Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP)–The Ultimate Iranian Terrorist Weapon

Posted on August 14, 2008. Filed under: Blogroll, Books, Economics, Immigration, Links, Politics, Quotations, Rants, Raves, Religion, Resources, Science, Taxes, Technology, Video, War | Tags: Electro Magnetic Pulse, EMP, EMP threat, Iran, Missiles, Nuclear Attack, Terrorist Weapon, weapons of mass destruction, William R. Forstchen |

Electromagnetic Pulse Danger to America from Iran. North Korea launches missile

Newt talks about the threat of a nuclear North Korea

If Iran launched a missile off the US coast from a freighter that released a electro magnetic pulse (EMP), the damage would be immense. The same is true if the attack was on Israel or Europe.

If Israel expects the Iranian government is on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon, expect an attack immediately.

Will next Israeli leader attack Iran?

Otherwise, expect that within the next three to twelve months for the US and Israel to take out as much of Iran’s nuclear weapons program as well as radar, missile defense and command and control systems.

A satellite image of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility

A satellite image of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility

Obama: North Korea Broke the Rules

North Korea rocket launch

Let the United Nation handle it.

Sounds like President Obama is back to voting present again.

Background Articles and Videos

one_second_after

William R. Forstchen

“…In March 2009, Forstchen’s latest work “One Second After,” Forge/St. Martin’s books was released. Based upon intensive research and interviews, it examines what might happen in a “typical” American town in the wake of an attack on the United States with “electro-magnetic pulse” (EMP) weapons. Similar in plotting to books such as “On the Beach” and “Alas Babylon,” “One Second After,” is set in a small college town in western North Carolina and is a cautionary tale of the collapse of social order in the wake of an EMP strike. The book has been optioned by Warner Bros. and currently is in development as a feature film. …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Forstchen

RP Eddy on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom”

U.S. Denies Israel Arms for Iran Attack

“…The United States has turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a frontpage report in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper said on Wednesday.

The unsourced report said the Americans had warned Israel against carrying out any such attack and had refused to supply offensive military hardware. Instead they had offered to improve the Jewish state’s defenses against surface-to-surface missiles.

Interviewed on Israeli Army Radio, Defence Minister Ehud Barak did not deny the Haaretz story, but refused to discuss it. “It would not be right to talk about these things,” Barak said. …”

http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/weapons_attack_iran/2008/08/13/121598.html?s=sp&promo_code=67DE-1

The EMP Threat

“…Imagine you’re a terrorist with a single nuclear weapon. You could wipe out the U.S. city of your choice, or you could decide to destroy the infrastructure of the entire U.S. economy and leave millions of Americans to die of starvation or want of medical care.

The latter scenario is the one envisioned by a long-running commission to assess the threat from electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. The subject of its latest, and little discussed, report to Congress is the effect an EMP attack could have on civilian infrastructure. If you’re prone to nightmares, don’t read it before bedtime.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes high in the Earth’s atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast destroys all the electronics in its line of sight. For a bomb detonated over the Midwest, that includes most of the continental U.S. Few, if any, people die in the blast. It’s what comes next that has the potential to be catastrophic. Since an EMP surge wipes out electronics, virtually every aspect of modern American life would come to a standstill. …”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121824192073426161.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r2:c0.228876

Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack

http://www.empcommission.org/

Congress examines EMP threat
Iran believed to test missiles for attack on U.S.

“More than four years after a stunning report about America’s vulnerability to a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack was released to Congress, the House Armed Services Committee will hear testimony from the scientist who issued the warning and who believes Iran is pursuing such an option.

William R. Graham, President Reagan’s top science adviser and the chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, will update the committee Thursday morning.

Graham warned in 2005 that Iran was not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, but was already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America’s technical infrastructure with the aim of neutralizing the world’s lone superpower. …”

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=69056

The Real Threat of Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons

American scientists and intelligence experts agree that rogue regimes in other countries are not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, they may already be testing missiles specifically designed to neutralize America’s infrastructure, thereby rendering us powerless.

“…A single nuclear weapon exploded at a high altitude above the continental United States would interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse, which would create electrical currents in the Earth. One nuclear warhead could cripple the entire country, knocking out electrical power and circuit boards and rendering domestic communications inoperable. EMP effects are both direct—catastrophically affecting electrical systems—and indirect, from the damage that the destroyed electronics controls then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. Indirect effects from EMPs can be even more disastrous than the direct effects, and can take much longer to correct.

Many scientists, intelligence sources, and western missile industry experts believe that Iran is already testing ballistic EMP missiles designed to render America powerless, effectively neutralizing the world’s lone superpower. The radical Shiite regime has conducted successful tests of ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and detonating it by remote control while it is still at a high altitude. Intelligence analysts were stunned when Iran openly described the mid-flight detonations of missiles fired from ships on the Caspian Sea. William R. Graham, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s top science advisor, says that the only explanation for such tests is to prepare for the deployment of EMPs. Since the tests have been successful, Iran could possibly have that capability as soon as it has one nuclear bomb ready to aim such a missile. And a strategic ally of Iran, North Korea, already claims to have developed nuclear bomb technology. …”

“…Last month, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security chaired by Arizona Senator John Kyl held a hearing on the EMP threat. The EMP commission, chaired by Dr. William Graham, said that strengthening key infrastructure systems and procuring vital backup equipment such as transformers and generators is both feasible and—compared with the threat—relatively inexpensive.

The report concluded: “The Sept. 11 commission report stated that our biggest failure was one of ‘imagination.’ No one imagined that terrorists would do what they did on Sept. 11. Today few Americans can conceive of the possibility that terrorists could bring our society to its knees by destroying everything we rely on that runs on electricity. But this time we’ve been warned, and we’d better be prepared to respond….”

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/10-1-2005-77899.asp

Electromagnetic bomb

“…An electromagnetic bomb or E-bomb is a weapon designed to disable electronics with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges by electromagnetic induction. The effects are usually not noticeable beyond the blast radius unless the device is nuclear or specifically designed to produce an electromagnetic pulse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_bomb

ELECTROMAGNETIC BOMB

A WEAPON OF ELECTRONIC MASS DESTRUCTION
WRITTEN BY CARLO KOPP, DEFENSE ANALYST, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

“…Commercial computer equipment is particularly vulnerable to EMP effects, as it is largely built up of high density Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) devices, which are very sensitive to exposure to high voltage transients. What is significant about MOS devices is that very little energy is required to permanently wound or destroy them, any voltage in typically in excess of tens of Volts can produce an effect termed gate breakdown which effectively destroys the device. Even if the pulse is not powerful enough to produce thermal damage, the power supply in the equipment will readily supply enough energy to complete the destructive process. Wounded devices may still function, but their reliability will be seriously impaired. Shielding electronics by equipment chassis provides only limited protection, as any cables running in and out of the equipment will behave very much like antennae, in effect guiding the high voltage transients into the equipment.

Computers used in data processing systems, communications systems, displays, industrial control applications, including road and rail signalling, and those embedded in military equipment, such as signal processors, electronic flight controls and digital engine control systems, are all potentially vulnerable to the EMP effect.

Other electronic devices and electrical equipment may also be destroyed by the EMP effect. Telecommunications equipment can be highly vulnerable, due to the presence of lengthy copper cables between devices. Receivers of all varieties are particularly sensitive to EMP, as the highly sensitive miniature high frequency transistors and diodes in such equipment are easily destroyed by exposure to high voltage electrical transients. Therefore radar and electronic warfare equipment, satellite, microwave, UHF, VHF, HF and low band communications equipment and television equipment are all potentially vulnerable to the EMP effect.

It is significant that modern military platforms are densely packed with electronic equipment, and unless these platforms are well hardened, an EMP device can substantially reduce their function or render them unusable. …”

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread59555/pg1

Russia Threatens Nuclear Strike AGAIN TODAY

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=y5HU58r2gnU

Russian helps build nuclear reactor in Iran

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=H9NNXxayRiI

The US, Russia, and Iran’s Nuclear Program

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=XboFwfD5hGQ

Jack Matlock: Russia, USA, Nuclear Weapons

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=7J7LMiQXAYU

Electromagnetic pulse attack – Future weapons serial

Electromagnetic Pulse Attack Threat Raised in US Congress!

EMP Pt 1

EMP Pt 2

Iran missile test 9 July 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtMJ5msDa4c&feature=related

Bomb Iran But Do Not Obliterate Them. Destroy Missiles

United States Security and the Strategic Landscape

Gingrich sees Iran threat

to U.S. like Nazi Germany
Ex-speaker latest official to raise alarm
on threat of nuclear EMP attack by Tehran

“…Gingrich concluded that:

Iran is the most dangerous regime in the world and the “single most urgent threat to American national security.”
The threat can only be understood in the context of “The Long War Against the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam, which is a worldwide war in which the United States and its allies are unavoidably engaged, and in which the U.S. has active campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The U.S. cannot be held hostage or rendered impotent by delays of international bureaucracies in dealing with the threat posed by Iran.
One key to preventing or degrading the Iranian nuclear threat is persuading Russia to stop helping Tehran.
The U.S. has no option but to seek regime change in Iran.

Gingrich said there are reasons to believe Iran “is testing the capability to launch a surprise attack on the United States from a merchant ship of our coasts.” …”

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47501

The EMP Threat: ElectroMagnetic Pulse Warfare

By J.R. Dunn

“…It would also be wise to implement some of the recommendations of the EMP
commission, including stockpiling spare parts for critical machinery and looking into reports that the military has, since the Cold War, been sliding on equipment requirements. (Individuals can also take steps to protect their personal data, an effort which, with items such as flash drives,?is getting cheaper all the time. A flash drive stored well away from any external electrical lines would very likely survive an EMP strike.)

Above all, we can’t allow the problem to slip past without being addressed, always a danger in a confusing and urgent time. Threats have a way of sneaking up on democracies. Back in the 70s, an American president, on the promise of the Soviet premier that no aerial attack would be carried out on the U.S., decided to shut down the Aerospace Defense Command and its U.S. Army equivalent responsible for air defense of the country. The bases were closed, the assets either scrapped or turned over to the National Guard. Two decades later, on a fine morning in September, there were no alert squadrons, long—range interceptors, or surface—to—air missiles to defend New York and Washington.?

The president’s name was Jimmy Carter. We can do better. …”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/04/the_emp_threat_electromagnetic.html

The Electromagnetic Pulse Commission Warns of an Old Threat with a New Face

by Jack Spencer

Backgrounder #1784

“…Protecting the United States against the evolving EMP threat will require a mix of active defenses, passive defenses, and policy changes. Specifically, the United States should:

Develop a clear policy about how it will respond to an EMP attack;
Assess which assets of the nation’s power grid and telecommunications infrastructure are most critical to the overall system;
Harden those critical assets against EMP;
Retrofit at least a portion of U.S. military assets to protect against EMP;
Engineer EMP protections into a greater percentage of future military capabilities; and
Deploy an effective ballistic missile defense. …”

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/bg1784.cfm

Nuclear Weapon EMP Effects

“A high-altitude nuclear detonation produces an immediate flux of gamma rays from the nuclear reactions within the device. These photons in turn produce high energy free electrons by Compton scattering at altitudes between (roughly) 20 and 40 km. These electrons are then trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field, giving rise to an oscillating electric current. This current is asymmetric in general and gives rise to a rapidly rising radiated electromagnetic field called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Because the electrons are trapped essentially simultaneously, a very large electromagnetic source radiates coherently.

The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400–500 km over Kansas would affect all of CONUS. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point. …”

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/emp.htm

Iran may be developing electromagnetic pulse weapons

“…There’s no shortage of talk over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Israel has said point-blank that it would not hesitate to attack Iran (again) if Tehran continues with a weapons program, and both presidential candidates in the United States have said that Iran is dangerous and shouldn’t have nuclear capabilities. However, the real threat has largely not been discussed by the media in the US. A report issued in April by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack notes that an EMP attack could be one of the most devastating types of attack against US military and civilians assets, and wreak havoc on the economy – without requiring a very sophisticated nuclear weapon.

Dr. William Graham, who heads the panel, has noted that recent missile tests by Iran have been suspciously different from past ones. In a private conference last weekend, Dr. Graham outlined the evidence. Among other issues, Iran has detoned warheads at the top of the missile’s vertical range, or apogee – where the curvature of the Earth would not block the maximum broadcast of an EMP signal. …”

“…The most likely user of a weapon like this would likely be a terrorist group that does not fear reprisal, or as with al-Qaeda, one whose stated goal is to generate conflicts between the West and the rest of the world. Of course, the military has been designing weapons to handle EMP for decades. Civilians can also do this, if they so choose. Click here for an Army manual on EMP shielding . …”

http://conservativepulse.com/home/2008/07/iran-may-be-developing-electromagnetic-pulse-weapons/

ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE RISKS AND TERRORISM

“…”Briefly, a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiation down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth,” said the report. “EMP effects are both direct and indirect. The former are due to electrical systems, and the latter arise from the damage that ‘shocked’ – upset, damaged and destroyed – electronics controls then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects can be even more severe than the direct effects.”

The EMP threat is not a new one considered by U.S. defense planners. The Soviet Union had experimented with the idea as a kind of super-weapon against the U.S.

“What is different now is that some potential sources of EMP threats are difficult to deter – they can be terrorist groups that have no state identity, have only one or a few weapons and are motivated to attack the U.S. without regard for their own safety,” explains the commission report. “Rogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may also be developing the capability to pose an EMP threat to the United States and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter.” …”

http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/emp-terror.htm

Electromagnetic pulse

“The term electromagnetic pulse (EMP) has the following meanings:

electromagnetic radiation from an explosion (especially a nuclear explosion) or an intensely fluctuating magnetic field caused by Compton-recoil electrons and photoelectrons from photons scattered in the materials of the electronic or explosive device or in a surrounding medium. The resulting electric and magnetic fields may couple with electrical/electronic systems to produce damaging current and voltage surges. See Electromagnetic bomb for details on the damages resulting to electronic devices. The effects are usually not noticeable beyond the blast radius unless the device is nuclear or specifically designed to produce an electromagnetic shockwave.
A broadband, high-intensity, short-duration burst of electromagnetic energy. …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

Iran military journal eyes
nuclear EMP attack on U.S.
High-altitude missile detonation could be
launched from ship, warn top scientists

“In the latest evidence Iran is seriously planning an unconventional pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S., an Iranian military journal has publicly considered the idea of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack as the key to defeating the world’s lone superpower.

Congress was warned of Iran’s plans last month by Peter Pry, a senior staffer with the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack in a hearing of Sen. John Kyl’s subcommittee on terrorism, technology and homeland security. …”

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44017

EMP and the Unfought Victory

By Timothy Birdnow

“…An EMP attack does not require pinpoint accuracy; it requires height! The higher the device is when it detonates, the greater the area affected. Energetic particles affect anything within line of site, and is also carried by the Earth`s magnetic field, increasing the range of damage. A missile fired at America doesn`t need a fancy guidance system.

Such an attack would be devastating to a nation that uses computers and sophisticated electronics, such as the United States. All cash registers are computers, all bank accounting systems, all credit systems, etc. would be affected. Electricity will be down, so there will be no gasoline available. This won`t matter, since none of the cars will work (all modern cars are regulated by microcomputers). There will be no planes flying (outside of some military aircraft) since there will be no guidance or control, and no fuel. Ditto trains. Water pumps won`t run, so people will go thirsty. The services we take for granted will fail. How long before panic sets in?

Even if an EMP strike should only hit the West Coast, the disaster would be catastrophic; the United States electric grid is divided into three segments, and this strike will more than likely take the entire western power grid completely out. It’s going to be very hard to maintain order with no running water in the arid western United States! Farmers will lose their crops, the sick and elderly will die without air conditioning, and other electricity—dependent services. …”

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/07/emp_and_the_unfought_victory.html

Electromagnetic Pulse-From Chaos To A Manageable Solution
AUTHOR Major M. CaJohn, USMC

“…IV. Conclusions: EMP can be defeated. The military has a sound
and viable program in its strategic communications systems and
weapons; however, the military must emphasize an EMP training and
field expedient program in its tactical communications systems until
EMP hardened equipment is procured. The civilian sector has no EMP
program and must get one to ensure it can survive an EMP
environment.
V. Recommendations: Military leaders must stress and implement an
EMP training and field expedient technique program. The military
must continue to procure strategic and tactical equipment that is EMP
hardened. Government agencies must encourage our civilian sector to
build new communications systems that will withstand an EMP
environment. …”

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/1988/CM2.htm