Osama Bin Laden as a nuclear threat

[Sushi_lover]

Millions in opium going to Taliban-controlled warlords in Afghanistan this year.

Pakistan right next door to Afghanistan with very porous border, and a strong Taliban & Al Qaeda presence in both places.

Pakistan is very poor but they have nukes.

You don't think Osama (the CIA says he is the man on the tape last week) can get a nuke?

I have an EXTREMELY bad feeling about this. Picture the U.S. without one of its cities.

[progressiverealist]

1. yes, but Saddam gassed his own people.

so that's why we dealt with Saddam and not Osama bin Forgotten.

[Military Brat]

2. With our helicopters, too

Yes, the good ol' USA sold him those helicopters. And then we bought ourselves blinders and put them on while he gassed the Kurds. It was part of the deal we made with him. (There's info on the Net about that but I don't have the link in my notes.) I think we had sold Saddam those chemicals, too, but I'm not certain.

I'm not convinced the Osama on those tapes is the real one. He looks different from the original tapes, much better in fact. And the tapes always appear when polls show bush slipping. Remember the one that came out just as the 9/11 report was released? Does anybody with their eyes and ears open put anything past this administration?

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. It's the delivery system that's the hard part

I'm sure any self-respecting terrorist could get their hands on nuclear material. The problem is not contaminating yourself in the process and getting a missile to shot the stuff at your target with some degree of accuracy.

There still is the possiblity of a so called dirty bomb. But the area that would be effected would be relatively small. Now in a densely populated area it still would be pretty bad but I doubt if it would be anywhere near as bad as taking out the WTC, for example. IMHO, this dirty bomb stuff is a lot of hype, kind of like the small pox scare last year.

[Atlant]

4. I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

> It's the delivery system that's the hard part

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. It has been reliably proven that someone
with sufficient motivation would have no trouble bringing an assembled
nuclear "device" within striking distance of our coastal cities, and
it isn't much of a stretch of the imagination to assume that they
could also reach the heartland.

And ObL doesn't need to build a bomb; there are plenty waiting to be
purchased (or even freely given to the right recipient).

And with regard to "dirty" bombs, you understand that the spent
fuel pools of our many nuclear power reactors are still little
more than dirty bombs waiting to be "activated", right?

Atlant

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. If it was so easy

then why hasn't Osama used one yet? It's not because he's a nice guy or has any love for Americans?

I understand that there is plenty of material around. Some of it was free for the pickings when we invaded Iraq, but fortunately or unfortunately the terrorist types still seem to prefer low tech ways of killing people. Besides the US had dropped enough depleted uranium around the world to qualify has the world's biggest dirty bomber already. One nuke or dirty bomb aimed at a US target will still pale in comparision to what we've already done.