Terrorist Nuclear Threat

[Chris R.]

Former Russian Gen. Alexander Ivanovich Lebed, who Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed as Russia's security chief, found 10 suitcase sized nuclear bombs missing. Each of these nukes could take out an entire city. Apparently, the Russian mafia had acquired the nukes and sold them on the international black market for use far from Russia. Where did they go? Pakistan and India are possibilities, but what if they went to Osama? What if these bombs were smuggled into the U.S. prior to 9-11? (Via Mexico perhaps?) What if sleeper Al Queda cells intend to take out a few U.S. cities prior to the November 2004 Presidential elections? Such a display would make the incumbent U.S. President appear impotent to stop Osama, Rupert Murcoch’s opinion not withstanding.

I hope that there is nothing to fear here, but it appears we have been lulled into a false sense of security again. As the Hart-Rudman commission warned, terrorists with weapons of mass destruction pose the greatest threat to the U.S. now. We need to do a better job of addressing the terrorist threat to the homeland, and military adventurism abroad is not the answer.

[LearnedHand]

1. Link, please?

(Welcome to DU, ChrisR! :hi:)

[Chris R.]

3. Actually the number of missing nukes is 100!

I was wrong, the nubmer is 100, not 10, suitcase sized nukes missing:

http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke-weapons/nonproliferation/8830.html

Igor Kudrik
1997-09-26 12:00

Yablokov comments on Lebed allegations:
Suitcase nuclear bombs may have disappeared

--The statements of general A. Lebed, on disappearance of suitcases with nuclear bombs, definitively have real grounds, wrote Alexey Yablokov, former environmental advisor to Yeltsin, in a letter to newspaper "Novaya Gazeta". --Such bombs don't exist, claims the Ministry of Defence.

--The Russian military has lost track of more than 100 suitcase-sized one-kiloton nuclear bombs, said former Russian national security advisor Aleksandr Lebed in an interview with CBS News' 60 Minutes in the beginning of September.

--The statements of A. Lebed, related to suitcases with nuclear bombs definitively have real grounds, wrote Alexey Yablokov in a letter to Russian "Novaya Gazeta" on September 9. It turned out that the letter was "lost" on its way to the newspaper office. On request, Yablokov passed over another copy of the letter, which was printed earlier this week.

According to Yablokov, the suitcase version of nuclear devices was created in the 70's, on order from KGB (not GRU, as Lebed stated) to perform terror acts. These nuclear devices were not assigned to the Ministry of Defence and correspondingly was not taken into account in the negotiations on nuclear weaponry reduction. There were reports in the press, writes Yablokov, that similar mini-bombs were manufactured in the US, there called "rucksack bombs". In France, research aimed at creation of terrorist mini-nuclear weapons was prohibited by decree of President Mitterand.

--So, the statement of general A. Lebed apparently is not gibberish, concludes Alexey Yablokov.

The official reaction on Yablokov's statement came from the Russian Ministry of Defenc during a briefing yesterday.

--There are no nuclear suitcases as such, claimed lieutenant-general Igor Volynkin. --Their creation is not possible due to high expenses even to such a rich country as the United States.

-- All the nuclear devices, taken out of service or active, are securely stored at their alloted place. The possibility of their disappearance is practically excluded, said the general.

The lieutenant-general also added that the Ministry of Defence is the only power ministry in Russia which has been possessing nuclear devices.

Meanwhile, the draft on the law "On creation, application, decommission and securing of nuclear weaponry" passed preliminary hearings at the Russian Parliament yesterday. The law is the first attempt at establishing federal responsibility for the nuclear weaponry, and at defining the responsibilities for handling of nuclear devices among the federal state bodies.

According to the initiator of the law, Stepan Sulakshin, the implementation of the law would require annual allocations of some 13.5 million USD.
Read more:
Lebed: Nuclear bombs are missing:
http://www.bellona.no/e/russia/970907.htm

[HPLeft]

2. Agreed

As far as WMDs go, IMHO, the greatest threat to the United States was never Hussein, but terrorists getting their hands on the existing weapons of any number of other nations - like the Russian scenario you report on. My guess is that the missing bombs are not in al Queda hands, since I suspect that they would have used them if they had one -- and are not all that focused on embarrasing Dubya. But I absolutely agree with we're got to do something about protecting our port cities, and addressing the homeland threat. The 89 billion we're sinking into Iraq could have bought a lot of homeland security.

[Chris R.]

4. How can we know where they are?

With 100 tactical nukes missing, how can we know where they all are if the Russians don't. Remember these nukes were designed for terrorsim.