Heavy Weapons, Chemical WMDs and Nuclear Materials

No, this isn’t a blog about the NRA! It’s a wake-up call on the proliferation of blowback weapon systems, tools of war seized by jihadists determined to create a Sunni Islamist state dedicated to opposing (destroying?) Shiites, Israel and, of course, The Great Satan itself, the United States and its Western cronies. As ISIS attacks, as Gaza Hamas militants and Israel exchange artillery and missile strikes, as death and destruction mount and further escalations accelerate – perhaps even a ground invasion of Gaza moves closer to reality – and as Taliban warriors dig in against Pakistani forces finally determined to strike back… it’s time to realize how well-armed these crazies really are!

We’ve seen how even our purported ally – Pakistan – fostered high level nuclear weapons development in North Korea and Iran, a motivation for other regional powers to find their own nuclear path. The movement of dangerous technology and hard weapons is just too big to be ignored. As we watch ISIS moving across Syria and Iraq, we need to be aware of their new inventory of recently-acquired military hardware. The fall of Mosul was a windfall for ISIS.

While most of the weapons seized were small arms, some artillery (e.g., Howitzers), trucks and a pile of Humvees, there were some older Russian T-55 tanks in the mix. Rumors abound that a few helicopters may have been part of the booty, not major attack helicopters but rotary-winged aircraft that can be outfitted with enough weapons to make them lethal. Oh, and there was the seizure of $425 million in currency from Mosul’s biggest bank that now makes ISIS one of the richest terrorist groups on earth! But then there are a few additional “weapon systems” (including dangerous material that can be used as a weapon) that appear to me to be even more frightening.

For example, taken from the Iraqi town of Muthanna: “The Islamic State extremist group (Isis) has taken control of a vast former chemical weapons facility north-west of Baghdad, where 2,500 degraded chemical rockets filled decades ago with deadly nerve agent sarin or their remnants were stored along with other chemical warfare agents, Iraq has said in a letter circulated at the United Nations… The US played down the threat from the takeover, saying there were no intact chemical weapons and it would be very difficult to use the material for military purposes.” TheGuardian.com, July 9^th. The disclaimer aside, this doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable about the situation, but if that is bad news, what ISIS also seized from Mosul is even more troubling.

According to Reuters (July 9^th): “Insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country's north, Iraq told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to ‘stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad.’… Nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the July 8 letter obtained by Reuters on [July 9^th].

“‘Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state,’ Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials ‘can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction… These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts.”… He warned that they could also be smuggled out of Iraq.

“A U.S. government source familiar with the matter said the materials were not believed to be enriched uranium and therefore would be difficult to use to manufacture into a weapon. Another U.S. official familiar with security matters said he was unaware of this development raising any alarm among U.S. authorities.” The United Nations also responded that the nuclear materials taken were “low grade” and cannot be used to make a fissionable warhead or bomb. True, perhaps, but a dirty bomb, one that uses an explosion to spread nuclear waste that can contaminate one or more critical sites, possibly for a very long time.

So what are the real risks of dirty bombs? “A dirty bomb is a type of radiological dispersal device (RDD), and RDDs are, as the name implies, devices that disperse a radiological isotope. Depending on the motives of those planning the attack, an RDD could be a low-key weapon that surreptitiously releases aerosolized radioactive material, dumps out a finely powdered radioactive material or dissolves a radioactive material in water. Such surreptitious dispersal methods would be intended to slowly expose as many people as possible to the radiation and to prolong their exposure…

“[Or the more anticipated use, an explosive device] A dirty bomb is quite simply an RDD that uses explosives as the means to disperse a radioactive isotope, and the only blast effect will be from the explosives used to disperse the radioisotope. In a dirty bomb attack, radioactive material not only is dispersed, but the dispersal is accomplished in an obvious manner, and the explosion immediately alerts the victims and authorities that an attack has taken place. The attackers hope that notice of their attack will cause mass panic -- in other words, the RDD is a weapon of fear and terror…

“Significantly, while the radiological effects of a dirty bomb may not be instantly lethal, the radiological impact of an RDD will in all likelihood affect an area larger than the killing radius of the IED itself, and will persist for far longer. The explosion from a conventional IED is over in an instant, but radiation released by a RDD can persist for decades unless the area is decontaminated. While the radiation level may not be strong enough to affect people exposed briefly in the initial explosion, the radiation will persist in the contaminated area, and the cumulative effects of such radiation could prove very hazardous. (Here again, the area contaminated and the ease of decontamination will depend on the type and quantity of the radioactive material used. Materials in a fine powdered form are easier to disperse and harder to clean up than solid blocks of material.) In either case, it will be necessary to evacuate people from the contaminated area, and people will need to stay out of the area until it can be decontaminated, a process that could prove lengthy and expensive.” Stratfor Global Intelligence, April 22, 2010.

In the end, we need to realize that when we leave masses of weapons behind in unstable regional conflicts, we can pretty much expect that such killing instruments could easily be turned against us someday. We basically gave Iran its air force when the Shah was deposed in 1979, armed the Taliban and similar jihadists as Mujahedeen pushed the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s, and clearly have provided ISIS with some juicy weapons. We are creating recruitment posters for more terrorists, our weapons and know-how are falling into their hands, and these realities have been with us for long enough so that we should finally know better.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we should all be concerned as to how much American technology, how many US-supplied weapons and how many American-inspired terrorists are now squarely deployed against us.