Where was Moses when the lights went out?...
... in the dark.
Low-tech EMP to send U.S. back to 'Stone Age'?
3 Aug.`12 > Experts: Attack with 50-year-old SCUD would turn America into 'government by disaster'
... in the dark.
Low-tech EMP to send U.S. back to 'Stone Age'?
3 Aug.`12 > Experts: Attack with 50-year-old SCUD would turn America into 'government by disaster'
Eid-ul-Fitr, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan, was an appropriate setting for a panel discussion today on the threat of an Electromagnetic Pulse, or EMP, attack on the United States. The live event, hosted by Florida-based The United West, was held to raise awareness of the looming threat. The warning presented was startling: A crude nuclear device placed on top of a 50-year-old SCUD missile and launched by a tramp steamer could cause the collective collapse of the nations power grid in a matter of minutes. It is estimated that Iran could launched such an attack in just a few years, and it would leave the U.S. essentially in the Stone Age. Tom Trento, founder of The United West, called an EMP attack the equivalent of an Electronic Armageddon.
Irans President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, both believe that the coming of the last Islamic messiah, the Shiites 12th Imam Mahdi, is near and that Iran is called upon to bring about his arrival. They believe Iran must lead the way for a worldwide Islamic revolution. Leaders in the Iranian government have stated that the Islamic revolution is moving forward, advanced by the Arab Spring, and will reach the shores of America for an eventual takeover. Intelligence sources have indicated Iran is within two years of bringing the revolution to the United States in the form of an EMP attack.
Ambassador R. James Woolsey, former director of the CIA during the Clinton administration, told the conference that an Iranian nuclear attack would not have to be sophisticated or complicated. He cited the estimated damage from a crude device mounted atop a SCUD and launched from somewhere near the U.S. shores. The missile need not be accurate, it just needs altitude to be successful. He went on to say that the effects of EMP are known, because the nation already has experienced them. Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the U.S. on July 9, 1962, before the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban treaty banned nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere.
A two megaton nuclear device approximately 100 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was launched via a Thor rocket and exploded 250 miles above a point 19 miles southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. The results included surprises and raised still-unanswered questions. William Graham, another member of the panel, said the EMP was 100 times larger than predicted and no one understood why. Sophisticated electronic equipment on the island of Oahu, almost 900 miles away, was severely damaged, but vacuum-tube based devices were unharmed. Over 300 streetlights stopped working, burglar alarms were activated and one telephone companys microwave link was destroyed.
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