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Was Massoui Seeking
Old Soviet Nuclear Ordinance?
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Doc. Code: 19990900
Headline: Congressman Weldon
Fears Soviets Hid A-Bombs Across U.S.
Date: 26 October 1999
Bibliography: Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe,
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe
Author: US Representative Curt Weldon (R-PA)
Holds Hearing on Russia and the KGB,
Washington, DC
Orig. Src.: Case: Material
What the Terrorist Was Probally Doing In Minnesota
Abstract-http://www.nti.org/db/nistraff/1999/19990900.htm
While the United States convicted Zacarias Massoui of being the 20th hijacker we might in light of
the following report ask if he was actually in the area of Minnesota or North Dakota searching for
reported stockpiles of nuclear ordinance left in this era by the Soviet Union:
The Military Research Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee heard testimony about the possibility that
the former Soviet Union prepositioned man-portable nuclear weapons on the territory of the United States at a
26 October 1999 hearing. The committee, chaired by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), listened to testimony by Professor
Christopher Andrew of Cambridge University (United Kingdom), co-author of The Sword and the Shield, a 1999 book
based on KGB archival materials, and Col. Oleg Gordievsky, a former KGB officer who defected to Great Britain.
Andrew testified about Cold War-era KGB documents that detailed the locations of hidden weapons and equipment
caches which had been placed in Western Europe and the United States to supply KGB sabotage teams that would
take action against Western countries in the event of war.
The documents used to write The Sword and the Shield, which were smuggled out of Russia by former KGB archivist Vasiliy Mitrokhin, allowed authorities in Switzerland
and Belgium to uncover bobby-trapped caches of sabotage equipment. Austrian authorities tried but failed to locate
a similar cache outside Vienna, where road construction had altered the terrain and removed the landmarks needed
to uncover it. The documents noted that similar caches had been placed in the United States, in New York, Texas,
California, Montana, and Minnesota, but did not include details of their locations or contents. Gordievsky confirmed
the prepositioning of such caches in Western Europe and the United States. Weldon expressed concern that these caches
could contain 'suitcase nukes,' man-portable atomic demolition munitions (ADMs).
Although the Mitrokhin documents do not include any evidence that these sabotage caches include 'suitcase nukes,' Weldon argued that the 1998 claims of
former GRU Col. Stanislav Lunev (see abstract 19980480 for details), who said that 'suitcase nukes' had been smuggled
into the United States by Soviet military intelligence agents, as well as the claims of former Russian Security Council
Secretary Aleksandr Lebed, who in 1997 claimed that a number of 'suitcase nukes' were unaccounted for (for details see
the overview 'Are Suitcase Nukes on the Loose?' in the NIS Nuclear Profiles Database), suggested that 'suitcase nukes'
had been included in these caches. Andrew, when asked if he believed 'suitcase nukes' had been included in the caches
prepositioned in the United States, said, 'I find it highly improbable that any actually exist on the soil of the
United States.' Gordievsky also argued that while KGB plans for the prepositioning of small ADMs in the United States
probably existed, 'whether [inaudible] it has come to actually bringing them here, is a big, big step.' Weldon
lambasted the Clinton administration for not aggressively questioning the Russian government about the existence
and location of hidden KGB weapons caches in the United States.
At the outset of the hearing, Weldon presented what he termed a 'notional model' of what a 'suitcase nuke' might look like, although he emphasized that 'no one
in the West actually knows what a Russian 'nuclear suitcase' bomb looks like.' [Russian officials have repeatedly
denied that such small ADMs were ever produced by the Soviet Union.] He said that using unclassified data on nuclear
artillery shells, the model demonstrated that the 'essentials' of a small nuclear weapon could fit into 'an attache
case. Displaying this model to the committee, Weldon described it as a 'plutonium-fueled gun-type atomic weapon having
a yield of one to 10 kilotons.' [Open sources on the history of nuclear weapons design note that owing to its high rate
of spontaneous fission, plutonium is not suitable for use in a gun-type nuclear weapon. A gun-type weapon using plutonium
would be unreliable, since stray neutrons might initiate a premature chain reaction, either greatly reducing the explosive
yield of the device, or causing a 'fizzle' with greatly reduced yield.][1]
[1] Paul P. Craig and John A Jungerman, Nuclear Arms Race: Technology and Society (New York: McGraw Hill), p. 212.
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President Kennedy Cites
Atomic Bomb In Soviet Consulate 1960's
The Time Magazine article in 2005 is believed to have cited President John F. Kennedy's notes that the Soviet Government
has brought an atomic bomb into Washington D.C in the diplomatic bag in the 1960's with the intent of detonating it
in the event of war and taking out the central US Government. This led the United States to develop systems such as
NORAD and Looking Glass..
"We Have Briefcase Nukes"
SYDNEY, Australia - Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror network claims to have bought ready-made
nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted
as telling an Australian television station. In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani
journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market.
It was not clear when the interview between Mir and al-Zawahri took place. U.S. intelligence agencies have long believed
that al-Qaida attempted to acquire a nuclear device on the black market, but say there is no evidence it was successful.
In the interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp. television, parts of which were released Sunday, Mir recalled telling
al-Zawahri it was difficult to believe that al-Qaida had nuclear weapons when the terror network didn't have the equipment
to maintain or use them.
"Dr Ayman al-Zawahri laughed and he said `Mr. Mir, if you have $30 million, go to the black market in central Asia,
contact any disgruntled Soviet scientist, and a lot of ... smart briefcase bombs are available,'" Mir said in the
interview. "They have contacted us, we sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other central Asian states and
they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase bombs," Mir quoted al-Zawahri as saying.
Al-Qaida has never hidden its interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. The U.S. federal indictment of bin Laden charges
that as far back as 1992 he "and others known and unknown, made efforts to obtain the components of nuclear weapons."
Bin Laden, in a November 2001 interview with a Pakistani journalist, boasted having hidden such components "as a deterrent." And in 1998, a Russian nuclear weapons design expert was investigated for allegedly working with bin Laden's Taliban allies.
It was revealed last month that Pakistan's top nuclear scientist had sold sensitive equipment and nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea (news - web sites), fueling fears the information could have also fallen into the hands of terrorists.
Earlier, Mir told Australian media that al-Zawahri also claimed to have visited Australia to recruit militants and collect funds.
"In those days, in early 1996, he was on a mission to organize his network all over the world," Mir was quoted as saying. "He told
me he stopped for a while in Darwin (in northern Australia), he was ... looking for help and collecting funds."
Australia's Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the government could not rule out the possibility that al-Zawahri
visited Australia in the 1990s under a different name.
"Under his own name or any known alias he hasn't traveled to Australia," Ruddock told reporters Saturday. "That doesn't
mean to say that he may not have come under some other false documentation, or some other alias that's not known to us."
Mir describe al-Zawahri as "the real brain behind Osama bin Laden." "He is the real strategist, Osama bin Laden is only a
front man," Mir was quoted as saying during the interview. "I think he is more dangerous than bin Laden."
Al-Zawahri — an Egyptian surgeon — is believed to be hiding in the rugged region around the Pakistan-Afghan border
where U.S. and Pakistani troops are conducting a major operation against Taliban and al-Qaida forces. He is said to
have played a leading role in orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
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