Nuke over U.S. could unleash electromagnetic tsunami
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
The following excerpt from the new book, "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World", by Frank J. Gaffney and Colleagues, is reprinted with permission from the publisher, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland.
If Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda — or the dictators of North Korea or Iran — had the ability to destroy America as a superpower, would they be tempted to try?
Wouldn't that temptation be even greater if that result could be achieved with a single attack, involving just one nuclear weapon, perhaps even one of modest power and relatively unsophisticated design?
And, what if the attacker could be reasonably sure that the United States would not know who was responsible for such a devastating blow?
Unfortunately, that scenario is not far fetched. It is the conclusion of a report issued in 2004 by a blue ribbon commission created by Congress. The commission found that a single nuclear weapon, delivered by a ballistic missile to an altitude of a few hundred miles over the United States, would be "capable of causing catastrophe for the nation."
How is that possible? By precipitating a lethal electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.
In 2000, concerned about EMP technology, Congress created the "Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack" (the EMP Threat Commission, for short). In its final report, presented in summer 2004, the panel warned that terrorists could indeed execute such an attack by launching a small nuclear armed missile from a freighter off the coast of the United States.
The ingredients for an EMP attack may be already within reach.
Al-Qaeda is known to have a fleet of freighters.
One of those freighters could easily be outfitted with a short- range ballistic missile capable of getting a nuclear weapon to almost any point in the airspace above our country.
Thousands of Scud missiles exist around the world, and they are said to cost less than $100,000 to purchase from willing suppliers like North Korea. (In December 2002, a North Korean ship was intercepted, temporarily, as it prepared to deliver twelve Scud missiles to Yemen.)
North Korea has also declared its willingness to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists.
Iran has demonstrated it has the capability to launch a Scud missile from a vessel at sea.
Ship-launched ballistic missiles have a special advantage. The "return address" of the attacker may be difficult to determine, especially if the missile is a generic Scud type weapon, found in many countries' arsenals.
But even though all the tools needed for this nightmare scenario could be in the hands of terrorists already, and even though a high altitude EMP attack could be considered the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction," little has changed in our level of preparedness or even our policy debates. EMP is still rarely mentioned in discussions of the WMDs we need to worry about.
We need to start worrying.
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
The following excerpt from the new book, "War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World", by Frank J. Gaffney and Colleagues, is reprinted with permission from the publisher, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland.
If Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda — or the dictators of North Korea or Iran — had the ability to destroy America as a superpower, would they be tempted to try?
Wouldn't that temptation be even greater if that result could be achieved with a single attack, involving just one nuclear weapon, perhaps even one of modest power and relatively unsophisticated design?
And, what if the attacker could be reasonably sure that the United States would not know who was responsible for such a devastating blow?
Unfortunately, that scenario is not far fetched. It is the conclusion of a report issued in 2004 by a blue ribbon commission created by Congress. The commission found that a single nuclear weapon, delivered by a ballistic missile to an altitude of a few hundred miles over the United States, would be "capable of causing catastrophe for the nation."
How is that possible? By precipitating a lethal electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.
In 2000, concerned about EMP technology, Congress created the "Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack" (the EMP Threat Commission, for short). In its final report, presented in summer 2004, the panel warned that terrorists could indeed execute such an attack by launching a small nuclear armed missile from a freighter off the coast of the United States.
The ingredients for an EMP attack may be already within reach.
Al-Qaeda is known to have a fleet of freighters.
One of those freighters could easily be outfitted with a short- range ballistic missile capable of getting a nuclear weapon to almost any point in the airspace above our country.
Thousands of Scud missiles exist around the world, and they are said to cost less than $100,000 to purchase from willing suppliers like North Korea. (In December 2002, a North Korean ship was intercepted, temporarily, as it prepared to deliver twelve Scud missiles to Yemen.)
North Korea has also declared its willingness to sell nuclear weapons to terrorists.
Iran has demonstrated it has the capability to launch a Scud missile from a vessel at sea.
Ship-launched ballistic missiles have a special advantage. The "return address" of the attacker may be difficult to determine, especially if the missile is a generic Scud type weapon, found in many countries' arsenals.
But even though all the tools needed for this nightmare scenario could be in the hands of terrorists already, and even though a high altitude EMP attack could be considered the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction," little has changed in our level of preparedness or even our policy debates. EMP is still rarely mentioned in discussions of the WMDs we need to worry about.
We need to start worrying.
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