The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, writing from the magazine's Aspen Ideas Festival, chaired a panel yesterday in which experts put the chances of a nuclear attack on US soil, probably on Washington or New York, in the next 10 years as fifty-fifty. Excerpt:
And the experts on the panel, John Holdren and Joe Cirincione among them, are not exactly attached to the Bush Administration worldview. After such an attack, we'll look back -- those of us still around, obviously -- on our efforts to combat al Qaeda and judge them inadequate to the task, just as we look back now on the Clinton Administration's pre-9/11 preparations (and the Bush Administration's, as well) as thoroughly inadequate.
Last week as I was in both Washington and New York, I reflected on how different both places feel from the days and weeks immediately after 9/11. The conviction that it was bound to happen again, and probably in New York, and quite possibly involving a nuclear device, was one of the minor reasons we decided to move from NYC. I can remember talking to a journalist colleague in Washington in the fall of 2001, and her telling me that everybody she knew was thinking about the fallout patterns from a dirty bomb, if one were to go off on Capitol Hill. I also remember having coffee with a friend in midtown Manhattan one afternoon that awful fall, and both of us discussing with no irony at all what our plans for escaping with our families would be if a small nuclear device were to go off in Times Square -- if we survived it, that is.
How very far away all of that seems now. Do you ever think about it? I mean, really think about it? If Joe Cirincione et alia really do believe that chances are as high as 50 percent that terrorists will set off a suitcase nuke in DC or NYC, then why do they still live there?
If you thought the odds were that high, would you leave NYC or DC? Or would you take your chances? Why or why not?
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DavidTC, you've made a good case and convinced me.
DavidTC - I suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree WRT the feasibility of terrorist nukes.
FWIW, as I mentioned before to MH, I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and that I'm underestimating the difficulty associated with building such weapons. It would help me sleep easier at night.
DavidTC - I suspect we'll just have to agree to disagree WRT the feasibility of terrorist nukes.
Fair enough. I just think the difference between theory and practice in building a nuke is larger in practice than it is in theory. ;)
FWIW, as I mentioned before to MH, I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and that I'm underestimating the difficulty associated with building such weapons. It would help me sleep easier at night.
I, paradoxically, sleep much easier at night because terrorist attacks are so easy. Not nukes, but other attacks. Some of them would cause widespread panic and are incredibly cheap and almost unstoppable, like the organized teams of 'DC-snipers'. Each two person team literally needs a car that can be modified in an hour, and a rifle, and let loose to roam the countryside.
The fact that no one's bother to do them demonstrates one of two things: Either we've actually managed to very seriously cripple terrorist networks, or they do not wish to attack us. I believe the second is true.
rules of conduct dont apply.............if nyc or dc were attacked........i would worry more bout the folks 500 miles out moving inward fram radiation fallout........folks in the cities would die quick...........the fallout would be painfull.
Fear-monger much?
Red alert!
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