Word: mubtakkar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...urgent days of May, the CIA let on to the Saudis that al-Ayeri might know about the mubtakkar cell - and that he might be the only one. In postmortems that roiled through Langley, that last part was seen, maybe, as a misstep. 9/11, with 15 of the 19 hijackers from the kingdom, created the greatest fissure in the long, dime-a-dance waltz between Saudi Arabia and America. The effect of a second disaster - with chemical weapons and a clear link to Saudi Arabia - would be unfathomable...
That's where they found it: plans for construction of a device called a mubtakkar. It is a fearful thing, and quite real...
Precisely, the mubtakkar is a delivery system for a widely available combination of chemicals - sodium cyanide, which is used as rat poison and metal cleanser, and hydrogen, which is everywhere. The combination of the two creates hydrogen cyanide, a colorless, highly volatile liquid that is soluble and stable in water. It has a faint odor, like peach kernels or bitter almonds. When it is turned into gas and inhaled, it is lethal. For years, figuring out how to deliver this combination of chemicals as a gas has been something of a holy grail for terrorists...
Terrorism experts inside many governments have been on the lookout for reports of a solution to these engineering hurdles. Now, the CIA had found it. Mubtakkar means "invention" in Arabic, "the initiative" in Farsi. The device is a bit of both. It's a canister with two interior containers: sodium cyanide is in one; a hydrogen product, like hydrochloric acid, in the other; and a fuse breaks the seal between them. The fuse can be activated remotely - as bombs are triggered by cell phones - breaking the seal, creating the gas, which is then released. Hydrogen cyanide gas is a blood...
...briefers were summoned from the waiting area. One of them placed the mubtakkar on a low table in the sitting area. Bush looked at it. Cheney and the others were seated. The President picked it up - felt its weight. "Thing's a nightmare," he said quietly, almost to himself, and put it down. A CIA briefer went through a dissertation on the device, the technical problems it solved, its probable uses and the long road of trial and error leading to this moment. Everyone just sat in the Oval Office, looking at it - thinking about the era and its challenges...