the same time, statements from Pentagon officials are openly contradictory. In response to a media query on the above US doctrine, a Department of Defense spokesperson said the policy referred to situations "in which the U.S., or allies or our forces have been attacked with chemical or biological weapons." However, even that statement included a caveat, that the US "does not rule out in advance any capability available to us." As US nuclear doctrine has evolved since the end of the Cold War, it has increasingly focused on the perceived threat of weapons of mass destruction, including arsenals held by "nonstate actors". As the following documents demonstrate, however, this policy is ineffective, contradictory, and actually increases the risk of further nuclear proliferation. * Nuclear Weapons Against Terrorism, by Hans M. Kristensen, Research Associate, Nautilus Institute, 28 August 1998. Highlights the contradictions in US policy. * US Targets Nuclear Weapons at "Nonstate Actors", BASIC Press Release.."

NOW.....is anyone's brains working overtime on this? Is anyone getting vivid images from this?

If one of these type "suitcase nukes" or even a nuke that was placed in a cargo container and put on a ship headed for New York, for example.......or say a 'dirty' nuke' is used in a huge city in the US.......
1) The military response will be insane.
2) The US would declare martial law and in doing so, Canada and Mexico would likewise do the same.
3) The Patriot Act I and II wouldn't even come close to describing what would take place and transpire......
4) This is my personal thoughts on this, but you would begin to see a uniting of nations against terrorism..period, not just a few as now. Terrorism will be declared unfit and unexceptable in and on the face of this earth. You would see many, many terrorist organizations literally getting thrashed and eliminated...completely.

As to BT's question: "/pause/recalibrate/recalled/regrouped ".......I purposely left out "stop". Why? Because such an act would not stop the US, nor any other nation aligned against terrorism from simply eliminating any they saw...period. This would galvinize US public opinion and quite possibly, a great host of nations against terrorism. The US would be effected but would do everything you have listed BT, but stop.

Here's something else to consider:
"Loose Nukes"
Link:
www.terrorismanswers.com...

Excerpt:
"Have any Russian nuclear weapons gone missing?"
There have been no confirmed reports of missing or stolen former Soviet nuclear weapons. Still, there is ample evidence of a significant black market in nuclear materials. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported 175 nuclear smuggling incidents since 1993, 18 of which involved highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient in an atomic bomb and the most dangerous product on the nuclear black market.

"Have terrorist organizations ever tried to obtain Russian nuclear weapons?"
Yes. Russian authorities say that in the past three years alone, they have broken up hundreds of nuclear-material smuggling deals. In October 2001, shortly after the World Trade Center attacks, a Russian nuclear official reported having foiled two separate incidents over the previous eight months in which terrorists had �staked out� a secret weapons storage site. In the 1990s, U.S. authorities discovered several al-Qaeda plots to obtain nuclear materials, and CIA Director George Tenet recently told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Osama bin Laden had sought to �acquire or develop a nuclear device.�


What BT proposes is not far fetched and if an extremeist terrorist group did get hold on one or two or three.....
The Sunni Triangle would not be merely for a casualty count, be it US or Coalition, it would be symbolic and a message.............
Think about it......
This is the future of terrorism.....it's my opinion, but despite how many ways we or any government agency wishes to 'deny' this plausiability, the reality or this real world, is that it is not a matter of 'if', its a matter of 'when'........
Its that 'when' that stops many from accepting that this could quite realistically happens......the numbers are against 'us', not them......think about it.


regards
seekerof

Interesting, B-T. And the casualties would not be high at all, compared to the repercussions.

A tactical nuke (An unaccounted for Russian suitcase, for example) is detonated in a city in Iraq by Hussein supporters or any one of the terrorist organizations in the region, who immediately start screaming that the U.S. detonated it to supress uprising. The Western world is not likely to believe it, but the Eastern world is. How many conveerts to Jihad would that create?

The physical damage would not be great at all, as those type of weapons are not that powerful, but the political damage could be enormous.

What think ye, Bout Time?

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
The Western world is not likely to believe it, but the Eastern world is. How many conveerts to Jihad would that create?

If a terrorist group were to carry out such an act you can bet that there will be those in the West who would blame their own governments.
9/11 has created enough conspiracy theorists with many people blaming the US. An act such as this would create a lot more.

There is your only positive for the terrorists. Not so much creating unity amongst Muslims but sewing uncertainty amongst Western populations about their own leaders.

Originally posted by sirCyco
or i think they might want to nuke isreal

they wont do it....it's against everything they've fought for all these years'
it'll ause too much collateral damage, they'll kill their funding, and will be put in shame.
at any rate, i see it more than possible that the US might be facing serious threat from nukes...
it is blatant that an attack is imminent, a matter of time...nothing more on the subject.
Cordially
Cyrus

I think somewhere in Isreal would be more likely a target.
Jerusleam or Tel Aviv???
Even a small nuke could do some heavy damage to that tiny country.
They are the one Nation hated more than us over there.
There is no doubt that Isreal would retaliate and it would escilate in to a third world war.
Islam-VS-Jew/Christian
What more could Radical Islam ask for?