Mini-nukes: Let's be irresponsible

Today's irresponsible web site is the mysterious TRBNews, allegedly run by one Walter Storch, about whom I know nothing. He seems to delight in coming up with "scoops" which few people take seriously. (Elsewhere today, for example, he details the Pentagon's upcoming draconian draft plans, as relayed by an unnamed source.) Even so, my continuing interest in porta-nukes directed my attention to this story, apparently written by Mr. Storch.

The article is a cut-and-paste job involving material from different eras, beginning with Iran-contra, to which present-tense reference is made. Ah, the names...! Merex, Secord, Interarmco...now that stuff takes me back. Like many another compiler of intel detritus, Storch does not assemble his material into a comprehensible whole -- it's one of those data dumps where the facts fall on the floor in a messy pile.

As the text progresses, the author introduces us to James P. Atwood -- some of you may recall this bigwig in the weapons trade -- and James Critchfield, the recently-deceased legendary CIA man who helped recruit Gehlen and, later, placed Saddam Hussein into power. The lovely topic of Russian-made suitcase nukes then takes center stage. Some deny that such weapons exist; many others insist that they do.

What follows is material previously unknown to me. File it under "For what it's worth":

In 1992, James Atwood, the former Interarmco people and an Israeli Russian named Yurenko (actually Schemiel Gofshstein) formed a consortium in conjunction with James Critchfield, retired senior CIA specialist on oil matters in the Mideast to obtain a number of these obsolete but still viable weapons. Both Critchfield and the Interarmco people had, at the behest of the CIA, supplied weapons to the rebels in Afghanistan during their protracted struggle with the Soviet Union...

...Utilizing Atwood's STASI and ex-KGB contacts, they were able to obtain from bribed Russian military personnel, twenty of the atomic warheads. With Critchfield's Mideast and Afghanistan connections, these warheads were sold to a Pakistani group for an estimated US $20 million in early 1993. Yurenko brokered the transfer of money via two banks in Pakistan to a Swiss bank.(Specific account information is known) Some of the money, $US 50,000 was deposited into a so-called "white account" (i.e., one that the SBA could release information on to any outside probers) and the balance into three so-called "black accounts" (i.e., accounts that were truly secret.)

An interesting picture, no? Not sure how much of this is believable. We need some details.

And -- oh yes -- motive. Presuming there is a motive beyond the $20 million.