Dave Eberhart, NewsMax
Monday, March 4, 2002

A super-secret intelligence source code named "Dragonfire” had informed U.S. authorities that terrorists had acquired a 10-kiloton nuclear device from a Russian stockpile and planned to smuggle it into the city.

Time reported that investigators netted nothing, concluding eventually that the Dragonfire information was faulty. The public was excluded from knowing anything about the perceived crisis in order to avoid panic.

However, agencies such as the Energy Department’s top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team took the Dragonfire warning seriously because Dragonfire’s information was corroborated by a report from a Russian general who said a 10-kiloton device went missing on his watch.

The intelligence’s credibility was also enhanced by reports of portable nuclear devices also missing from the Russian stores.

During the quiet crisis experts estimated that if exploded in lower Manhattan, a 10-kiloton bomb would kill some 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000 more. Furthermore, according to the Time sources, the blast would flatten all in a half-mile diameter.

Brutal

"It was brutal,” a U.S. official characterized to Time, as counter-terrorist investigators went on their highest state of alert around the clock.

Although the Dragonfire conflagration obviously failed to mature, the administration is apparently still taking the potential of a nuclear attack seriously, assigning 100 civilian government officials to 24-hour rotations in underground bunkers, in a program that has been coined "shadow government.”

Although it does not identify the sites, the Washington Post reported last week they make use of geological features to render them highly secure, are well stocked with supplies and capable of generating their own power.

The Post also said that only the executive branch is represented in the full-time shadow administration. Congress and the judiciary have separate continuity plans that do not include 24-hour presence in fortified facilities.

The secret operation has complemented the absence of Vice President Dick Cheney for much of the last five months.

"We take this issue extraordinarily seriously, and are committed to doing as thorough a job as possible to ensure the ongoing operations of the federal government,” said Joseph W Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff.

Suitcase Nukes

The controversy over the suitcase nukes has festered since 1997 when Russian General Aleksandr Lebed suggested that some former Soviet suitcase-size nuclear weapons may be missing.

Lebed told Congress and "60 Minutes" that the Soviet Union created perhaps one hundred atomic demolition munitions (ADMs), or atomic land mines.

Such low-yield devices were developed by the former Soviet Union to be used by special forces for wartime sabotage. They were small, portable, and not equipped with standard safety devices to prevent unauthorized detonation.

According to Lebed, some of the ADMs were in the former Soviet republics, and may not have been returned to Russia after the Soviet Union's collapse.

While Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Lebed started an investigation into the whereabouts of these weapons – an investigation that was interrupted when he was fired by then President Boris Yeltsin.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Al-Qaeda

Homeland/Civil Defense

War on Terrorism

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