The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Issue: 12 - Monday, July 12, 2004

"Blood, Fire and Pillars of Smoke"
by Jack Kinsella

There is a new book out, written by Paul L. Williams, that claims Osama
bin-Laden not only already has nuclear weapons, but has already planted
them in a number of American cities.  According to Williams, bin-Laden
intends to launch a mega-attack, most likely nuclear, in 'seven to nine'
American cities, sometime before the elections in November.

Williams has appeared several times on Fox News and CNN -- something that
would be unlikely if Williams was a nutbar -- and it fits with the
warnings issued recently by the Department of Homeland Security.

Indeed, Homeland Security is working on a contingency plan to POSTPONE the
presidential election if necessary.  On September 11, New York State
postponed a Democratic primary scheduled on that day, due to the attacks,
but the federal government has no mechanism in place to do the same thing.

In any case, it isn't because the author possesses any secret intelligence
not available to the public. The information contained in the book is
startling, but it's not new.

If you've been a subscriber to the Omega Letter for any length of time at
all, you already know what Williams knows.  All Williams has done in his
book is to connect the dots in book form. But the resulting picture was
already out there, in jig-saw puzzle form.

Fears of loose Soviet nukes date back to 1991. Alexander Lebed's claim
that 84 Russian suitcase nukes was made during sworn testimony before the
US Congress in 1997.

Osama Bin Laden boasted possession of several of these devices as early as
November 2001, telling a journalist, "If you have contacts in Russia and
with other militant groups. [suitcase nukes] are available for $10 million
and $20 million."

And we've known since last year that the international nuclear black
market birthed and nursed by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan is bigger and
more sophisticated than most experts had dared imagine.

Across the board, the situation is much worse than most people assume it
is.

Three years before 9/11, the head of the Congressional Task Force on
Nonconventional Terrorism told an audience in Washington, "There is no
longer much doubt that bin Laden has succeeded in his quest for nuclear
suitcase bombs."

Uncovering the A.Q. Khan network also uncovered an alliance between al
Qaeda and Pakistani nuclear scientists, nine of whom have been underground
since 1998, some with known extremist sympathies. Since even the simplest
devices require relatively sophisticated maintenance, the aid of
sympathetic Pakistani or disgruntled Russian scientists is crucial.

And there is no shortage of under-employed Russian nuclear scientists
looking for part-time work.
 
 

Assessment:

As previously noted, none of this is based on secret intelligence. The
September 11 Commission cited the lack of border security as one of our
biggest vulnerabilities.  A terrorist could ship a nuclear bomb in a bag
of golf clubs via FedEx. He could walk it over one of the many unguarded
border crossings between Canada and the United States.

A terrorist could drive a pleasure boat across the Niagara River, or the
Detroit River, and there are miles and miles of unguarded beaches on the
US side where he could smuggle in a nuclear weapon undetected.  In the
summer, both rivers are filled with pleasure boats from both sides of the
border.

A boat from Canada could easily pass a weapon to a US-based pleasure
craft.  US pleasure craft are not inspected at any border crossing point
when they return home from a day on the water.

Then there are the millions of cargo containers that enter US ports, only
three percent of which are searched at point of entry.

Because background radiation makes weapons-grade nuclear material
impossible to detect unless at extremely close range, even the most
sophisticated sensors cannot home in on a bomb without precise
intelligence on its location.

Unless each cargo container is opened and searched by hand, any talk about
port security is largely aimed at reassuring the public.

Even if terrorists couldn't buy a working nuke, they could build one.
Plans for nuclear weapons were found in Afghanistan after the Taliban were
defeated. The only thing we don't know for sure is if they have if they
have acquired fissile material. If so, a functioning bomb is not hard to
make.

In a simple gun-model bomb, one baseball-sized "bullet" of weapons-grade
uranium is shot at high speed down a barrel against a second slab of
enriched uranium.

The result is a chain reaction that could reduce much of Manhattan to
radioactive rubble and kill about a million people before you can say
'Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction'.

By 1981, Saddam had 27.5 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium. The Israelis
bombed the Osirek reactor into rubble, but what happened to Saddam's
plutonium?  It was assumed to be destroyed by the attack, but plutonium is
hard to destroy and easy to find amid the rubble with a Geiger counter.
Where is it now?

And Russia holds an estimated two million pounds of weapons-grade
uranium-enough for 80,000 bombs.  Throughout the 1990's there have been
numerous cases in which smugglers have been arrested for possessing
plutonium and enriched uranium stolen during the confusion surrounding the
collapse of the Soviet Union.  How many smugglers DIDN'T get caught?

A recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
pointed out that, unlike countries, which may fear retaliation; terrorist
groups are undeterred about using nuclear weapons.

"If the U.S. and others just keep doing what they are doing today, a
nuclear 9/11 is more likely than not in the decade ahead," said Graham
Allison, director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs.

Agence France-Presse reported in late April that U.S. analysts believed
North Korea had at least eight nuclear weapons, rather than two as
previously suspected. And Iran's ambitions to produce nuclear weapons
appeared more real after Iran announced it would resume enrichment
activities, defying the IAEA.

And Egypt, Saudi Arabia or other nations might follow Iran's lead and
initiate or renew nuclear programs, the report said.

The Book of the Revelation records the emergence of a huge, fanatical
army, 'the kings of the east' that has traditionally been identified as
China.  After all, China is the only country on earth that could field an
army that large, and it just so happens that there are about two hundred
million Chinese men of military age alive today.

But as we get closer to the end of the age, a number of previously assumed
interpretations are being challenged.  In John's day, there were only
about five hundred million people on earth, so it seems logical that, for
the first time in history, there is a nation big enough to fit John's
prophecy.

For that reason, there is always a danger in being dogmatic about trying
to make prophecy fit into current events.  Current events change, but the
prophecies have remained unchanged for twenty centuries.

And Daniel noted twenty-FIVE centuries ago that the prophecies for the
last days were 'sealed up, until the time of the end' when people will
move rapidly from place to place, and 'knowledge is increased'. (Daniel
12:4)

Well, we are living in the 'time of the end' that Daniel describes so
precisely.  And we've noted in the past that there are some 1.9 billion
Muslims, give or take, and we've listened to the mantra, 'ninety percent
of Muslims are peace-loving moderates' until our eyes glazed over to the
degree we overlook what the other ten percent really means.

Ten percent of roughly 2 billion Muslims are roughly two hundred million
fanatical Muslims who would be only too happy to chop off your head, given
the chance.  Or nuke your city.

"And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand
thousand: and I heard the number of them."

The Apostle John describes what he calls the 'three woes,' saying, -- and
this is important -- "One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes
more hereafter." (Revelation  9:12)   John's two hundred million man army
is one of these 'woes'.  Of the three woes, John writes,

"By these three was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the
smoke, and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths."
(Revelation 9:16, 18)

As noted, the closer we get to the end of the age, the clearer the picture
seems to get.

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