[edpc]

In State of War, Risen reveals that Clinton also had an overly ambitious plot, which eventually backfired, involving assisting an enemy with WMDs. Operation Merlin had the CIA using a Russian atomic scientist, who had defected to the United States, to sell or give nuclear bomb blueprints to Iranian diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The catch was that the plans for the TBA 480 "firing set" contained design errors that would send Iran's scientists down the wrong path and delay their development of weapons. The TBA 480 is a Russian device for creating the implosion that sets off the nuclear chain-reaction in a bomb. The Russian scientist, whose defection does not now seem as genuine as was supposed, spotted the flaws and offered to help Iran fix the problems. But even if he had not tipped off the Iranians, other Russian and Chinese experts are known to be helping Tehran, so the design flaws would likely have been spotted at some point.

The Iranians may be a little closer to making a missile warhead than we'd like. Link to the full story below:

The Clinton Follies http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/hawkins200604241046.asp

[MeanWestTexan]

Those are good missles for a fusion or plutonium bomb, but a U-235 bomb is a horse --- around 10,000 pounds.

Short of the rockets used to put people in orbit, I am unaware of anything that comes close to that payload.

It would be a huge, probably liquid-fueled beast.

Unstable, not easy to launch, and an easy first-strike target.