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911 Title: Father of Neutron Bomb Father of Neutron Bomb: Use It on Osama Wes Vernon Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2001 WASHINGTON – Top officials in the Bush administration and in Congress have been urged to use a small neutron bomb to wipe out Osama bin Laden in a quick first strike in the war on terrorism. Sam Cohen, the scientist who invented the neutron bomb, has outlined for these officials his plan to 'do in' the Taliban and terrorist Osama bin Laden, and do it quickly. That, says Cohen, would go right to the core of the terrorist threat and at the same time satisfy the typically American impatience. The neutron bomb has a limited blast and causes little collateral damage or lasting radioactivity while killing its intended targets. "My offhand guess is that the majority of Americans couldn't care less how we 'do in' the Taliban and bin Laden and company, provided we get it done and [quickly]," he told http://NewsMax.com in a phone interview from his West Coast home. Cohen, whose views were often accepted by President Reagan, agrees with President Bush regarding the need for the American people to resolve to hunker down for the long term. The global terrorist threat is indeed "going to go on for years," Cohen agrees, but he is telling policy-makers in Washington, "the name of the game right now is Afghanistan [and] bin Laden." What we need, he says, is a quick, highly visible strike to begin that war – one that Americans can see now. That, he believes, would stiffen the public's resolve for the future. The president has already told Americans that the war itself won't be quick and easy and could take years. "I don't think they're going to be very tolerant of a prolonged [ground war,]" argues the scientist. He cites Korea and Vietnam as examples of the limits of America's patience. At the same time, Cohen points to the 1991 Desert Storm as an example of an air war of short duration that did not do the job, given that Saddam Hussein remains in office today, as powerful as ever, plus the fact that resulting civilian deaths in that conflict vastly outnumbered military casualties. Hardy consistent with the first President Bush's vow to wage "a Christian war," in Cohen's view. As a solution that would be both quick and effective, the author of "Shame: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb" proposes reconfiguring Minuteman missiles. Remove the thermonuclear "big bang" component (hundreds of kilotons). Once that is done, these weapons could be deployed to target the hideouts of terrorists in Afghanistan. Cohen says his sources tell him the U.S. has "fair intelligence" on the Taliban and "where their units and training camps are spread around." The problem with "bombing the hell out of them" is that "we don't know where these guys are, and they're nobody's fool" and now that they know they're under attack, "they're going to be on the move." They will "burrow and bury themselves" while continuing their training exercises. To counteract this requires, first, the "element of surprise." Secondly, there will be a need for a weapon that imposes "mass destruction" that is carefully targeted. Each Minuteman missile has three warheads. The thermonuclear component could be defused, while keeping the "trigger" at the kiloton level. "A kiloton bomb would do approximately the same amount of harm" as the hijacked airliners did to the World Trade Center Building. "We hit them unannounced. All the president has to do is punch a button to put the plan into operation, and [these reconfigured kiloton bombs] can be retargeted practically within minutes." Ridding the weapons of the thermonuclear component can be done "within days," Cohen argues. Further, they would take "considerably less than a half-hour" to reach their destinations. The "kiloton fission" would be a "deadly force," with a radius of about two-thirds of a mile "towards killing people who are exposed." That would be about a square mile, which "ought to cover the area of a training camp." The radioactive fallout would be relatively limited in terms of immediate death and death from prolonged effects. The neutron bomb stockpile was eliminated after the Gulf War. The weapon had the potential for destroying humans without destroying property. Peace activists around the world had denounced it for that reason. In fact, Cohen noted, in contrast to his famous invention, the kiloton bomb could destroy property. Also, whereas the neutron bomb can produce widespread radioactive fallout, the bomb he advocates for a quick strike in the current war is more carefully targeted. Cohen's plan is known to have elicited a very positive reaction in some Washington quarters. Where it goes from there has yet to be determined.
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