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JPost Attributes Nuke Attack On Syria To Al Jazeera, Proving the Incompetence of Both Media Outlets
Nov 2nd, 2007 by Bob Owens
Cross-posted at Confederate Yankee:
I suppose I should find it somewhat comforting to note that the international press is just as lazy as the American media, but when the subject is as deadly-serious as alleging a nuclear weapons attack, “comforting” is not the word that comes to mind.
The September 6 raid over Syria was carried out by the US Air Force, the Al-Jazeera Web site reported Friday. The Web site quoted Israeli and Arab sources as saying that two strategic US jets armed with tactical nuclear weapons carried out an attack on a nuclear site under construction.
The sources were quoted as saying that Israeli F-15 and F-16 jets provided cover for the US planes.
The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon and that the site was hit by one bomb and was totally destroyed.
At the beginning of October, Israel’s military censor began to allow the local media to report on the raid without attributing their report to foreign sources. Nevertheless, details of the strike have remained clouded in mystery.
As AllahPundit notes, it doesn’t seem that this story is on the al Jazeera web site, so if it was published, it certainly didn’t make it into the English-language version. JPost was sloppy in not proving more specific detail about the al Jazeera report, and for a claim of this magnitude, should have collected a screen capture or provided a link to the article.
If the JPost attribution is accurate, then the al Jazeera article should be rebuked as lazy pandering to it’s reader base of the lowest order, blatant propaganda, and incompetent reporting.
A few simple minutes of web searching would have revealed that tactical nuclear weapons suitable for this kind of attack, such as variants of the B61 or the ground-penetrating variant known as the B61-11, would have created a massive and distinctive signature, as noted by GlobalSecurity.org:
A 1-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and eject 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air. Detonating a similar weapon on the surface of a city would kill a quarter of a million people and injure hundreds of thousands more.
Nuclear weapons cannot be engineered to penetrate deeply enough to prevent fallout. Based on technical analysis at the Nevada Test Site, a weapon with a 10-kiloton yield must be buried deeper than 850 feet to prevent spewing of radioactive debris. Yet a weapon dropped from a plane at 40,000 feet will penetrate less than 100 feet of loose dirt and less than 30 feet of rock. Ultimately, the depth of penetration is limited by the strength of the missile casing. The deepest current earth penetrators, the B61 Mod 11, can burrow is 20 feet of dry earth. Casing made of even the strongest material cannot withstand the physical forces of burrowing through 100 feet of granite, much less 850 feet.
Even a minimal level of Internet research would have revealed that it is impossible for a nuclear warhead to have been used without immediate and noticeable effects including a massive crater, something approaching a million cubic feet of radioactive material being ejected into the air, and of course, a massive seismic shockwave that would have been recorded by other nations around the region.
Photographic evidence shows no such crater. There has been no radioactive fallout recorded in the region, nor was distinctive nuclear seismic shockwave reported by friend or foe.
Reporters for both al Jazeera and the JPost should have known that this story was highly suspect from the beginning and could have easily debunked it with minimal reasearch, but they obviously didn’t want to let facts get in the way of a good story.
[…] From Media Mythbusters: […]
There’s no evidence that any such report was published by Al Jazeera. This is purely a fabrication of the notorious Jerusalem Post.
Well all to often I see a stark similarity between the JPost and the New York Times, but hey! That’s just me…
What is interesting about the story though is the following: “The sources added that each US plane carried one tactical nuclear weapon“…
This leads me to believe that maybe it was the first real field test for the MOP or more simply a thermobaric bunker buster which is quite heavy…
thats quite the distorted post, lets look at what was said:
-A 1-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York.
-a weapon dropped from a plane at 40,000 feet will penetrate less than 100 feet of loose dirt and less than 30 feet of rock.
So, a 1 kiloton weapon would eaily penetrate to the depth sited in the crater resembling ground zero, or to as much as double the depth. Commercial satallite photos show heavy machinery and a site which has been completely cleared. So whatever crater was there, from whatever bomb was used has been filled in.
Now, lets look at the intentional mis-direction of this post:
1.) The poster says it would create a crater like ground zero, which doesnt seem shockingly large, but then starts using the number 1 million cubic feet because it sounds huge. Feet are small, and volumes are large. 1 million cubic feet is about 28,000 cubic meters. So use 28,000 m3 instead of trying to make it sound larger than it is. AND, he doesnt state which depth and what material that would be. Also, jsut something approaching…this number. whats approaching 650,000, 700,000? speak factually not figuratively.
2.)” a weapon with a 10-kiloton yield must be buried deeper than 850 feet to prevent spewing of radioactive debris.” well, ROFL, what does a 10 kiloton weapon have to do with this story. He starts using a number 10 times bigger than the depths quoted for a 1 kiloton. Thats not even addressing the fact the bomb used might have been less than a kiloton, or of a type not publically known about. But even using 1 kiloton, a striaght linear calculation turns 850 feet to 85 feet. Thats within the 100 feet of dirt mentioned AND, thats for NO DEBRIS whatsoever. Given that the claim is israelis detecting nuclear materials there, some debris could just be attributed to whatever was already there. AND, thats assuming the relationship is linear. Does 1 kiloton ejecting 1/10th the dirt, or is it exponentially less, rather than linear.
3.) “distinctive nuclear shockwave” - first that fact it hasnt been reported is not proof it wasnt observed. Second, if the weapon was 1 kiloton or less, it is not distinctively nuclear, and very difficult to discern what type of bombs were used, if it was many hitting the site all at once, and so forth.
4.) this poster presents NO evidence for his claimed numbers, dictates himself to have found his information through a quick internet search, and intentionally uses numbers and words of unrelated issues to inflate his supposed “debunking”. Maybe they did use a small tactical nuke, or maybe they used regular bombs, but this tripe has proved nothing either way. The only proof it provides is that the poster is either ignorant or intentionally attempting to mislead readers.