Originally published January 24 2006
Experts assess the risks of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S.
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
WorldTribune.com excerpts from Frank Gaffney's book "War Footing," which assesses the dangers posed by an electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S.
The Soviet tests included a series of high altitude nuclear detonations over South Central Asia.
EMP from these tests damaged overhead (and even underground) electrical cables at a range of 375 miles, causing surge arrestor burnout, blown fuses, and blackouts.
The consequences of an EMP attack would of course be far more significant today, with so much of our infrastructure (civilian as well as military) dependent on electricity and electronics.
In that event, a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the safety and overall viability of our nation.
An EMP attack potentially represents a high tech means for terrorists to kill millions of Americans the old fashioned way, through starvation and disease.
Although the direct physical effects of EMP are harmless to people, a well designed and well-executed EMP attack could kill --- indirectly --- far more Americans than a nuclear weapon detonated in our most populous city.
Dr. Lowell Wood of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, a member of the EMP Threat Commission, has warned in testimony before Congress that an EMP attack could reduce the United States to a pre-Industrial Age capacity, in terms of its ability to provide vital food and water to its population.
Concerned members of congress received help from an unlikely quarter in May 1999, when Russia explicitly invoked the specter of an EMP attack on the United States.
The commission survey found that the following nations were knowledgeable about EMP: China, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, and Russia.
The commission also learned that some foreign military experts regard EMP attack as a form of electronic or information warfare, not primarily as a form of nuclear war.
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