as the united states reels from the attacks those who know about that meeting at that kandahar campfire reel over what may be about to come next. overnight, the most important question for the united states government becomes how far along is al qaeda in its pursuit of a nuclear bomb, and how can the united states stop them from assembling one. that s a piece of cake if you have enough material. if you look at the hiroshima bomb 50 milligrams. the oklahoma city bombing was two tons. if you go back and look at the devastation of a two-ton bomb, think of 13,000 tons versus two tons. it s inconceivable, even if you look at the hiroshima pictures. it s inconceive whabl a bomb that size can do and if you have the material, it s not hard to do? no. he had been planning on a new posting in beijing. but after 9/11, just after 9/11 he is drafted personally by cia director george tenet to lead a
but the idea they would actually be able to cause a nuclear explanation, set off nuclear weapons, set off mushroom clouds, that s impossible? the common wisdom is wrong. al-qaeda s goal, which we ve known for 15 years, at least, their goal is not to produce the dirty bomb but to produce the actual hiroshima bomb. in the 1990s, they gradually scale up their effort to physically secure nuclear material for other countries. the agency in the energy department, the national security administration, watches a four-year effort to secure all the known loose material all over the world. countries like chile, where they complete their task of recovering 40 pounds of highly
the united states pch early in his first term, president obama ramps these efforts up adding billions to their budge snetz today i m announcing a new international effort to secure all nullenerablevulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. the fact that there isn t been an act of terrorism since 9/11 great ever since. the persistence of that black market, however, mean there are still paying customers out there, trying to take terrorism nuclear. how would the last decade been different if 9/11 had been a nuclear blast or even a dirty bomb attack? how would the next decade unspool if that ever does happen? if al qaeda or another group like it did succeed in detonating a nuclear device, that would not be the end of the world. something would happen next. what do you think would happen next in the united states and around the world? that kind of an attack on united states would be intended to draw the united states back in even more, in their terms,
material from the same facility there is a pipeline out of siberia supplying a black market in what it needs to build a bomb. in pretoria, south africa, during a sting operation on a surveillance camera, five men are arrested for trying to sell highly radioactivive cesium 130, perfect for a dirty bomb attack. they also say they have a industrial nuclear device to sell. there continues to be evidence of kinetic black market activity to get smuggle, and to sell nuclear material. where are the smugglers getting the material? who are they getting it for? this is a black market in global cataclysm. cataclysm. is there a real black market for terrorists who want it buy in material to make a nuclear bomb? there s been material roughly 20 cases in the last 20 years. so you have roughly one a year of what we call weapons useable material. so this is weapons that if terrorists got their hands on it could be put into a bomb that would produce a nuclear
so this is material that if terrorists got their hands on it could put it in a bomb that could produce yield. this is usable material that could create an efficient device if terrorists got their hands on it. there are also more that the u.s. government and others are aware of than those, and i can t talk about it because it s classified. but in any case i m aware of, the material was not missing from the city of origin until it was found on the black market. so the security problem is the root of the black market program. i feel that if terrorist groups were able to get radioactive material, what they would likely be able to do is put radioactive material into a conventional bomb, a dirty bomb,