Portents of A Nuclear Al Qaeda?

[oldreliable67]

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is the Energy Department's director of intelligence. He's responsible for gathering information about the threat that a terrorist group will attack America with a nuclear weapon. Here, WAPO columist David Ignatius reviews the briefing he has been giving recently to President Bush and other top officials. Excerpts from his column follow:

Mowatt-Larssen argues that for nearly a decade before Sept. 11, al-Qaeda was seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As early as 1993, Osama bin Laden offered $1.5 million to buy uranium for a nuclear device, according to testimony presented in federal court in February 2001. When the al-Qaeda leader was asked in 1998 if he had nuclear or chemical weapons, he responded: "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so."

Even as al-Qaeda was preparing to fly its airplane bombs into buildings, the group was also trying to acquire nuclear and biological capabilities. In August 2001, bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, met around a campfire with Pakistani scientists from a group called Umma Tameer-E-Nau to discuss how al-Qaeda could build a nuclear device. Al-Qaeda also had an aggressive anthrax program that was discovered in December 2001 after bin Laden was driven from his haven in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda proclaimed a religious rationale to justify the WMD attacks it was planning. In June 2002, a Kuwaiti-born cleric named Suleiman Abu Ghaith posted a statement on the Internet saying that "al-Qaeda has the right to kill 4 million Americans" in retaliation for U.S. attacks against Muslims. And in May 2003, at the same time Saudi operatives of al-Qaeda were trying to buy three Russian nuclear bombs, a cleric named Nasir al-Fahd issued a fatwa titled "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels." Interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives confirmed that the planning was serious. Al-Qaeda didn't yet have the materials for a WMD attack, but it wanted them.

Most chilling of all was Zawahiri's decision in March 2003 to cancel a cyanide attack in the New York subway system. He told the plotters to stand down because "we have something better in mind." What did that mean? More than four years later, we still don't know.

After 2004, the WMD trail went cold, according to Mowatt-Larssen. Many intelligence analysts have concluded that al-Qaeda doesn't have nuclear capability today. Mowatt-Larssen argues that a more honest answer is: We don't know.

And therein lies the rub: we just don't know.

 

[Gladiator]

What would be the range of possible US responses to a nuclear attack by Islamic Militants?

What would be the best response?

Maybe blame Iran for any nuclear attack, and Invade Iran? Neocons are looking for a reason to invade or attack Iran, anyway.

 

[Cold Highway]

Pakistan is the country that would be a threat currently if terrorists get ahold of nuclear missiles since the political situation is so foggy right now.

 

[danarhea]

Eerie, isn't it? The exact same words:

 

[bhkad]

It's already been decided by Iran.

 

[bhkad]

Eerie, isn't it? The exact same words:

That's a bogus Bush citation.

You can't produce a link that credibly establishes the President saying that.

And if Ray Nagin had said that prior to the Katrina disaster would you equate him to Hitler, too?

 

[Guest1]

That's a bogus Bush citation.

You can't produce a link that credibly establishes the President saying that.

And if Ray Nagin had said that prior to the Katrina disaster would you equate him to Hitler, too?

But it is such a nice graphic that it must be true:rofl

 

[RightinNYC]

Like bhkad pointed out, Bush never said that.

Shame to see you're abandoning any semblance of real debate and instead resorting to falsehoods to try to convey your message.

 

[Thorgasm]

How many nukes were pointed at every major city in America during the Cold War? Yet, we have been manipulated by fear that the terrorists may get their hands on one, or even a few nukes. Emotion is the number one enemy of reason. We have lost all perspective.

 

[RightinNYC]

How many nukes were pointed at every major city in America during the Cold War? Yet, we have been manipulated by fear that the terrorists may get their hands on one, or even a few nukes. Emotion is the number one enemy of reason. We have lost all perspective.

1) You think we weren't manipulated by fear then? People lived in constant fear - the bomb drills at school, the bomb shelters in backyards, etc.

2) We were relatively confident that Russia would not attack us because they knew they would be hit back just the same. Terrorist cells have none of the same reticence.

 

[Thorgasm]

1) You think we weren't manipulated by fear then? People lived in constant fear - the bomb drills at school, the bomb shelters in backyards, etc.

MAD quelled that. See number 2.

2) We were relatively confident that Russia would not attack us because they knew they would be hit back just the same. Terrorist cells have none of the same reticence.

Terrorists don't have the ability to annihilate our country.

 

[RightinNYC]

MAD quelled that. See number 2.

So you agree that there was no reason to really be "scared" in the past, as compared to now.

Terrorists don't have the ability to annihilate our country.

They could sure do a number on Times Square or the Capitol Building though.

I'm just glad I live in the hood.

 

[Thorgasm]

So you agree that there was no reason to really be "scared" in the past, as compared to now.

Yes, I agree. I didn't lose sleep over it.

They could sure do a number on Times Square or the Capitol Building though.

I'm just glad I live in the hood.

Central Illinois is safe too.

 

[ashurbanipal]

Last I heard, Mossad believes that Al Qaeda had acquired 10 British-made suitcase bombs (roughly 50 kiloton yield) in 1996.

 

[Iriemon]

Is this information that is surprising, new, or unexpected? The fact of AQ trying to acquire a nuke is something few would contest, isn't it?

The biggest question raised by the article is, given this threat, why on Earth did this Administration mislead our nation into war with Iraq and squandered our resources there, fueling the fire of anti-American radicalism and generating new terrorist groups like AQ in Iraq, as opposed to focusing on the very group your article says we should be worrying about.

 

[Iriemon]

1) You think we weren't manipulated by fear then? People lived in constant fear - the bomb drills at school, the bomb shelters in backyards, etc.

2) We were relatively confident that Russia would not attack us because they knew they would be hit back just the same. Terrorist cells have none of the same reticence.

#2 is simply not accurate. There was a serious fear raised by our leaders that the Soviets were godless commies who didn't care about life and if they had the chance to vaporize us before we could effectively strike back they would.

That fear (real, imagined, or manipulated) was the motivating factor for the scores of billions spent on things like Star Wars, intermediate nukes in Europe and how many more untold scores of billions spent on the nuclear deterent.

The threat of nuclear war, whether caused by design or mistake, was not an imaginary one, and that event would have been cataclysmic, the probable complete destruction of the United States and possible of human life on the planet.

The threat of this event *far* overshadows anything we face from terrorists today. Would I trade the threat we face today for the threat faced by nuclear war with the Soviets? Not in a million years.

 

[Harshaw]

Eerie, isn't it? The exact same words:

Not only did Bush never say that, if someone can find a citation to a primary source which shows that Hitler wrote it, please let us know. The Geheime Staatspolizei was a Prussian organization which LONG predated the Nazis. All Hitler did was put it under the authority of the SS, and it was mostly Goering's doing. It was not created by Hitler.

This seems to be one of those things that blogs like to use each other as citations for.

I guess my question is, especially for the bogus Bush quote . . .

If you're RIGHT, why do you have to make stuff up?

 

[Harshaw]

There was a serious fear raised by our leaders that the Soviets were godless commies who didn't care about life and if they had the chance to vaporize us before we could effectively strike back they would.

Ummm . . . why only before we could strike back?

Because otherwise, they'd be destroyed too?

 

[Iriemon]

Ummm . . . why only before we could strike back?

Because otherwise, they'd be destroyed too?

Exactly.
...

 

[Harshaw]

Exactly.
...

Is not the same thought summed up by the sentence, "we were relatively confident that Russia would not attack us because they knew they would be hit back just the same"?

 

[Iriemon]

Is not the same thought summed up by the sentence, "we were relatively confident that Russia would not attack us because they knew they would be hit back just the same"?

Only if the Russians loved their children too. Easy to say so now, but during the cold war, many believed they did not.

I'm not arguing that the relative risk of nuke war with the SU is just as high as the relative risk that some terrorist some day might set off a nuke in an American city. But the consequences of nuke war with the SU is of such greater consequence that the overall risk isn't comparable, IMO.

 

[oldreliable67]

I'm not arguing that the relative risk of nuke war with the SU is just as high as the relative risk that some terrorist some day might set off a nuke in an American city. But the consequences of nuke war with the SU is of such greater consequence that the overall risk isn't comparable, IMO.

While I totally agree with the above, we shouldn't overlook another aspect of a terrorist-with-nukes situation. Since terrorists are stateless, against whom would one retaliate? Isn't that a major reason that Mutually Assured Destruction simply doesn't hold against terrorists?

Moreover, since so much of today's terrorism is religion-based, with it's concomitant wish for martyrdom, the threat of destruction simply doesn't possess the same gravity as it did with those who feared death instead of embracing it. As Ayatollah Khomeini famously asserted:

"I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers [i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

The best that one can do, if attacked by terrorists is to seek them out in their havens, wherever they may be, and do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat. While immediate threats have to be neutralized in whatever ways possible, one should, in the longer term (and here is where we don't seem to making nearly enough of an effort, IMO) attempt to eliminate the causes of terrorism, whether it is poverty or religious fanaticism or whatever.

 

[Iriemon]

While I totally agree with the above, we shouldn't overlook another aspect of a terrorist-with-nukes situation. Since terrorists are stateless, against whom would one retaliate? Isn't that a major reason that Mutually Assured Destruction simply doesn't hold against terrorists?

MAD assumes that they love their children too.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that the risk of a terrorist attack isn't real or serious. But given the choice between a perhaps smaller risk of nuclear war with the SU versus a perhaps larger risk of a terrorist attack, I wouldn't change the situation now for the situation then for anything. The chance of a terrorist attack with nukes is small. The chance that such an attack would involve me as a target is smaller still. The chance of nuclear war with the SU may be a little smaller. The chance that the nuclear war would involve as a target is large.

The best that one can do, if attacked by terrorists is to seek them out in their havens, wherever they may be, and do whatever it takes to eliminate the threat. While immediate threats have to be neutralized in whatever ways possible, one should, in the longer term (and here is where we don't seem to making nearly enough of an effort, IMO) attempt to eliminate the causes of terrorism, whether it is poverty or religious fanaticism or whatever.

I agree.

 

[DivineComedy]

MAD assumes that they love their children too.

The Iraqi children that Al Quacka loved so much in 1996 are probably old enough to be a young police recruit.

Fanatics love their ideology more than the children who do not adhere to it.

The odds of an attack harming us personally only increase with WMD, the fear of losing a MAD deterrent increases with terrorism, which increases as a direct result of waging war against WMD.

It didn‘t take WMD to attack us on 911 for our waging war against WMD. We wage war against WMD, and find nothing but a terrorist that now seeks WMD.

I am going MAD!

Darn, I can’t thank you for this:

http://www.debatepolitics.com/archives/23805-rooting-enemy-22.html#post677861

Consider this a thanks.

 

[danarhea]

Like bhkad pointed out, Bush never said that.

Shame to see you're abandoning any semblance of real debate and instead resorting to falsehoods to try to convey your message.

Ahhh, yes. I have been waiting for someone to post something like this. Of course, Bush never said those exact words. Here is what he said:

We differ from our enemy because we love. We not only love our freedoms and love our values, we love life, itself. In America, everybody matters, everybody counts, every human life is a life of dignity. And that's not the way our enemy thinks. Our enemy hates innocent life; they're willing to kill in the name of a great religion. (Applause.) And as long as we love freedom and love liberty and value every human life, they're going to try to hurt us. And so our most important job is to defend the freedom, defend the homeland -- is to make sure what happened on September the 11th doesn't happen again, we must do everything we can -- everything in our power -- to keep America safe.

Looks like the same thing to me. Of course, I am sure that the next thing you will do is attack the source as left wing - The Whitehouse web site, which is where this speech comes from.