The Straight Dope on Smaller Tactical Nukes.....

[HysteryDiagnosis]

This site is a must read for those interested in knowing just how mad king george really is.


http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/page.cfm?pageID=1170
RNEP would produce tremendous radioactive fallout: A nuclear earth penetrator cannot penetrate deep enough to contain the nuclear fallout. Even the strongest casing will crush itself by the time it penetrates 10-30 feet into rock or concrete. For comparison, even a one-kiloton nuclear warhead (less than 1/10th as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb) must be buried at least 200-300 feet to contain its radioactive fallout.<3> The high yield RNEP will produce tremendous fallout that will drift for more than a thousand miles downwind. As, Linton Brooks, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration told Congress in April, "the laws of physics will far enough to trap all fallout. This is a nuclear weapon that is going to be hugely destructive over a large area" if it goes off underground.

RNEP could kill millions of people: A simulation of RNEP used against the Esfahan nuclear facility in Iran, using the software developed for the Pentagon, showed that 3 million people would be killed by radiation within 2 weeks of the explosion, and 35 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation (see Figure 1).<4>



http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/page.cfm?pageID=1170

letter
Scientists' Letter to the Senate on Mini-Nukes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 19, 2003

Dear Senator, as scientists and engineers with long experience on nuclear weapons and defense issues, we are writing to urge you to retain the Spratt-Furse law banning development leading to the production of nuclear weapons with yields of less than five kilotons.

[MercutioATC]

1. We're not going to nuke anybody...

we just like to say we are to scare people.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Well, I'm scared... are you scared??? I'm really scared.

[MercutioATC]

5. Are you Iranian?

THAT'S who whom the message is directed. If the administration didn't want Iran to get the message, do you really think that we would be hearing about this?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. I'm Amurkan... and I'm scared because these bastards need a

nuclear excuse to nuke Iran.

[MercutioATC]

7. Well, be scared if it works for you...

...I'm not getting worked up because we're not going to be nuking anybody.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. I'm not as scared now.... I kinda believe you.... but then there's

this.... so I am going to remain just a little scared.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2839operation_northwds.html

Operation Northwoods
The first comprehensive published account of the 1962 documents, is contained in James Bamford's book on the National Security Agency, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency, released in late Spring of this year. Bamford concluded that the Joint Chiefs of Staff "proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba."

Bamford's account is based on documents which were ordered declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board, and subsequently released by the National Archives within the past few years. EIR has obtained the relevant documents and has independently reviewed them, and we can confirm that there is no exaggeration in Bamford's description of these documents as containing proposals for U.S. military agencies to carry out terrorist actions against the United States and attacks on U.S. military facilities.

[MercutioATC]

9. Northwoods? It was conceived over 40 years ago and was never implemented.

Yes, somebody 40 years ago came up with a nutty idea. That's all it ever was, an idea.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

We are not short of nutty ideas since 911.... and we are actually

trying to produce smaller tactical nukes.. for what, I don't know.

[MercutioATC]

12. True, but they don't involve nukes.

We've been developing small tactical nukes for decades. We've never actually used one, though. The biggest physical is the inability to control where the fallout goes. Unless we can control that, we're not going to nuke anybody.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Well then.... there sure is an awful lot of scientists weighing in on

this issue.... I'm supposed to believe that this is a "I'm gonna huff and puff and blow your house down" sort of thing..... well maybe.... maybe not. I'm sure we could give a crap about fallout when our "security" is "theoretically" in jeopardy.

[MercutioATC]

14. The problem is that the stuff blows around. We could poison Saudi Arabia

or Jordan or Russia. There's no way we're going to do it because we have so many non-nuclear solutions available.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

16. Therein lies the problem.... we have too many frigging military

thingies.... and not enough thingies that would actually help engender peace in the world.

[MercutioATC]

17. Agreed.

Imagine if we had spent $200B on alternative energy, poverty and education instead of a war.....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Naaah. We would never do that...oh, wait..Hiroshima? Nagasaki?

[MercutioATC]

4. That WAS 60 years ago...

The fallout (both physical and political) would be immense. There's no way we're going to use nuclear weapons...probably not even if we were nuked first.

[G_j]

15. famous last words

I hate to say that I believe Bushco is more than capable, maybe even fantasizing about it as we speak.

[MercutioATC]

18. See above for why I really don't believe it will happen.

[madrchsod]

10. one name people should look up

if they think it couldn`t happen and why it will -herman kahn
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=HermanKahn

[Fovea]

11. As I have repeatedly said.

the challenge of creating a sucessful fission bomb that can penetrate
through hardened concrete, or even significant depths of earthwork for that matter, is akin to designing a Rolex watch that will keep accurate time after being driven through a brick wall with a hammer.

This is the mother of all military wet dreams, and as we are as likely to achieve it as I am to experience a threesome with Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher from The Wedding Crashers. What it will do is consume money like a humvee sucks gasoline.

[wli]

19. BushCo is insane enough to try

The question is whether those who have to actually launch are sane enough to disobey orders.