On Dec 14, 2004, at 1:31 PM, Damon Agretto wrote:
I was more concerned, personally, with chem/bio and radiological weapons. Dirty bombs would be pretty vicious. Nukes not so much because apart from Scuds -- which I've always thought of as late-model V-1s -- I don't think Iraq had much of a delivery platform.
Nope. V-1s (aka "Doodlebugs" or "Buzzbombs") are the granddaddy's of modern cruise missiles. You're thinking of the V-2.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/theater/r-11.htm
No, I was actually thinking of the V-1. Mostly because there's just something about Scuds that makes me think of spit-and-bailing-wire tech, and the V-2 was a lot more refined than that, I thought. ;)
I know the comparison's way, way off. I just think it's amusing.
SCUDS are tactical/operational battlefield missiles designed to deliver tactical nuclear warheads. Although SCUDs and the Iraqi in-house mods have NO capabilities to deliver to the US, they certainly can threaten all of their neighbours, and there are other ways to deliver nuclear weapons, of course (such as smuggling on a cargo ship and detonating it in a US harbor).
Yeah, that's right, but you need "turr'rists" for that. As despotic as Saddam was, I'm not so sure he could have convinced one of his flunkies to personally carry a small unshielded nuke and/or be nearby when it detonated. That's much more like a Jihadist trick -- something some poor deluded ape will do if he believes he'll get an eternal reward for it later on.
But even the worst case of a nuke in a harbor or a city, as bad as that is, is at best a tenuous justification (IMO) for the disaster we're currently entangled in. And what's worse, we've got a real danger of overcommitting our resources. What do we do now if SA, Iran or N. Korea really do become active threats? Or suppose there's a non-US-approved regime change in Pakistan?
We've too many irons in the fire right now, I fear. And it wasn't a fire that needed to be stoked.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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