The chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., warned Monday that the U.S. is vulnerable to nuclear attack by terrorists who may have access to as many as 60 briefcase-sized tactical nuclear weapons now missing from the former Soviet Union.

Shays, who has held 18 hearings on terrorism over the last two and a half years, delivered the frightening warning in an interview with WABC Radio's Sean Hannity.

"We've known for years that the host countries have developed nuclear and biological agents and that they haven't been reluctant to share them with the terrorists. ... And frankly, the race we have right now is to make sure that [terrorists] don't get a nuclear device."

Shays warned that the impact of Russia's missing tactical nukes is so potentially devastating they would make an excellent weapon for geopolitical blackmail.

"I guess if you'd be willing to kill 50,000 people you'd probably be willing to use it. But they'd more likely want to blackmail us. More likely they'd say, 'There's a nuclear device somewhere in some city and if you don't do the following it's going to go off.'"

In 1992, NewsMax.com contributor Stanislav Lunev first outlined the threat posed by Russia's suitcase nukes in his book Through the Eyes of the Enemy. Lunev is the highest-ranking Soviet intelligence agent ever to defect to the U.S.

Shays said an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin had initially admitted to his committee that "out of 140 of [their tactical nukes], the Russians could only account for about 80 of them."

"Now the Russians are denying that and we don't really have a straight answer from our own government," he added.

U.S. officials believe that some of the missing Russian nukes have been sold to the highest bidder, Shays told Hannity.

"The problem we have with the Russians is they can't pay their employees. So some of this very sensitive, very expensive and very dangerous weaponry is being sold for ridiculously small amounts of money."

The congressional security expert said that the impact of a tactical nuclear blast on a crowded urban area would be devastating.

"They're like one-fifth of what was used in Hiroshima. ... It would be a disaster if it went off in any community. You wouldn't be able to go back for years. It would destroy a city. It would just be horrendous. It is our worst fear, obviously."

But the tactical nukes are small enough to make detection nearly impossible.

"They are literally the size of a large briefcase. They're not even the size of a big suitcase," he explained.

Shays said that as bad as the attacks of Sept. 11 were, the worst may be yet to come - even without nuclear weapons.

"We have every reason to believe that terrorists have access to chemical and biological agents. ... It's not a question of if there will be a biological or chemical attack - it's a question of when, where and of what magnitude."

One particular threat that hasn't received much attention is smallpox, the congressman said.

"There are only two countries that basically have the germ - the United States and Russia. But the question is, Russia has been somewhat like a sieve in terms of some of their state secrets and some of their weapons - they're getting into the wrong hands."

The Connecticut Republican warned that the U.S. is woefully unprepared for a smallpox attack.

"Smallpox would be devastating. ... We only have about 12 million doses of the vaccine."

Shays said his committee ran a test to gauge the government's response to such an attack. Code named "Dark Winter," the germ was theoretically released in Oklahoma.

"Frankly, we lost," he told Hannity. "We ran out of vaccine. ... We can't develop enough doses of smallpox. It would take five years."

A biological attack is harder to respond to than a chemical attack, Shays said.

"The challenge with a chemical is that it's instant and it's deadly, but at least it doesn't spread and you know about it right away. The problem with a biological agent is you don't know about it until about four days after the germ has been let out."

Posted by permission of NewsMax.com http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2001/9/25/111557