Osama Has Mask Ripped Off

Or at least we have less to fear from the contents of whatever he's carrying around today....

Just a quick one today unless the finishing touches on my presentation take a lot less time than they normally do....

According to the Wall Street Journal, there is no factual basis for fearing that Islamofascist terrorists will get their hands on the bomb any time soon.

Let's walk back the cat, as they say in intelligence circles. The foundation of all main nuclear suitcase stories is a string of interviews given by Gen. Lebed in 1997. Lebed told a visiting congressional delegation in June 1997 that the Kremlin was concerned that its arsenal of 100 suitcase-size nuclear bombs would find their way to Chechen rebels or other Islamic terrorists. He said that he had tried to account for all 100 but could find only 48. That meant 52 were missing. He said the bombs would fit "in a 60-by-40-by-20 centimeter case"--in inches, roughly 24-by-16-by-8--and would be "an ideal weapon for nuclear terror. The warhead is activated by one person and easy to transport." It would later emerge that none of these statements were true.

The article then goes about debunking the suitcase bomb myth and describing why it will be so hard for terrorists to get the bomb.

Fatwas are not enough. There are only three ways for al Qaeda to realize its atomic dreams: buy nuclear weapons, steal them or make them. Each approach is virtually impossible. Buying the bomb has not worked out well for al Qaeda. The terror organization has tried and, according to detainees, been scammed repeatedly. In Sudan's decrepit capital of Khartoum, an al Qaeda operative paid $1.5 million for a three-foot-long metal canister with South African markings. Allegedly it was uranium from South Africa's recently decommissioned nuclear program. According to Jamal al-Fadl, an al Qaeda leader later detained by U.S. forces, bin Laden ordered that it be tested in a safe house in Cyprus. It was indeed radioactive, but not of sufficient quality to be weapons-grade. One American intelligence analyst said that he believed the material was taken from the innards of an X-ray machine. It is not clear what it actually was, but the canister was ultimately discarded by al Qaeda.

This is a really good article, except for one point. Read it all.

The one deficiency? There is a fourth way for the terrorists to get a bomb: By obtaining it from Iran, North Korea, or some other state sponsor. Too bad we're still chatting with Iran and hoping that North Korea will deign to join us in six-party talks. At least on the publicly-visible side, we seem not to be taking either threat seriously enough.

We can heave a sigh or relief about the so-called suitcase nukes, but the cloud outlined in that bit of silver is that we'd better figure out a better way to monitor container shipping. Were I a terrorist with an Iranian nuke, this would seem the best way to get a nuke over here.

-- CAV

PS: The author of the article, Richard Miniter, is author of Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror. Looks interesting. perhaps I'll get a copy.