The first step toward preventing a nuclear 9/11 is believing it could happen
The Belfer Center, Harvard University has published a lengthy report 'Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality? By Rolf Mowatt-Larssen and a Foreword by Graham Allison.
Web link
:http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/...l?breadcrumb=/
Graham Allison has written a short article in Foreign Policy:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...worst?page=0,0 and this gives a taste:
Quote:
Thinking about risks we face today, we should reflect on the major conclusion of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission established to investigate that catastrophe. The U.S. national security establishment's principal failure prior to Sept. 11, 2001, was, the commission found, a "failure of imagination." Summarized in a single sentence, the question now is: Are we at risk of an equivalent failure to imagine a nuclear 9/11? After the recent attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, this question is more urgent than ever.
The thought that terrorists could successfully explode a nuclear bomb in an American city killing hundreds of thousands of people seems incomprehensible. This essential incredulity is rooted in three deeply ingrained presumptions. First, no one could seriously intend to kill hundreds of thousands of people in a single attack. Second, only states are capable of mass destruction; nonstate actors would be unable to build or use nuclear weapons. Third, terrorists would not be able to deliver a nuclear bomb to an American city. In a nutshell, these presumptions lead to the conclusion: inconceivable.
(Last paragraph)Faced with the possibility of an American Hiroshima, many Americans are paralyzed by a combination of denial and fatalism. Either it hasn't happened, so it's not going to happen; or, if it is going to happen, there's nothing we can do to stop it. Both propositions are wrong. The countdown to a nuclear 9/11 can be stopped, but only by realistic recognition of the threat, a clear agenda for action, and relentless determination to pursue it
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is an ex-intelligence insider and combines his experience in an open source analysis.
Clearly written and takes time to absorb.
