More details on iraqi abuse by US Army....

Read this interview. I was not there and comment on authenticity. However, it is very plausible and only one example of why we need to be proactive against known threats.

Al Qaeda Nuclear Threats

The publicity spotlight is on the new audio tape purportedly from Osama bin Laden.

But the Asia Times reports today on another recent Al Jazeera interview, with Mohammed al-Usuquf (allegedly al-Qaeda's number three man), that is so frightening I debated with myself whether I should post it. I sincerely hope and pray that this interview is bogus, and that what it reveals is a pipe dream or a hoax. But it�s so chillingly plausible that reading it literally raised the hairs on my neck.

Al-Qaeda, according to him, has 5,000 first rank operatives and around 20,000 all over the world. Of all the prisoners in the US, only "20 or 30" are al-Qaeda, and all of them "second-rank". Confirming Asia Times Online information, he swears that there are no first-rank prisoners in Guantanamo in Cuba. Al-Usuquf says, "We have more than 500 first-rank and 800 second-rank [operatives] inside the US." "First rank" are considered ones that have lived in the US for more than 10 years, most of them married with children. "They have an idea about the plans, and they are just waiting for a call." "Second-rank" operatives arrived in the past five years and "have no idea about the plans". They are all willing to die.

Al-Usuquf insists that September 11 "was just the beginning. It was a way to call the world's attention to what's going to happen." He then details a plan to destroy the US by "attacking the heart of what they consider the most important thing in the world: money".

"The American economy is an economy of false appearances," says al-Usuquf. "There's no real economic weight. American GNP is something around $10 trillion, but only 1 percent comes from agriculture, and only 24 percent from industry. So 75 percent of its GNP comes from services, and most of it is financial speculation. For someone who understands economics, and apparently America's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill does not, or cannot, the US as a whole behaves like an immense dot.com, and dollars are its stocks. The value of stocks from a given company is directly proportional to its profitability. When a company only provides services, but does not produce goods, the value of its stocks depends on its credibility. What I'm saying is if US credibility is affected, its stocks - the US dollar - will fall at tremendous speed, and the whole American economy will collapse."

Al-Usuquf is absolutely positive, "because, in a smaller scale, this is exactly what big financial conglomerates do with Third World countries to collect profits in one month that no Swiss bank would guarantee in four to five years". Al-Usuquf says that al-Qaeda could do the same by "provoking a deficit of $50 to 70 trillion, the equivalent to five to seven years of the GNP of the US". How? By "destroying America's seven largest cities and some other measures". The means? "Atomic bombs." Al-Usuquf's most startling revelation is that the bombs "won't be launched, they are already there". "Seven nuclear heads have already been positioned on American soil, before September 11, and they are ready to be detonated. Before September 11, American security was a fiasco, and even later, if we needed, we could position the bombs there. They arrived through seaports, as normal cargo. A nuclear head is not bigger than a fridge, so it can easily be camouflaged as one. Thousands of containers arrive at a seaport every day, and even with very efficient security, it's impossible to check and examine each one of them."

Al-Usuquf says that the bombs were bought on the black market: five from the former USSR and two from Pakistan. The five Russian heads "are from T-3 missiles, also known as RD-107, and their power is around 100 kilotons each, that is five times the Hiroshima bomb. The Pakistani ones are less powerful, something around 10 kilotons each."

Each of the Russian bombs would have cost around $200 million. Al-Qaeda was able to raise the money "because we have many sponsors. Many countries sponsor us, and also some very rich people." And not all of these are Arab countries. "Some European countries as well are also interested in the fall of the US." As to the "rich people", they are "people who are also tired of seeing the US bleeding the rest of the world."

And Iraq's Saddam Hussein, says Al-Usuquf, is not one of these people, "but just a collaborator, represented by Abdul Tawab Hawaish, his vice prime minister and responsible for Iraq's arms program".

Al-Usuquf says that the bombs cannot be detected by US authorities. "Even if they are old, they were modernized and are very well hidden. Even if they were located, they have autodetonation mechanisms in case something or someone gets close. Even an electromagnetic pulse is not capable of deactivating them." The bombs allegedly cannot be detected because "they are enveloped in thick layers of lead". They could be detonated "by various methods - cellphone call, radio frequency, seismic shock or by their regressive clock".

Al-Usuquf details the whole plan. "First, one head would be detonated, which would cause the deaths of 800,000 to 1 million people and a chaos never seen before. During this chaos, two or three planes, which are now disassembled inside barns near empty roads in the US countryside, would take off in suicide missions to pulverize another two or three big American cities with chemicals. Once the disease was identified, all seaports and airports would be quarantined. Land borders would also be closed. No plane, boat or car would enter or leave the US. This would be total chaos." The first target would be the city "that would offer the best conditions, for example bright sky and winds of eight or more miles an hour blowing towards the center of the country, so radioactive dust can contaminate the largest possible area

It's also very plausible that terrorist cells are all over the US, already. Should we begin bombing our own country? Man, you truly are gullible. Anything is possible, but you can't go around blowing up countries and people on every hunch. Unfortunately, we do have to be attacked before we know that war is the right thing to do. And even then, we have to actually know who attacked us before we can retaliate. Attacking the wrong people can only cause more animosity. Military forces should only be used as defense, period. Our foreign policy has only grown worse in leaps and bounds, since 9/11.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about:

I'm going to come to your house and kill you and your family. I have weapons.

Ok, there. I've just threatened you. Are you going to justify finding and killing me now? Or are you going to wait until I'm an actual threat? You could choose to take me literally, and hunt me down. You never know...I might be serious, right?


BTW, this is extremely off topic. Please make a new thread if you want to continue this idiotic, fear driven conversation. I'm not going to participate in this thread jack anymore.

Thanks for you input. Freedom of speech is the greatest right our citizen have. It would be nice for the people of oppressed nations like Iraq to also have the right to speak thier mind as you do without fear of being killed or tortured. Good day my friend

"oh, and i have to tell ya, the UK's soldiers arn't the most agreeable people i've met. you should tell em to lighten up. They fight like men though....gotta give em that."

some of the UK soldiers ive seen on the news etc have a really strong northern accent which southerners hardly even understand.
how do you americans understand what theyre sayin?!

arent the most agreeable? they prob dont like bein shoved around by the yanks... but with some brits, when they see one, they flutter their eyelids, put their elbows together and say "oooooohhh HIIIIIIIII"