Should we be concerned?  Absolutely, but consider the source and his agenda which is only self serving.

washington post reported possibilty of one being aquired by big al's network.
radiation detection devices being issued around points of intterest in the us.
my concern is they will probably hand it off to some dumass like richard reed and he will make it go ka-blewwy here in sc,then we'll have a bunch of irradiated palmetto bug's that will mutate into democraps and get elected into the white house
rescue92

Think of it this way:

Geiger/Muller counters are 1950's era Technology.  I don't doubt that by this time, we have detectors that can directionally pinpoint a point source of radiation from a great distance.  
If gov.org was to detect one of these devices coming into the country, or into a major urban area (assuming it gets across the border undetected), what would happen to the guy with the device?  

My guess would be that he would "disappear" permanantly.  The crap you hear about in the Media is the CIA/NSA/FBI failures.  Something like this would never be reported.  If some local LEO came across the smuggler/terrorist, he would probably be "lectured" by gov.org in the golden rule--silence is the only way to stay alive (maybe with pictures of his family, friends, etc. for display purposes).  

My local Christian radio station reported today that there was intelligence suggesting that Al Queda has indeed acquired nuclear material.  They also stated a certain Army unit was being hastily trained up to meet the new threat stateside.

Guess I'll start bringing the sunblock to work now.......

This is not the first time,, nor the only place, that I have heard this.  A 10 kiloton device is a relatively small nuke, and could be shielded with common materials.

Just make sure it's level 5000. Might want to start wearing some lead underwear, too.

Just stock up with Criwn Royale and lawnchairs, watch the show....fullclip

I didn't realize you local Christian radio station was privy to National Security Council meetings. [rolleyes]

.gov knows the terr's have em. they DON'T know whare they are. and that scares em.

it should concern us too, the more scared they gat the more rights they will eliminate to counter the threat.

There is a classified add today in the paper in Tulsa for Homeland Defense Team sign up and a number to call. Tin foil hats off!

The nightmare scenario, is, what if they had about five of them, and nuked off, Washington, New york, Chicago, Dallas, And L.A., In the same day.

Then I suspect that the Democrats would be out a lot of their registered voters and welfare rolls would be considerably shorter.

Not that death would deter them from voting again in the future.

hmmm is right.

Well.......

 Matt Drudge may be self serving. But he has also been right!!!  Hell I am self serving, and the article itself is extremely balanced. I would say it is an accurate description of what the government knows.  What does it mean??? I don't know what it will mean.  Without the nuclear weapon going to critical mass I doubt they would be able to detect it. In other words although the concentration of alpha emitters within the core would be higher then anything else around I don't know even then given that alpha being such a weak emitter that it would not be obscured. Also it would definately produce some heat but not much as compared to say any building it is stored in. I don't know if they could detect it or not.  The half-life of uranium is 4.51 x 10^9 years. That means that its rate of non critical or natural decay is very very low.   It takes at least 8lb of U238 highly refined material to make a critical mass. So In a 8 lbs of Uranium I don't know what the alpha count would be, but it wouldn't be that much.  

Shielding, and background radiation.

Just my .02, YMMV.

Whoa, what provoked that?  [:K]
I was just passing on a radio report!  Turns out, it came out in the Washington Post.....who has some pretty hefty sources.  I misunderstood the role of a certain Army unit though.

Link:
[url]http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=03032002-122721-3640r[/url]

Story:Report: Al Qaida has 'dirty bomb'
Published 3/3/2002 1:51 AM


WASHINGTON, March 3 (UPI) -- The consensus view within the U.S. government is that the al Qaida terrorist group has acquired lower-level radioactive substances that ordinary explosives could spread as contaminants, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

Although such a so-called dirty bomb could cause a more modest number of deaths than an actual nuclear weapon, it could have a considerable impact as a "weapon of psychological terror," an unidentified senior government specialist told the newspaper.

President Bush, after a briefing by the CIA, ordered his national security team to give nuclear terrorism priority over every other threat to the United States, the newspaper reported.

As a consequence, the report said, the Bush administration has installed hundreds of sophisticated radioactivity detectors at U.S. border inspection points and around the nation's capital. National laboratories have been ordered to develop even more sensitive detectors, according to the report.

The elite commando unit, the Delta Force, has been placed on standby alert to seize any nuclear materials that are detected, the Post said.

The heightened fears of the use of nuclear materials along with reported threats of a terrorist attack bigger than Sept. 11 explain the decision to maintain a cadre of senior federal managers on standby outside of Washington, the Post said of its initial disclosure of the precautions on Friday.

The CIA told Bush at one point of not only the published arrests by Pakistan of two former nuclear scientists who visited reputed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, but of a third Pakistani scientist who, the newspaper said, tried to sell a nuclear bomb to Libya.

The likeliest source for terrorists of nuclear materials, the paper said, was the crumbling nuclear industry infrastructure in the former Soviet Union, despite the insistence of Russian officials that all such materials are accounted for.

Theft of nuclear byproducts have been reported frequently, the Post said, noting that in 1995 Chechen rebels placed a functional "dirty bomb" in a Moscow park but did not detonate it. Al Qaida has its own contacts with Chechen rebels, the paper said.




Copyright © 2002 United Press International


[;D]

An interesting article from the Washington Post that makes it difficult to believe that Al Qaeda can't get a nuke (assuming they don't already have one)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29406-2002Mar2.html

A few highlights from the article:
*Pakistani scientists have attempted to sell their countries nuclear secrets to Arab countries including Libya.

*Numerous confirmed reports of fissionable material having been stolen from former Soviet stockpiles and the fact that many more are unaccounted for.

*Chechen rebels have gotten a hold of nuclear waste material and attempted to detonate a working dirty bomb. Chechen rebels have very close ties to Al Qaeda.

I personally find it very difficult to believe that the vast monetary and worldwide resources of the Al Qaeda network have not resulted in their obtaining nuclear material. I believe the only thing standing in their way is in how they plan to smuggle it into this nation. I would not be surprised if they just floated it up the Hudson or Potomac in a ship and detonated it. I hope to God I'm wrong but the possibility is ever present. Anybody who believes that this war will not incur many casualties amongst our Armed Forces and the civilian population CONUS is in for a rude awakening. This is going to be a long, protracted war on many fronts including the homefront.Just my .02 cents

Well, the LA Lakers couldn't make it three in a row, Dallas would be a little hotter, Chicago would be a windier, New York would look like north Jersey and for Washingtion, lets just say we could rebuild our government from the ground up.

The nuke "Little Boy", which was dropped on Hiroshima, was a 20 kiloton nuke. it is estimated 200,000 people died from it. i think a 10 kiloton (1/2 the size) would still do considerable damage.

I wonder what sort of disaster recovery plans the SEC and the major stock exchanges have.  Those stock tickers can only stop ticking for so long before America starts to panic.

As I understand it, yield is less important than placement, target construction, and detonation altitude.

With a radiological employment, rather than the above, considerations would be radiological material (and associated decay rate) and climatological data (winds, etc.).

Just my .02, YMMV.

So how much fallout would I get in Milwaukee from a nuke in Chicago? I'd probably hit the road and try to make it to family in ND.