DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2001�
OCTOBER BULLETIN SAID AL-QAEDA TERRORISTS THOUGHT TO HAVE 10 KILOTON
NUCLEAR WEAPON TO BE SMUGGLED INTO NEW YORK CITY
Sun Mar 03 2002 10:40:24 ET
TIEM MAG
New York -- In October, an intelligence alert went out to a small number
of government agencies, including the Energy Department's top-secret
Nuclear Emergency Search Team, based in Nevada. The report said that
terrorists were thought to have obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from
the Russian arsenal, and planned to smuggle it into New York City, a
special TIME investigation reveals. TIME's cover story issue, "Can We Stop
the Next 9/11?," is on newsstands Monday, March 4th.
The source of the report was a mercurial agent code-named DRAGONFIRE, who
intelligence officials believed was of "undetermined" reliability, TIME
reports. But DRAGONFIRE'S claim tracked with a report from a Russian
general who believed his forces were missing a 10-kiloton device. Since
the mid-'90s, proliferation experts have suspected that several portable
nuclear devices might be missing from the Russian stockpile. That made the
DRAGONFIRE report alarming. So did this: detonated in lower Manhattan, a
10-kiloton bomb would kill some 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000
more, flattening everything in a half-mile diameter.
Counterterrorist investigators went on their highest state of alert, TIME
reports. "It was brutal," a U.S. official told TIME. It was also highly
classified and closely guarded. Under the aegis of the White House�s
Counterterrorism Security Group, part of the National Security Council,
the suspected nuke was kept secret so as not to panic the people of New
York. Senior FBI officials were not in the loop. Former mayor Rudolph
Giuliani says he was never told about the threat. In the end, the
investigators found nothing, and concluded that DRAGONFIRE'S information
was false. But few of them slept better.
Counterterrorism experts and government officials interviewed by TIME say
that for all the relative calm since Sept. 11, America�s luck will
probably run out again, sooner or later. "It�s going to be worse, and a
lot of people are going to die," warns one U.S. counterterrorism official.
"I don't think there's a damn thing we're going to be able to do about it."
Other highlights of TIME's investigation:
� The Coast Guard is arming itself against a possible terrorist attempt
to destroy a major U.S. coastal city by detonating a tanker loaded with
liquified natural gas.
� The Administration has recalled old CIA hands with experience in
Central Asia. Says an Administration official: "You ended up going back to
retirees because the bench was so light on Afghanistan. We�re still
trying to get up to speed."
� This week, Tom Ridge�s office plans to announce a new color-coded
alert system to warn local law enforcement and the public about threats
within U.S. borders, sources tell TIME.
� While there is a genuine debate inside the government about whether
Osama bin Laden is still alive, there is far less argument about what will
happen after Washington is able to confirm that he is dead. A U.S.
official told TIME last week that it is widely presumed that al-Qaeda
sleeper cells will take retaliatory action once the terrorist leader is
killed or proven dead.
� "We're as vulnerable today as we were on 9/10 or 9/12," says
presidential counselor Karen Hughes. "We just know more."
Developing...
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