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| Cheney: Terrorists May Nuke U.S. Cities AP |October 19, 2004 By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS CARROLL, Ohio (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday raised the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such an ``ultimate threat ... you've got to get your mind around.'' ``The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us - biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans,'' Cheney said. ``That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept,'' Cheney said. Cheney, speaking to an invitation-only crowd as he began a bus tour through Republican strongholds in Ohio, said Kerry is trying to convince voters he would be the same type of ``tough, aggressive'' leader as President Bush in the fight against terrorism. ``I don't believe it,'' the vice president said. ``I don't think there's any evidence to support the proposition that he would, in fact, do it.'' The Democrats called Cheney's comments ironic. ``He has the audacity to question whether a decorated combat veteran who has bled on the battlefield is tough and aggressive enough to keep America safe,'' said Mark Kitchens, Kerry campaign national security spokesman. ``He wants to scare Americans about a possible nuclear 9/11 while the Bush administration has been on the sidelines while the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran - the word's leading sponsor of terrorism - have increased.'' The Kerry campaign has contended its Republican opponents are trying to frighten people with warnings of likely terrorist attacks in the United States and by suggesting America's enemies want Bush to be defeated. In Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 7, Cheney told supporters: ``It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mindset, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at war.'' Cheney praised the recent elections in Afghanistan but said they don't mean the U.S. mission there is finished. ``Does that mean it's over now and we can walk away? No, it doesn't,'' he said. ``This is three yards and a cloud of dust. There's no touchdown passes in this business. We'll stay as long as we need to help them train their own security forces, which we're doing actively so they can take over responsibility for their own security.'' Flashback: NYC Scrambling to Handle Nuke Strike New York Post | September 21 2004 If terrorists detonate a nuclear bomb in the city, as many as 1 million people will have to be tested and treated for radiation and officials will confront mass hysteria that could cause as many casualties as the device, experts say. But more than three years after the 9/11 attacks, the city Health Department only now is creating a plan to deal with a doomsday scenario. The department says it will award a $150,000 contract later this year — funded by the federal Department of Homeland Security — for a step-by-step blueprint detailing the city's reaction to a nuclear disaster. The "request for proposals" from experts bidding on the contract says the new protocols will complement current disaster plans, but notes that in the case of mass screenings, there are "no federal or other guidelines to respond to this type of demand." Elected officials yesterday questioned why it took so long to start planning for a possible nuclear attack. "I'm concerned with what's presently in place while we await the results of this RFP process," said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., chairman of the Public Safety Committee. "Apparently, we're not as far along as we thought." A spokesman for the Health Department said that the city had been planning for nuclear attacks even before Sept. 11, but this is the first effort to coordinate a wide variety of agencies. The spokesman added that the new program will be "the first of its kind on any level, city, state or federal." Depending on the magnitude of an attack, officials want to be capable of establishing two screening centers in each borough and testing up to 1 million people within 72 hours. Once those who are contaminated are identified and quarantined, treatment might range from a simple shower to a battery of vaccinations. In the case of a dirty bomb, which is a conventional explosive device that scatters radioactive materials, those exposed would have to be tracked for decades. Panic may be more dangerous than the attack itself, said Graham Allison, a former assistant secretary of defense and the author of "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe." A small nuclear bomb carried in a backpack could cause as much devastation as the bomb that virtually destroyed Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II. "The fact that we're getting around to this three years after 9/11 seems implausible," Allison said. "But once a nuclear bomb is in your city, there is very little you can do. We need to focus on preventing the attack before it occurs." --------------------------- Flashback: Plans To Cancel Elections After 'Terror Attacks' U.S. Worries Over Election Terror Threat |
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