[ RadSafe ] Nuclear Terrorism: Weapons for Sale or Theft?

[Flanigan, Floyd]

I guess I have a different take on this issue than most. I don't think the terrorists are interested in the nuclear end of things. Why go to the effort? Why chance that kind of exposure to being discovered before the plan can go into effect? There are so many targets of opportunity which have zero security and minimal cost in moneys or manpower. I know most of us in the business, live our lives steeped in nuclear this and that ... but they don't. From what I understand, the ideology is to affect the most damage and mayhem with the minimum of applied resources on the part of the terrorist. Now ... taking this into account, shouldn't the protectors of the free world be looking at initiating security measures on UNGUARDED targets rather than beefing up security on places which are already heavily guarded? The next time you stop at the gas station to fill up, take a look at the cover plate on the underground holding tanks. Do you see a lock on it? If so, is it anything which couldn't be snipped of with a pair of bolt cutters which any yahoo can pick up at a hardware store for $29.95? Now ... picture 300,000 gallons of high test fuel in an underground compression chamber ... that's right ... right under your feet. Now ... while driving the rest of the way to wherever you happen to be going that day ... count the gas stations you pass. Imagine what would happen if someone put a suicidal nut job at each station at three in the morning and each of these knuckleheads had a twenty dollar pipe bomb and a six dollar wrist watch and a pair of $29.95 bolt cutters and a really bad attitude .... Get it? Nuclear material, let alone weapons grade material, is really, really hard to get ahold of. All of the rest of the materials mentioned here could be procured without any attention being paid, no red flags, no sirens going off. So, enough already. We are dealing mostly with terrorists who come from a place where indoor plumbing is a recent development. We are thinking too hard. So far, their biggest success at damage has been steering planes into buildings. Their tactics are basic and the resources they utilize are rudimentary. All of the attention being paid to nuclear materials may be just us, setting ourselves up for the draw play. We dedicate all of our security resources in one area and they simply go the other way, for the unguarded stuff. Hmmmm ... sounds like a play we used to run back when I played football .....

Floyd W.Flanigan B.S.Nuc.H.P.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl]On
Behalf Of Gerry Blackwood
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 9:13 AM
To: Rad Safe
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Nuclear Terrorism: Weapons for Sale or Theft? 


http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/2005/pdf/ijpe0305.pdf
 
Nuclear Terrorism: Weapons for Sale or Theft? 
Gavin Cameron 



The theft of a tactical nuclear weapon or the purchase of weapons-grade nuclear material by terrorists is a 21st-century nightmare that may well come true, says Gavin Cameron. An assistant professor of political science at the University of Calgary, Canada, Cameron is the author of Nuclear Terrorism: A Threat Assessment for the 21st Century (2001) and has written numerous articles on the threats posed by the terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction. In this article he takes readers through four distinct nuclear terrorist scenarios: stealing an intact nuclear weapon; stealing or buying weapons-grade fissile material; attacking a nuclear site in order to cause a contamination incident; and using radioactive material to make a "dirty bomb." 



"Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality."



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