Pretty scary...chances of WMD attack as high as 70% within next 10 years

cute fuzzy bunny

cute fuzzy bunny

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http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/06/21/wmd.threat/index.html

I was pretty dang skeptical about this 'report' until I read a list of the people who participated in it:

Among the experts who participated in the survey were Nunn; retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf; former defense secretaries William Cohen and Frank Carlucci; former CIA Director James Woolsey; former National Security Adviser Richard Allen; former Iraq chief weapons inspector Richard Butler; former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott; and David Kay, who led the hunt for WMD in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.

Their best bet: a dirty bomb

May be time to revisit that "what are you saving for?" thread...
 
May be time to revisit that "what are you saving for?" thread...
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You mean if you get 'hit by the dirty bomb' and why aren't you spending your money today? - You do know TH, that you are gonna die someday, it has just not been determined how and when.

With that said, being brought up in the 60's the nuclear clock was 4 minutes to midnight. There has always been something worry about and in the long run we are all dead! :D
 
The 70% odds were for a fairly small attack on a single city world wide. We probably have a greater risk of being killed in a traffic accident.
 
Michael said:
The 70% odds were for a fairly small attack on a single city world wide. We probably have a greater risk of being killed in a traffic accident.
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Traffic accident:confused:

What *am* I saving for?
 
Because despite all the dangers extant, most people still live to a ripe old age.
 
Notth said:
Among the experts who participated in the survey were Nunn; retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf; former defense secretaries William Cohen and Frank Carlucci; former CIA Director James Woolsey; former National Security Adviser Richard Allen; former Iraq chief weapons inspector Richard Butler; former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott; and David Kay, who led the hunt for WMD in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.
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Yes, but they're either extrapolating the past into the future or predicting the future without sufficient data. They need to talk to ***** about their math.

If they can do this with WMD, then why the heck aren't they buying NASDAQ options?!?
 
I wonder how they got their 70% number? 

Then I also wonder if these guys are just doing a little CYA.  If nothing happens in the next 10 years, chances are nobody will remember this article and life goes on since we will have landed in the 30% area of their graph.  If something were to happen then we're going to hear a lot of "I told you so" coming from these guys.

I can hardly believe that in the 4 years since 9/11 with 2 wars being fought, something like this hasn't happened yet.  I guess we just have to keep counting our blessings.
 
It is impossible to stop them all. Statistics are against us. I don't believe in the time table or % chance (like a weather forecast) but attacks will happen no matter what we do.
 
I think its less a science and more knowledge about how easy it is to get things into the country...both people and materials to make something go boom.

As far as a small attack on a single city, and that not being so bad...last time it was two lousy airplanes and two buildings that were affected and it certainly created a bit of a stir. I would imagine that 2-4 blocks of manhattan, DC or LA rendered unusuable for a few thousand years via a dirty bomb would have a fairly significant effect.
 
I posted (to some discord, I'm afraid) on this subject a year or so ago, and much as one hates to admit it, I still believe it needs to be tucked in there somehow as part of any long-term investor or retiree's contingency planning

What to do about it is, of course, another matter.
 
Notth said:
Have some cash ready to buy on the drop after it happens.
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Hey TH,

If they 'Drop' it on your head, you won't need to worry about cash! :D
 
Notth said:
As far as a small attack on a single city, and that not being so bad...last time it was two lousy airplanes and two buildings that were affected and it certainly created a bit of a stir.  I would imagine that 2-4 blocks of manhattan, DC or LA rendered unusuable for a few thousand years via a dirty bomb would have a fairly significant effect.
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Recall Al Qaeda's promise that a major attack was imminent in the US, and was about ‘90% ready’? Does Al-Qaeda Bluff? :)

Scientists have used London for a dirty bomb case study. They based their tests on a Van sized load let off in Trafalgar square. Turns out its real bad news for those close by, and would be a real problem to clean up. However the air would dissipate radiation quickly, and others exposed downstream would only be mildly affected. So it might take out one or two thousand people but that's it. Their conjecture is - that its the after-panic that’s far more scary, the rush to get out of the city would lead to many more thousands being killed.
 
http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,53110,00.html

Regarding a bomb made with 10lbs tnt and a pea sized bit of cesium-137:

"The initial passing of the radioactive cloud would be relatively harmless, and no one would have to evacuate immediately."

"However," the scientists continued, "residents of an area of about five city blocks ... would have a one-in-a-thousand chance of getting cancer. A swath about one mile long covering an area of forty city blocks would exceed EPA contamination limits, with remaining residents having a one-in-ten thousand chance of getting cancer. If decontamination were not possible, these areas would have to be abandoned for decades."

In February, a missing medical gauge containing exactly this amount of cesium-137 was discovered in a North Carolina scrap yard. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it receives nearly 300 reports of lost or stolen radioactive materials every year.


Van detonation? How about a cessna...regarding the drunk threesome who stole an airplane in danbury CT and flew it around NYC for a couple of hours with no one the wiser?

As far as the cesium-137, hundreds of medical instruments are made with this, and scrapped or 'lost' on a regular basis.

Al Qaeda Bluffs? Why not? They're causing us to spend trillions of dollars every year trying to prevent terrorism. Why bother with the actual terrorist acts when you're already exacting a huge financial penalty from your lazyboy?
 
Good article. Although the experts seemed to contradict each other at times.

Are you a betting man Notth? Which City is most likely to be hit first in a WMD attack in your opinion?
 
Notth said:
In February, a missing medical gauge containing exactly this amount of cesium-137 was discovered in a North Carolina scrap yard. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it receives nearly 300 reports of lost or stolen radioactive materials every year.
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You don't even want to know what happens to some of the Navy's nuclear waste.

However the worst injuries/deaths have come from the medical community's X-ray sources and other stray radioactive doodads. (I'm sure Raddr has a few stories.)

The good news is that decontamination is possible, given enough time & heavy demolition/excavation equipment. Dilution is the solution. Now, whose landfill are we gonna put all this stuff into?
 
Nords said:
However the worst injuries/deaths have come from the medical community's X-ray sources and other stray radioactive doodads.  (I'm sure Raddr has a few stories.) 
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D'oh. Thanks, Nords. I finally figured out what "raddr" means. Not knowing anything about the guy, I assumed it was some obscure computer term (e.g., the PDP-8 has an MADDR register). RADiology DoctoR, eh?

For anybody who doesn't know what I'm babbling about, good stuff here:

http://raddr-pages.com/research/index.htm
 
wabmester said:
D'oh.   Thanks, Nords.   I finally figured out what "raddr" means.   Not knowing anything about the guy, I assumed it was some obscure computer term (e.g., the PDP-8 has an MADDR register).   RADiology DoctoR, eh?
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Yeah, well, same epiphany happened here.

When you re-address a naval message to another command the teletype code is "RADDR". I spent a long time wondering why he'd choose that for a posting name...
 
Heh, heh, heh

I'm on the cusp of putting forward a new thesis - certain branches of the medical profession(possibly like engr.'s and IT types) fall prey to 'number love' - no not radar love like the song.

Bernstein and raddr pages - heh, heh, heh, heh.

I need to work on that one.

BTY - I read both websites - some good ideas pop up from time to time.
 
Nords.....I thought RADDR once said he was a Radiologist Doctor. Hense RAD DR.

I might be wrong though...
 
I would put the odds of a WMD attack at closer to 100% in the next 10
years. It's not on my worry list though. Most of us have more to fear
from our own White House, Congress and the Supreme Court.
They are doing more damage to this country every day than all the
WMD plotters on the planet.

That's my Independence Day message.

JG
 
Maybe we'll luck out and the wmd will hit washington.

What was that old Tom Clancy book (pre 9/11) where a terrorist flew an airplane into congress and killed everyone north of the janitor, leaving harrison ford to be president? That'd be good. We already had one president ford and nothing bad happened.
 
That would be "Debt of Honor" and he wrote it in 1994. Tom got it on paper before it really happened.
 
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