I refuse to split hairs over this pointless detail when my main point in the first place was; There is no easy way to produce a fusion bomb.
You seem to be well versed on this subject, so why spread unnecessary panic amongst the people who are not?
My point is; If a Terrorist group manages to obtain enough radioactive material to produce a DIRTY BOMB, the results will be serious but not devastating to the degree of a Nuclear Device. A DB might effect an area of several city blocks but it will not achieve the mass destruction or geographical contamination that the Terrorists are looking for.
Actually, U-238 and U-235 are beasts unto themselves, the same as Pu-239. What makes U-235 difficult to harvest is that it's invariably mixed in with U-238 in Uranium ore. The refinement process utilizing weak magnets helps separate the U-238 from the U-235.
I refuse to split hairs over this pointless detail when my main point in the first place was; There is no easy way to produce a fusion bomb.
Again, as I pointed out previously, I was not discussing fusion bombs. I was discussing fission bombs.
You seem to be well versed on this subject, so why spread unnecessary panic amongst the people who are not?
I'm not spreading panic. If anything, my point is this: yes, the means of constructing a fission device are readily available, but the one crucial element (sufficient quantities of fissionable material) are well outside the grasp of terrorists in this present day. That's the bottom line. Maybe it makes people uncomfortable (as it should), but it only helps drive home the point that we are doing the Right Thing(tm) in taking out rogue nations who either have -- or could have in the future -- the capacity to produce the crucial ingredient: weapons-grade Uranium and/or Plutonium in critical mass quantities.
My point is; If a Terrorist group manages to obtain enough radioactive material to produce a DIRTY BOMB, the results will be serious but not devastating to the degree of a Nuclear Device. A DB might effect an area of several city blocks but it will not achieve the mass destruction or geographical contamination that the Terrorists are looking for.
Are you aware of how long Nagasaki and Hiroshima were deemed uninhabitable? They both had fission bombs dropped on them in August of 1945. Yet by the start of October of 1945, we had nearly 70,000 of our own troops occupying those two cities. Today, both cities are quite inhabited.
Contrast this with what we'd have in the event of a dirty bomb: particulate radioactive material distributed across a wide area; inhalation of which would make for serious health problems in both the short and long term.
And al Qaeda doesn't care one bit about which one to use; they'll consistently opt for the one that is most likely to succeed. Between the two, the "dirty bomb" requires far less sophistication and is far less likely to fail.