Re: Al-Qaida may have nuclear weapons

["Gerry Blackwood" <gpblackwood@justice.com>]

Frank,



"The damage done by a nuclear weapon is - even while one of the

most horrible threats - at most limited. A very big boom, much

damage, and contamination of a more or less area. Besides of the

magnitude, not much different from a chemical weapon like i.e.

nerve gas."



Lets take "one" small 1 Megaton Thermonuclear devise detonated

1500' above the Empire State Building. Within a nanosecond

approximately 8 million people would disappear. The bast wave and

resulting firestorm would consume up to approximately 10 miles in

diameter. As the blast and resulting firestorm degradated outward

another 45 to 25% of the areas population would either die or be

severely injured. Commerical trade in the area would be

nonexistent. Let's not talk about long term radiation and

collateral damage. You don't want to see what "one" 20 Megaton

Nuke would do. 



As far as chemical weapons are concerned. Lets take Saddam and

the Kurds for example. Saddam killed reportedly 5000 Kurds using

CW. This was not done with just "one" weapon but hundreds. The

normal chemical shell holds approximately 8 to 280kg of agent and

is dependent on both delivery and environmental factors, like

wind, heat, cold, rain etc. 



Bio weapons while very horrible agents and we all should be

frightened of these agents, while I do not want to underplay

these agents at all, once again talking about "mass casualties"

as in "millions" is still theory based while these agents are

susceptible to outside enviironments and delivery and dispersing

for "mass" casualty effect is still not yet there. But one day

very shortly will be just like a nuclear weapon. 



Of course hundreds dead are still hundreds dead with any weapon.

Moreover, conventional weapons and explosives are the main threat

we face along with the proliferation of fissile materials and

nuclear technology.



Gerry



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