From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sat Jun 17 2000 - 20:23:06 MDT
In a message dated 6/14/00 12:36:02 AM Central Daylight Time,
fortean1@frontiernet.net writes:
> > Also what is to keep Iraq from placing a nuclear warhead
> > on a ship and sailing it into New York City harbor?
>
> Here's a scarier scenario, from a old report to the USCG forecasting turn
of
> the century law enforcement requirements.
>
> Most/many currents are constant and predictable, put someting in it, let it
> go, and you know woth fair accuracy where and when it'll be down the road.
>
> There are bouys called so-fars -- they only rise or sink sofar, and the
> depth can be set. These are old technology. Hook a device of mass
> destruction (nuclear or biologocal or chemical) to a sofar, put it in a
> current and let it go.
>
> When it goes off, whom do you blame, where do you retaliate, how do you
> adequately guard against it?
>
> I am only amazed that a terrorist group has not yet used this method!
Thinking up ways for Bad Guys to smuggle in and deliver WMDs to First World
cities is sort of a morbid pastime for me from time to time. Having spent a
lot of my career working in the maritime industry, I've come up with a
foolproof way to smuggle a nuke into the US with zero risk of detection and
capture. Here's the plan (which would make a nice part of an action movie, I
think):
1. Nuke is placed on a marginal cargo ship (there are LOTS of them around).
This could happen in, say Karachi, after making its way overland from Russia
through Afghanistan. How the nuke gets out of the hands of the Russian army
and across the border into Afghanistan is left as an exercise for the reader.
2. The freighter is bound (legitimately) for some port in the Caribbean -
anyplace will do.
3. In the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, the "Package" is pushed overboard.
The Package is a so-far buoy, with a smart sonar system. The system is
quiet, but listening.
4. Bad Guys have bought a middling-sized yacht in any US Gulf port. There
are tens of thousands of boats at slips all along the Gulf Coast, and their
comings and goings are of no real interest to the Coast Guard.
5. Bad Guys establish a pattern of long-weekend trips out into the Gulf for
recreation. There's plenty of big game fish out there and thousands of boats
come and go every day for this purpose.
6. Bad Guys head for the coordinates of the drop. Once there, they start
pinging a signal the so-far is set to listen for. When the Package hears the
right signal, it starts answering with a steady locator response, making
finding it a snap.
7. Bad Guys haul the so-far up under cover of darkness, using the boat's
light tackle, stash it below decks and head for home, snagging a couple of
marlins on the way for cover. Upon return to their slip, no one's concerned,
especially not US Customs, because they haven't called at a foreign port.
8. Bad Guys can keep the Package on the boat for weeks until they are sure
no one is watching, and then move it off the boat to a rental storage unit at
their leisure.
9. Delivery is by any number of means. My favorite is a remotely-controlled
light private aircraft, to provide maximum airburst damage radius.
Pretty nasty, huh? I've got others . . .
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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