🚀 go-pugleaf

Davie wrote:

> November 6, 1989: The Berlin Wall falls down and all soviet
> communists disappear.
>
>      August 16, 1997: A seismic event characteristic of a nuclear
> explosion occurred near the Russian nuclear test range at Novaya Zemlya.

And interestingly enough, just about the only newsgroups that carried any
discussions of the matter were the UFO-interest newsgroups.  Someone posted
that they'd intercepted a transmission from a Russian (maybe Turkish, this
was a while ago) airline pilot that they'd seen a brigh flash and a huge
column of smoke that resembled, in their opinion, a "mushroom" cloud.

>      Russia is now missing 100 suitcase nuclear bombs with a yield of
> between 60 and 100 kilotons.  Modern nuclear weapons are much smaller,
> and much more powerful than those we used in World War II to stop
> japanese aggression.

Nobody's actually _sure_ whether or not these devices are missing. More
recent news indicates that these devices are considered "accounted-for".

>      The bomb used of Hiroshima had a yield of only 12.5 kilotons of TNT
> as compared to the 60 to 100 kiloton yield of each missing backpack, or
> suitcase Atomic bomb, yet it killed 140,000 thousand people instantly
> with another 60 thousand dead within a year.
>

<snips of "Effects of Nuclear Weapons">

>
>
>      Though some say that no bombs are missing from Russia, you have to
> wonder how much you can believe what our government says about anything
> at this time.

One has to question the reliability of any statement by any public figure!
The gentleman who made the statement about the missing suitcase nukes is a
"loyal opposition" figure in Russian politics, once a Yeltsin appointee and
a close runner-up in the last elections.  A former military figure, he
might well be in a position to know if indeed anything was missing - but I
believe that he said that these devices were "not accounted for", which is
not entirely the same thing as "known to be missing".

>
>
>                      Jay Stewart, the director of foreign intelligence
> operations for the
>                      Energy Department from 1990 through 1994, said the
> international community
>                      has much reason for concern regarding Russia's
> nuclear program.
>
>                      ``It's my belief that the Russian Ministry of
> Defense itself doesn't know
>                      where all the tactical nuclear weapons are and
> cannot account for them,''
>                      Stewart said in an interview. ``If these suitcase
> devices have fallen out
>                      of national government hands, the question becomes
> where are they, who has
>                      them and what are their intentions. In the former
> Soviet Union everything
>                      is for sale.''Laura Myers ASP Sept 6, 1997.
>

This is unfortunately true. Add to this the revelation in this morning's
Washington Post, (please see
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/int3.htm ), that Russian Mafia
is selling military-class weapons to Caribbean Crime Cartels, and doubtless
there's some cause for concern. But believe me, the concern has been there
since the first hints of the collapse of the Soviet Regime. And people have
doubtless been working on this for many a sleepless night in the
intervening period.

>      Each suitcase nuclear bomb has an explosive yield of 4.8 to 7.2
> times the power of the A-Bomb dropped on Hiroshima which killed 140,000
> people instantly.  Imagine what one small, highly transportable suitcase
> bomb would do to a city of 1 million or more.
>

Actually, I think that DreamWork has covered that rather well in their film
_Peacemaker_, nor in theaters everywhere.

>      What would some dictators pay to have just one suitcase with the
> power to wipe out a major city and kill 300,000 people instantly?
>      Will the first bomb be used on a major US city?  Will it be walked
> to the top of a tall building at fifteen minutes after noon on a
> Friday?  Will it be brought aboard a ship into a major port somewhere in
> the world?  Will it be flown in a tourist helicopter ride above New
> York, London, or Paris?  Will it enter through an unprotected region of
> a border?

I dunno - but that was the subject of one of Robert Heinlein's first
stories sold - I forget the title, but basically someone follows the exact
line of reasoning, to his bartender, and his bartender convinces him he's
worried about nothing, the government's on top of it, go home and get some
rest - and of course the second the guy walks out the door, he gets
vaporized.

but go home and get some sleep, the government's on top of it.

>      Are terrorists willing to use such a device?  Would the World Trade
> Center be standing today if a suitcase nuclear bomb had been available
> instead of ANFO in a Ryder truck?
>
>      The real question is not whether a terrorist will use a nuclear
> weapon, but only when.

  True enough.

Don't forget, there was at one time considerable speculation as to whether
or not it was such a suitcase nuke that did the Murrah Building in Oklahoma
City. Quite a few people still belive that you can't to that much damage to
a building even with a moving van packed with conventional explosives, much
less home-made explosives.