What If Terrorists Get a NUCLEAR BOMB?

This episode explores the real and present danger of nuclear terrorism, the near-misses, and what individuals and nations can do to stay prepared and protect freedom.

key topics

• The scenario of a nuclear detonation at a major port in the United States
• The history of nuclear proliferation and black-market activities
• The near misses that few know about and the threat of terrorist groups acquiring nuclear materials
• The importance of nuclear security and intelligence efforts
• Practical steps for personal and family preparedness
• The spiritual and moral dimension of freedom and security

Takeaways

The threat of nuclear terrorism is real and documented.

Preparedness is a form of stewardship and responsibility.

Small, consistent actions can significantly improve safety.

Understanding the global nuclear landscape is crucial for awareness.

Faith and moral action are vital in safeguarding freedom.

 sound bites

"Sixty-three pounds of highly enriched uranium."

"A blast vaporizes Los Angeles."

"Freedom is built on safety and moral action."

Chapters

00:00 The Nuclear Threat: A Wake-Up Call

13:21 Real-World Nuclear Security Concerns

22:02 The Economic and Spiritual Implications of Nuclear Terrorism

29:54 Preparedness: Taking Action Against the Unthinkable

 resources

Ready.gov - https://www.ready.gov

Arise for Freedoms Website - https://arise4freedoms.com

Free Newsletter with More Information - Home | Arise 4 Freedoms

Sources Used for Podcast 

[1] Levy, Adrian, and Catherine Scott-Clark. Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons. New York: Walker & Company, 2007.

[2] International Atomic Energy Agency. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Report by the Director General. GOV/2003/75. Vienna: IAEA, 2003.

[3] Allison, Graham. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe. New York: Times Books / Henry Holt, 2004, pp. 64–91.

[4] Zaitseva, Lyudmila, and Kevin Hand. "Nuclear Smuggling Chains: Suppliers, Intermediaries, and End-Users." American Behavioral Scientist 46, no. 6 (2003): 822–844.

[5] Bunn, Matthew. Securing the Bomb 2010. Cambridge, MA: Project on Managing the Atom, Harvard Kennedy School / Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2010, p. 14.

[6] Stohl, Rachel, and Suzette Grillot. The International Arms Trade. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2009. See also: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies. "NIS Nuclear Trafficking Database." 2004.

[7] 9/11 Commission. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004, pp. 380–381.

[8] Riedel, Bruce. Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011, pp. 97–112.

[9] bin Laden, Osama. Statement published in Time magazine, "Osama bin Laden Speaks," January 11, 1999. Cited in: Albright, David, and Holly Higgins. "A Bomb for the Ummah." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 59, no. 2 (2003): 49–55.

[10] Hummel, Stephen. "The Islamic State and WMD: Assessing the Future Threat." CTC Sentinel 9, no. 1 (2016): 18–21. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

[11] Reuters. "Exclusive: Islamic State Seized 'Useless' Iraq Radioactive Material." July 9, 2014. (Material later assessed to be low-grade; see IAEA follow-up statements.)

[12] Jasmine Opperman. "Moldova's Uranium Black Market: A New Report Raises Old Fears." Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). October 7, 2015. www.nti.org.

[13] Associated Press. "Moldova Officials Break Up Smuggling Rings Selling Radioactive Material to Middle East Extremists." October 7, 2015. Reprinted in The Guardian.

[14] National Intelligence Council. "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds." NIC 2012-001. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, December 2012, p. 69.

[15] Nuclear Threat Initiative. "About NTI." www.nti.org/about. Founded 2001 by Sam Nunn and Ted Turner. Accessed 2024.

[16] Plumer, Brad. "How Much Did the September 11 Attacks Cost America?" Washington Post, September 11, 2012. Citing: Bilmes, Linda J., and Joseph E. Stiglitz. The Three Trillion Dollar War. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.

[17] Congressional Budget Office. "The Macroeconomic and Budgetary Effects of Federal Investment." 2016. See also: Lugar, Richard G. The Lugar Survey on Proliferation Threats and Responses. U.S. Senate, June 2005, p. 14 — citing expert estimates of economic impact of nuclear detonation.

[18] World Trade Organization. World Trade Report 2015: Speeding Up Trade: Benefits and Challenges of Implementing the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. Geneva: WTO, 2015.

[19] Novak, Michael. The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. (Foundational text connecting ordered liberty, free markets, and moral culture.)

[20] Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). "Nuclear Explosion." Ready.gov. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. www.ready.gov/nuclear-explosion. Accessed 2024.

[21] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). "Frequently Asked Questions About a Radiation Emergency." Emergency Preparedness and Response. www.emergency.cdc.gov. Accessed 2024.

Don't just survive, live for freedom, properly prepare, and thrive!

Transcript

A nuclear wake up call!

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 0:04

What if I tell you a scenario that every nuclear security expert is worried about? One that some of us sleep over. The one that we all should pray never happens. But almost became a reality. And what if the only thing standing between that nightmare in your family or yourself was an FBI sting, a tip from an informant, or perhaps just sheer dumb luck? That's right. Today we're going to talk about the bomb that could have changed the world as we know it. And how that's come very close several times. And why keeping it out of the wrong hands is perhaps the single most important thing or act of stewardship that we as a free people can perform for our children, our grandchildren, and for freedom in general. We're going to talk about what if what if terrorists get in the nuke? Freedom. To survive, but not just survive, to thrive in a troubled world. Well, today's show will cover our four key pillars of every free and prosperous society. And it'll be freedom, and we'll talk about productivity or productively preparing, if you will, and prosperity. And we'll divide the show up into two parts. First will be the freedom to prosper. How this bomb that we're going to talk about could perhaps change the world instantly as we know it. And how in the wrong hands it can destroy everything that we stand for. In part two, we're going to talk about how to become productively prepared. And so we're not just living in this state of paranoia. We understand that God's in control. And what can we as a community or people do right now? To stand up for what we know is right, to stand up to do what is good, and to stand up arise for freedoms so that nothing bad ever happens.

Fictional Story of Nuclear Strike in the US

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 3:00

All right, so the core story today is exactly that. It's before I give you the facts, and there's plenty of them, trust me on that. I want you to imagine something. Now, the story is fictional, but every element of it is rooted in intelligence reports, documented attempts, and the fears of the world's top nuclear security experts. So listen close. It's a great Tuesday morning in October. The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest container port in the Western Hemisphere, is processing over ten million shipping containers every year. And on this day it's moving through its ordinary chaos. The cranes are swinging, taking off the shipping containers, the trucks are lining up, and the harbor smells of its typical salt and diesel. Somewhere in one of those many, many, many sea containers, forty foot long, corrugated steel, is a box that has traveled from Karachi, Pakistan to Dubai, to Rotterdam, and to here. In the shipping containers manifest, it says that it is full of machine parts. But it is not. Months earlier, a splinter cell of a radical extremist group, a network, made contact with a corrupt official of the government of the nation states nuclear program. The transaction which was made was simple. Sixty-three pounds, that's right, just sixty-three pounds of weapon-grade, highly enriched uranium and a crude but functional implosive device or implosion device. Explosion device. Whatever you want to call it. The price was only forty million dollars in cryptocurrency, which was laundered through three different shell companies to try to hide its identity. The device was never really meant to be that sophisticated, and it didn't need to be. It was just meant to work. At seven forty-two, the dock worker runs his handheld radiation detector, as he has done every other day across this and hundreds upon hundreds of other shipping containers. However, when he goes past shipping container four seven one B, the device gives a slight chirp. He simply assumes that it's a calibration error. It also happened last week and has happened before, with a shipment of ceramic tile. He puts it in his log and then he moves on. At nine eighteen, the container is open. The yield of the improvised device is estimated to have been between five and fifteen kilotons, roughly the equivalent of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in World War II, which, quite frankly, in our day and age is easy to achieve. The blast radius vaporizes the port of Los Angeles. The fireball reaches Long Beach, and the electromagnetic pulse from it knocks power out all across Southern California. Within minutes, every major news network breaks into the programming to tell some nightmare is going on. Within eleven minutes, the president is in the situation room. Within an hour, the stock market, what is left of it, has suspended training. The actual death toll will not be known for months. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes three days later after the federal emergency reopening its thirty eight percent down. Four trillion dollars in market value just evaporated overnight. Pension funds of American citizens across the nation are decimated, and people in panic begin to do bank withdrawals. The dollar plunges against every major currency. Banks are shut down because if they don't, they will fail. Martial law is declared in five states. Strips the supply chain. Grocery stores are emptied. Hospitals already dealing with a mass casualty event are overwhelmed. The loss of power as the grid struggles makes the situation even worse. Hundreds of thousands are fleeing Los Angeles in any way they can. But people across the nation, especially in large cities and especially in any of them that have ports, are in full panic mode. Internationally, NATO convenes an emergency session. China moves out its naval assets, Russia does the same, and also makes some harsh comments. The three countries begin pointing at each other. The phrase nuclear retaliation appears in a leaked memo from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And yet, in the smoking rune of what once was the port of Los Angeles, no one's entirely sure who did it. The cell responsible communicated only through encrypted channels. The nation state officials who sold the device disappeared. And various terrorist organizations begin to say the end of times have arrived. And it's time to act. The cryptocurrency wallet trail is empty. It takes eighteen months and massive intelligence operation and the testimony of a single informant to piece together what happened. By then, two retaliatory military strikes have already occurred. Fifteen thousand people have been killed in follow-on conflicts. The global economy has entered into this deepest recession ever since the Great Depression. And because of the container, one corrupt official. One missed radiation alert. One missed radiation alert. That's all. Or even if it was found, that doesn't mean they could stop it.

Near Nuclear Misses, Closer than You Think

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 12:32

No. This story's fictional. But the story is a real possibility that security experts have been worrying about. Is one of the many reasons that we should be prepared, both temporally and spiritually. It is one of the reasons that many insist Iran, who openly seeks to bring forth the end of times, can never get a nuclear weapon. Scary as it may sound, the facts that I am about to give you are absolutely real and have already happened. And there may even be more close call events that we don't even know about. All right, so the most serious of the real world cases and nuclear blackout in the black market, if you will, um actively centers on the name Abdul. I'm gonna massacre this, Kadir Khan. He was the nuclear expert out of Pakistan. We'll just call him AQ Khan. Well, A.Q. Khan was the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapon program. He was a celebrated national hero. He was also, for nearly two decades, running the world's most dangerous proliferation network. When I say proliferation, what I mean is he was he was uh digging in with others in addition to helping the government of Pakistan develop its nuclear program. From the nineteen eighties through the early two thousands, Khan sold nearly nuclear weapons grade technology, centrifuge designs, components, bomb blueprints to get this. Iran, Libya, and North Korea. He proved beyond any doubt that a state level nuclear secret could be packaged, sold, and shipped like a commodity. He proved that the right amount of money could corrupt even some of the most trusted insiders. He proved that an international community was dangerously unprepared for what he could have cost. When the Soviet Union collapsed, here's another one. The situation became even more alarming. Suddenly the world's second largest nuclear arsenal, and I would argue maybe even the first largest nuclear arsenal, just not as good as the US. Nothing's as good as the US, spread across 15 newly independent states. And was undersecured, understaffed, and underfunded. So there were 15 nuclear states within the USSR that suddenly had these nuclear weapons. One of them that had 500 of them was Ukraine. And if they gave those back, Russia promised, oh, we will never do nothing to you, Ukraine, if you just give us those bombs. The scientists who built those weapons are now being paid in potatoes. And Russian military leaders from the collapsed government had a very dangerous power in their hands that was worth millions when they're getting paid nothing. Some officials weren't even being paid at all. But they had that item that others would be willing to pay a great sum of money for nuclear materials, nuclear weapons. The following decade of smuggling attempts is what we should keep free citizens awake about and thinking about and should keep you awake at night. In nineteen ninety three, some of the Lithuanian authorities intercepted criminals attempting to sell four point four pounds of highly enriched uranium. One year later, the Czech police seized 6.6 pounds of highly enriched uranium off the black market from smugglers. In 2003, Georgian authorities caught smugglers in possession of highly enriched uranium, believed to have been intended for sell to extremist buyers. Every one of those cases, and there were many more, involved the hardest to obtain ingredient in building a nuclear bomb. The highly enriched uranium. Al Qaeda, the organization responsible for the september eleventh attack on our two towers and killed nearly three thousand Americans, spent years actively trying to acquire nuclear materials. Every known attempt in every one of those cases was either fraudulent or it was intercepted. But the intent was never in question. Osama bin Laden himself called the acquisition of the weapons of mass destruction his religious duty. ISIS, the Islamic State, which is at its peak, controlled the territory the size of Great Britain and was responsible for genocide across that area, mass executions, torture, thousands of terrorist attacks, kidnappings, and much, much worse, also sought those radioactive materials to create a bomb. Either a dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb. A nuclear bomb is basically just getting the material that is dangerous enough to radiate the area in which it explodes. Might not kill as many people, but it will cause the entire city to vacate. In 2014, they briefly seized a cachet of radioactive materials from a storage facility in Mosul or Iraq. They never built the functional device, but they tried. One of the most alarming modern cases took place in the Middle East, not in the Middle East, excuse me, but actually in Eastern Europe. In 2011, the Moldovian police worked alongside the FBI. They dismantled a smuggling ring that was actively offering weapons grade uranium to the buyers, to any buyers. The sellers were explicit that they especially wanted to sell to Islamic extremist groups. In 2015, the following case in the same region caught another network attempting to sell another highly grade, I'm gonna kill this, and I apologize. In what I was telling you about a dirty bomb. Again, to the buyers claiming to be representing ISIS. While there was no terrorist group that ever successfully acquired a functional nuclear weapon, that fact should give us no huge letdown that we don't need to worry anymore. But instead we should have a cautious relief, not complacency. A National Intelligence Council has warned that the threat of nuclear terrorism remains one of the most significant dangers facing the United States. The Nuclear Initiative, a nonpartisan organization founded by former Senator Sam Nunn and CNN founded under Ted Turner, has spent decades cataloging vulnerabilities in nuclear security programs worldwide.

Our Lives Could Change in a Single Second

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 21:41

So, I don't think a lot of people realize how dangerous and how easily in a second this material in the wrong hands could change our world. And there would be no stepping back. So here's what listeners need to understand. So let's let's talk about why it matters. The prosperity connection. If that was to happen, our markets would implode overnight. Pension plans would be lost. The world would be at war like never before. And it might even unite some of these terrorist groups because they would believe it was a sign of the end of the times. Nuclear security is not simply a military abstraction or a military thought or something that you don't need to worry about. It's really a thought for everybody. It's not a policy wonks hobby. It's really a founding or foundation and bedrock upon which all freedoms across the world really rest. Consider the detonation even of a single crude nuclear device in a major American city and what it would mean. Just to get it put it in perspective, the 2001 attacks on September 11th were done with jets which were hijacked, just a few, four, which killed 2,977 people. Cost an estimated 3.3 trillion in total economic losses. When you count the wars and security buildup, insurance, the loss of productivity, then the nuclear event would be in much, much bigger magnitude of cost to the United States and the world. If the United States markets fall, the world will fall. All transactions are made off the dollar. Just to put it in perspective, the United States, with our productivity and how prosperous we are, we make more than all the other North, South, and Central American nations combined. Thus, if we fall, the world falls. The global trading system, the system that brings food to your grocery stores, fuel and your gas station, and goods, Amazon to your doorsteps, runs on confidence, runs on order, and a society in which it believes is free. It runs on the assumption that the ports will be open, the contracts will be honored, the government will function, and with those who decide to act outside of the boundaries of its laws, that they'll be punished and the order will remain. A nuclear attack would shatter that confidence instantly and globally. Now there's also a spiritual dimension here that I think is often overlooked. Freedom, real freedom, is just not an absence of oppression, but it's brought about by the actions of good people. It is the presence of safety, presence of love. It is the ability to build and plan and to invest and to worship and to raise your children with hope. And it doesn't matter if we believe differently. We can agree how to disagree. We come to the common consensus of what is good and best, and we do the best with what we know how. Every one of those things requires a real world where weapons of mass destruction are controlled, secured, and never used. And whatever sacrifice that requires of the American people, we must be willing to do it. The men and women who work in nuclear security, the FBI agents who run the sting operation, the IAEA inspectors who travel to unstable regions, the scientists who develop detection technology, they are in the truest sense guardians of the human prosperity. And they rarely get the credit they deserve. And often over our political stupidity and disagreements, we sometimes defund these programs and things. If that isn't crazy, I don't know what is.

What does the Bible say about our days?

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 27:18

And if we turn to the scriptures themselves, if something like this was to happen, Christ was being asked, you know what's it going to be like? And he said to them, And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, see that ye be not troubled, for these things must come to pass, and the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilence and earthquakes in diverse places. All of these are the beginning of sorrows. For then shall come the great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever will be. That is the definition of stewardship. That is the definition of freedom and the foundation of all our prosperity. Let's shift gears. I know what I was talking about was heavy. But what I said at the top of preparedness isn't paranoia, it's stewardship, and it's being just productively prepared. It's a person doesn't just absorb something into uh information and feel afraid and then do nothing. They act. Faith is an action word. So let's talk about what you can actually do, not to prevent the nuclear war that we talked about, but that you can ensure if that unthinkable ever does approach your zip code, your country, or us as a people, you and your family are not among the unprepared. Christ told us to watch and be ready. This

What can you do today?

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 29:42

week's prepared focus is a three-tiered plan. No plan and sustain. Know that information is your first layer of any defense. Don't go be extreme either. You can start preparing by simple ways. Most of these things that we prepare about never happen. And most things you can be prepared for with just some simple, simple things. Have some money set aside. Be living within your budget. Have some extra water set aside. Start buying a few extra cans of food here and there. And next thing you know, you have a food supply that can last for weeks, if not longer. But most of all, if you're faithful and have your faith in order, it doesn't really matter what happens to our bodies. If we're living right and doing what's right, in the end, all will come out right. Next, plan for your family emergency and plan needs in various scenarios, whatever they may be. And that food that I was telling you to get prepared is really at least a two-week supply. I would tell you months if you could do it, up to a year. But don't try to do it overnight. It is more important that you're financially living within your means and then grabbing an extra can or so here and there of food. Get food that you regularly use. I'll show you my rolling shelf that we have, and it's just basically the food that we use each and every day. And when you have it and you do it that way, once you get to a certain point, you can look for the good buys, and you can actually save money by storing your food and having a supply on hand instead of always going out and eating or buying at the last minute. So here's some action steps for this week. Three action steps. Go to ready.gov and read the nuclear explosion preparedness page. Bookmark it. And share it with at least one person this week. Read your scriptures. Get your life in order. Step two. Add radiological scenario to if you have an emergency preparedness plan for your family. It can't hurt anything. When you're prepared, and even if it's prepared in the wrong way, there's something about being prepared and having a plan that keeps everybody calm. And three, or this third step, audit your emergency supplies. It takes about a gallon of water each and every day just to get by with the basics for every person. Start building up a small shelf stable food supply. And be consistent. Slowly and surely prepare and do those things and what you need to

A quick recap of what you can do.

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 32:56

do. Now, a quick recap before we close. From freedom to prosper, nuclear threat is documented in real. And from productive to prepared, your three steps this week is no plan and sustain. Go to ready.gov, build your family plan, and audit your supplies and start doing something about it. Take small actions and begin to get ready. Prepare for, and you should do that all the time. There's all kinds of things that can affect you that are much smaller than this. Perhaps it's a job loss. Perhaps it's a loss in the family, an injury, those things that are more likely. And if you are preparing like this, those won't affect you nearly as much. And most of all, get right with God. Do the things that you need to do, and that's probably one of the biggest things that you can do for you and your children.

Now do something! Join us!

Colonel Griffeth (Ret) 34:01

Now go transform your life. Help transform our world. Subscribe to Arise for Freedoms. Sign up for our free newsletter. Join us in the cause for freedom. Properly prepare and prosper. A Rise for Freedoms. Today's episode has twenty three different sources, and which I'm more than happy to send you if you just put a note and ask one. Thanks. Stay prepared, stay safe, and be free. Good day.