The Risks of Nuclear War

Here we track articles on the rumored deployment of nuclear weapons by the US and others such as Russia, as well as the acquisition of nukes by Al Qaeda.

U.S. Works Up Plan for Using Nuclear Arms  3/9/02 LA Times: "Military: Administration, in a secret report, calls for a strategy against at least seven nations: China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria."

The Secret Bomb Squad  3/9/02 Time: "Last January the Administration quietly ordered NEST to launch periodic searches for a "dirty bomb" in Washington and other large U.S. cities. Administration officials tell Time that the NEST teams aren't dispatched to urban areas because of any specific threat received. Instead, almost every week the FBI randomly selects several cities for visits by NEST, which comprises some 300 scientists and technicians from Energy and nuclear-weapons laboratories trained in finding and dismantling terrorist nuclear devices."

U.S. using sensors for nuclear threats  3/3/02 Washington Post

Cesium density across U.S.  3/2/02 USA Today

Nixon discussed nuclear strike in Vietnam  3/1/02 Boston Globe: "''I'd rather use the nuclear bomb,'' Nixon told Kissinger, his national security adviser, a few weeks before he ordered a major escalation of the Vietnam War."

15,000 deaths to nuclear tests? Study fuels debate  3/1/02 MSNBC

Fallout likely caused 15,000 deaths  2/28/02 USA Today: and few people notice…almost 5 times the death toll of 9-11: "Radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear weapons tests across the globe probably caused at least 15,000 cancer deaths in U.S. residents born after 1951, according to data from an unreleased federal study."

U.S. drops pledge on nukes  2/22/02 Washington Times: "The Bush administration is no longer standing by a 24-year-old U.S. pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states, a senior administration official said yesterday." Now it's back to Kissinger threatneing North Vietnam with nukes…

U.S., reducing arms, considers new nuclear weapons  2/20/02 IHT: "The Nuclear Weapons Council, made up of officials from the Defense and Energy departments, has ordered a three-year study into developing a nuclear-tipped, earth-penetrating weapon that can destroy hardened underground targets. The administration has also established "advanced warhead concept teams" at the country's three nuclear weapons laboratories to work on new warheads or warhead modifications."

Federal Policy on Use of Potassium  1/10/02 Cryptome: Potassium Iodide is taken to reduce risks from radiation

We will win nuclear war, says India  12/31/01 Times, UK: And nuclear winter, o holy man?

US finds bin Laden's uranium  12/25/01 The Age, Australia: "US investigators believe Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network has enough radioactive materials to build what experts call a "radiological dispersal device", according to Newsweek magazine"

Israel reveals secrets of how it gained bomb  12/23/01 Telegraph, UK: "A TELEVISION documentary in which Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, discloses for the first time details about Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons is to be broadcast in the Arab world. It is intended, at a time of rising tensions, as a warning." Following Israeli 'retaliation' policies, can we expect that the first dirty bomb to go off in Israel will trigger nuclear devastation for a few Arab capitals? With about as much evidence as is used in retaliations in Palestine, no doubt.

FBI focusing on portable nuke threat  12/20/01 UPI: "Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., chairman of the Research and Development Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that he was briefed by the FBI late last week and that the investigation of whether terrorist groups have weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear devices, is now a top priority at the bureau after years of indifference."

Officials Back Low-Yield Nuke Strike  12/18/01 AP

Russians arrested for selling uranium  12/7/01 Independent, UK

Nuclear panic in the United States and more bombs for Bin Laden  12/5/01 Granma

New US Terror Alert Linked to Nuke Fear  12/4/01 Debka: Debka is a classic disinformation site, mixing pearls with garbage. This article seems genuine, and they are correct in affirming that there was a press report of a man caught smuggling a dirty bomb into Israel, by UPI, on 10/27/01: "Little noticed story dated 10-14: "Israeli security last month arrested a man linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden armed with a radiological backpack bomb, as he attempted to enter Israel from the Palestinian Territories via a border checkpoint at Ramallah, according to U.S. government officials."

U.S. CONSIDERS NUKES TO DESTROY SADDAM'S WMD  11/29/01 ME Newswire

Muslim Moderate Kabbani Firm on Terrorist Nuclear Threat  11/19/01 NewsMax

Nuke Manual Looks Like Internet Hoax - Al Qaeda Duped?  11/16/01 Village Voice: Tom Ridge duped too…

Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found  11/14/01 Times, UK

Al Qaeda said to claim ability to buy nuclear arms  11/13/01 Reuters: "They gave me some indication that you can if you have $10 million, $20 million, you can get these kinds of weapons from the underworld mafia of the central Asian states and some disgruntled Russian scientists."

Russian Official Reveals Attempt Made to Steal Nuclear Materials  11/13/01 Washington Post

Bin Laden 'has nuclear weapons'  11/10/01 BBC: "But in the Urdu version of the article, Bin Laden does not threaten to use nuclear or chemical weapons."

Osama claims he has nukes: If US uses N-arms it will get same response  11/10/01 Dawn, Pakistan

Al-Qaeda nukes may have reached US shores  11/10/01 Frontier Post, Pakistan

Iraq Issues Nuclear Threat to the West  11/10/01 ME Newsline, Israel: "The United States has assessed that Iraq is threatening nuclear retaliation for any attack on the regime of President Saddam Hussein. U.S. defense sources said intelligence agencies and the Pentagon agree that Saddam has made the most explicit threats since the 1991 Gulf war that he is ready to use nuclear weapons. They said Iraq appears to be preparing either nuclear or radiation bombs in response to any U.S.-led attack on Saddam. There is plenty of reason to watch Iraq, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said. There is plenty of reason to make very clear to the Iraqis that the United States does not intend to let the Iraqis threaten their own people, threaten their neighbors, or threaten our interests by acquiring weapons of mass destruction. On Wednesday, the Baghdad-based Babel daily, published by Saddam's son, Uday, reported that the president met with the head of the nation's nuclear and defense programs. The newspaper, reserved for the most authoritative messages from the regime, said Iraqi nuclear chiefs have pledged to accelerate their nuclear programs in defense of the nation."

U.S. regards Iraqi report as a nuclear threat  11/10/01 World Tribune, Falls Church, VA

Suitcase Nukes Raise Concern  11/9/01 ABC News

Race to find mafia's uranium bars  11/9/01 Guardian, UK: ""If terrorists exploded a dirty bomb [made from the uranium bars] in Villa Borghese Gardens, they would create little more than a large hole in the ground, but the centre of Rome would be contaminated for a century," Captain Roberto Ferroni, of the finance police, told La Repubblica."

Police Detain Turks Smuggling Uranium  11/6/01 AP

Report Finds 'Weakness' In Nuclear Controls  11/6/01 Washington Post: "Government records about plutonium and uranium loaned to U.S. academic institutions, private companies, hospitals and other government agencies cannot account for "substantial" amounts of the material, according to a report released yesterday by the Energy Department inspector general."

Nuclear scientist falls ill after questioning  11/5/01 The Guardian: "A senior Pakistani nuclear scientist detained for his connections with the Taliban suffered a heart attack while he was being interrogated by intelligence agents, his son said last night."

ISLAMABAD'S NUCLEAR DILEMMA: Pakistan panics over threat to arsenal  11/4/01 Sunday Times, UK

Pakistan and India 'one terror strike from war'  11/3/01 Independent, UK: and the nukes will fly

US spooked by ‘spirited’ Pak nuclear scientist  11/3/01 The Times of India: "Sultan Bashir Mohammed, a top Pakistani nuclear expert now in custody for suspected links with the Taliban, is a believer in djinns, described in the Holy Koran as beings made of fire. A proponent of "Islamic science," he has written papers suggesting that these entities could be tapped to solve the energy crisis. He has also spoken about the possibility of developing souls and communicating with them."

A State of High Alert  11/2/01 Insight: "After the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, Insight has learned, NEST was put on a state of high alert and operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the nation's capital and New York City monitoring for nuclear-related weapons. Federal officials have told the magazine that this includes extensive use of deployed sensors and specially equipped vehicles patrolling the streets of both cities."

Atomic agency warns of nuclear terror risk  11/1/01 Financial Times, UK: "...the threat was most likely to come from the explosion of a conventional "dirty bomb" that would spread radioactive materials. Making such a bomb could expose the terrorists to life-threatening radiation. "The willingness of terrorists to sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims makes the nuclear terrorism threat far more likely than it was before September 11," said Mohamed El Baradei, IAEA director general."

U.S. Sees Increased Potential for Nuclear Attack  10/31/01 Reuters

House Dems Lose Russian Nukes Move  10/30/01 AP

Bush: fear of bin Laden nukes  10/30/01 United States.com: "One U.S. government expert said that the United States gained new knowledge of the backpack weapons in the 1990s through Russian double agents run by the CIA. One U.S. source familiar with the program said: "We had defectors who trained on backpack weapons and who bluntly told the agency that everything they knew about the devices was wrong. We didn't understand how they were assembled or how they were to be used."

US special unit 'stands by to steal atomic warheads'  10/29/01 The Telegraph, UK: "There are a number of possible targets for the use of these weapons by renegades sympathetic to the Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. These include India, itself a nuclear power, or the four American aircraft carriers and British vessels currently cruising off Pakistan's coastline as bases for air and commando attacks on the Taliban and al-Qa'eda."

Israel Finds Radiological Backpack Bomb  10/27/01 UPI: Little noticed story dated 10-14: "Israeli security last month arrested a man linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden armed with a radiological backpack bomb, as he attempted to enter Israel from the Palestinian Territories via a border checkpoint at Ramallah, according to U.S. government officials."

Bin Laden's nuclear threat  10/26/01 The Times, UK

US wakes up to Osama's nuke dreams  10/26/01 Times of India

Dos científicos paquistaníes pretendían fabricar una bomba atómica para Al Qaeda  10/25/01 El Mundo, Spain

Nuclear scientists picked by agencies  10/25/01 Pakistan Observer

Elite U.S. team works to keep nuclear bombs from terrorists  10/20/01 STL

Nuclear Backpack Device Captured by Israelis  10/20/01 Web Today, Christian Fundamentalists

Rep. Buyer Suggests Limited Nuclear Retaliation  10/19/01 Yahoo News: Has anyone told this sap that Al Qaeda, dispersed in over 50 countries, has nukes of their own?

Al-Qaeda network tried to obtain weapons grade nuclear material: report  10/15/01 Dawn, Pakistan: "The al-Qaeda terrorist network tried to obtain weapons-grade nuclear material with the help of the Russian mafia, the German ARD television network says in a report to be broadcast Monday evening."

Tactical nukes deployed in Afghanistan  10/14/01 WorldNetDaily, US: "Military sources place the U.S. nuclear weapons in four former Soviet Central Asian bases – the military air facility at Tuzel, 10 miles northwest of the Uzbek capital of Tashkent; at Kagady in the Termez region; in Khandabad, near the city of Karshi; and at the military air base in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan."

Global realignment  10/14/01 WorldNetDaily, US based, allied with Debka: "Bush and Putin have just put certain nation-states on notice that if they can't - or won't - prevent their nukes from getting loose, we'll do it for them. If terrorists detonate a nuke near the White House or the Kremlin, our nuke-weapon scientists can, from a rad-chem analysis of the fission products, tell you almost in real time how the nuke was made and who made it. So, if it turns out to be a Pakistani nuke, then the message seems to be that Islam can kiss their remaining Islamic bombs and infrastructure "goodbye."

Bin Laden May Have Acquired Small Nuclear Weapons  10/13/01 Debka.com, Israel: "In a special investigation,DEBKA-Net-Weekly learned from well-placed intelligence sources that the millionaire terror master did procure a supply of uranium-235 six months before his Al Qaeda suicides carried out their September 11 strikes in America. The uranium was delivered following an extraordinary deal between the most wanted terrorist in the world and one of the world’s most dangerous mobsters, a shadowy Ukrainian-born Jew called Semion Mogilevich, who rules over an arms-trafficking, money-laundering, drug-running, prostitution and graft empire. Sources who spoke to DEBKA-Net-Weekly on condition of anonymity report that for a princely sum estimated at US$40 - 75 million, Bin Laden bought between 12 and 15 kilos of uranium-235, all of which came from Russia or some Central Asian Muslim republic. If this is true, the master terrorist has enough fissionable material to build between 3 and 5 nuclear devices."

Nato chief warns of 'poor man's nuclear bomb' risk  10/11/01 The Times, UK

Semion Mogilevich  10/10/01 Gangsters Inc: Hunted for selling nukes to Al Qaeda - "Allegations of Mogilevich's devilish array of criminal activities are extensively detailed in the reports: The FBI and Israeli intelligence assert that he traffics in nuclear materials, drugs, prostitutes, precious gems, and stolen art. His contract hit squads operate in the U.S. and Europe. He controls everything that goes in and out of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, a "smugglers' paradise, " says Elson. Mogilevich bought a bankrupt airline in a former Central Asian Soviet republic for millions of dollars in cash so he could haul heroin out of the Golden Triangle. Most worrisome to U.S. authorities is Mogilevich's apparently legal purchase of virtually the entire Hungarian armaments industry, jeopardizing regional security, NATO, and the war against terrorism. In one typical criminal deal, Mogilevich and two Moscow-based gangsters sold $20 million worth of pilfered Warsaw Pact weapons from East Germany, including ground-to-air missiles and 12 armored troop carriers, according to the classified Israeli and FBI documents. The buyer was Iran, says a top-level U.S. Customs official ho requested anonymity…. Like mob bosses everywhere, Mogilevich couldn't sustain his empire without the help of corrupt police and politicians. There is one documented example of a criminal associate of Mogilevich mingling with American politicians. In March 1994, Vahtang Ubiriya, one of Mogilevich's top lieutenants, was photographed by the FBI at a tony Republican Party fundraiser in Dallas, says an FBI report."

Manhunt on for Bin Laden's Russian nuke connection  10/10/01 Geostrategy Direct, US: "Spanish authorities are investigating a Russian organized crime figure for his ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist group headed by Osama Bin Laden. Semion Mogilevich is suspected by Spanish intelligence and security police of being connected to Bin Laden and his group’s efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction material and components on the black market. Mogilevich is a Ukrainian by birth who carries an Israeli passport. U.S. intelligence officials said Mogilevich may be a key connection to efforts by al-Qaeda to acquire so-called "suitcase" tactical nuclear weapons that Russian officials have said are not completely accounted for since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. A Bin Laden associate, Algerian Hamal al-Fadl, has told U.S. Investigators that he was in charge of seeking to acquire suitcase nuclear bombs on behalf of Bin Laden. Mogilevich is suspected of attempting to smuggle uranium into France from Russia using several members of his crime family. He is believed to be somewhere in southern Spain and a manhunt is underway for him, according to intelligence sources."

Semion Mogilevich, the "Brainy Don"  10/10/01 Profaca Mario's Cyberspace Station: Extensive files on a man hunted for selling nukes to Al Qaeda

Report: U.S. nuclear weapons sent to Afghanistan as 'last resort'  10/9/01 Haaretz, Israel

Why the Israelis revealing all US nuclear secrets?  10/8/01 Khilafah: "Talking to Russian Public TV on October 2, Rustam Jumaev, the press secretary of the Uzbek president denied "rumours" that the US Special Forces had landed in Uzbekistan. But 'denying' the said 'rumors' he also revealed: "The men mistaken for special forces were, in fact, US customs officers who were training Uzbek border troops in ways to prevent the smuggling of nuclear weapons and radioactive material." He did not bother to tell as to when, how and from where "the US custom officers entered Uzbekistan." The CIA-financed Radio Free Europe also made fun of the 'denials,' the Tajik government keeps issuing regarding the presence of the US troops on its soil."

Tactical Nuclear Weapons Deployed  10/7/01 Debka, Israel: scroll to bottom of their page - "Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, in a single 70-minuted conversation on September 23, eleven days after the terrorist assaults in New York and Washington, agreed on the deployment of tactical weapons. This is an epic shift in the global balance of strength." Putin gave the nod for US forces poised in Central Asia to jump into Afghanistan to be armed with tactical nuclear weapons, such as small neutron bombs, which emit strong radiation, nuclear mines, shells, and other nuclear ammunition suited to commando warfare in mountainous terrain.

U.S. Pressed on Nuclear Response  10/7/01 Washington Post

U.S. Strategists Begin to Favor Threat to Use Nuclear Arms  10/6/01 International Herald Tribune: A report issued in January by the National Institute for Public Policy declared that "U.S. nuclear weapons may be necessary" against such things as buried targets or biological weapons targets.

The Nagging Fear of Nukes  10/5/01 MSNBC: "In 1993 Chechen saboteurs left a package of highly radioactive cesium in Moscow’s Izmailovo Park." - or was it the Russians?

Vital intelligence on the Taliban may rest with its prime sponsor – Pakistan’s ISI  10/1/01 Jane's, UK

Uranium seized: Police wash hands off case  9/27/01 Times of India

An Enraged Bull in Asia's Nuclear China Shop  9/26/01 Toronto Sun, Canada

Pentagon Recommends Use of Nuclear Weapons  9/20/01 Japan Today

TIME TO USE THE NUCLEAR OPTION: A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL COMMENTARY  9/17/01 Buzzflash, US

Evolving Terror Tactics Join Old Theology With New Technology  9/17/01 Washington Post

Bin Laden sought nuclear matter  9/16/01 Boston Globe

Mi Hermano Bin Laden  9/16/01 El Mundo: "Al Qaeda recieves $900 million a year in zakat (tithings)...The latest information out of the US is that the leader's emissaries succeeded in purchasing out of the Ukraine 3 mini-nukes known as RA115 and RA116. These can be carried in a suitcase, 700 of them were manufactured in the Soviet Union. Russian sources admit they have lost at least 100 of these"

Concern Rises About Potential Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons Attacks  9/16/01 SMH

WMD TERRORISM AND USAMA BIN LADEN  3/14/01 Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Russia's "Lost" Luggage Could Be Deadly  11/1/98 Foreign Correspondent

The Risks of Nuclear War

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