Posted on 03/21/2004 9:52:31 AM PST by sonsofliberty2000
"Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing filled with used pinball machine parts."
"On 7 September 1997, the CBS newsmagazine Sixty Minutes broadcast an alarming story in which former Russian National Security Adviser Aleksandr Lebed claimed that the Russian military had lost track of more than 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs"
Alexander Lebed and Suitcase Nukes
General Lebed conveniently dies in a helo crash shortly after these revelations.
The big question seems to be maintainence of these devices, not if they were sold on the black market.
He died five years later(4/28/02).
IMPOSSIBLE!
WITH AMERICA'S BORDERS SEALED SHUT, AND GUARDED BY TROOPS...THEY COULD NEVER GET A SUITCASE NUKE INSIDE THIS NATION!
"Hmmm....about those borders, Montag...got some bad news for ya..."
Like everyone else has said, if they had them they would have used them a long time ago.
This is trash.
It means they are fashionable, and won't clash with the latest in terrorist garb?
The Russian Nuclear Bomb
in Washington, DC
© 2001 Time Inc.
Commentary by Russ Kick In its 12 Nov 2001 issue, Time ran this brief article on page 31. Hugh Sideythe magazine's Washington Contributing Editorhas been covering the presidency for Life and Time since 1957. In this snippet, he reveals that JFK told him in 1961 that the Soviet Union has a nuclear bomb in its embassy in Washington, DC. In my book, this counts as a major revelation, yet there are several factors that indicate that this piece was created in a way that minimizes its impact. And that's exactly what happened: minimal impact. A sitting president told a White House reporter that the Russians have an atomic bomb in the nation's capitol, and no one heard it. Here are some of the odd aspects of this article: Presentation. After the letters section, each issue of Time has a section called "Notebook," a hodgepodge of quotes, obituaries, and factoids. This crucial revelation was run in this unlikely section, on the same page as a look at Muslim headgear. And because it was put in "Notebook," it's not available online, since Time doesn't post that section on its Website. To top it off, the article is presented under the label "Personal History," as if it were some charming recollection of JFK spilling soup on his tie and making a witty remark. Timing. Kennedy told Sidey about the A-bomb in 1961. Sidey told us in 2001. Does Time have any explanation about why it waited 40 years to publish this remarkable piece of information? It certainly makes one wonder what the current President is telling White House reportersrevelations that Time will publish in 2042. Lack of follow-up by Time. OK, so the Soviet Union smuggled parts for an atomic bomb in diplomatic pouches, then assembled it in their DC embassy. Does anyone know whether this bomb still exists and where it is now? Seems to me that there's a good chance it's still somewhere in the area. When the Soviet Union collapsed, did they take apart the bomb and ship the pieces back to Russia in diplomatic pouches? Did they load the whole thing onto an airplane and fly it back to the motherland? Both scenarios seem unlikely. Would Time care to investigate whether this bomb is still in the Russian embassy in Washington, DC? Lack of follow-up by the rest of the media. Come to think of it, would anyone care to investigate this? It appears that no other media outlet has picked up the story. You might think that Kennedy revealing an A-bomb a few blocks from the White House would be highly newsworthy, but you'd be wrong. |
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copyright 2002 Russ Kick |
Nuclear weapons small enough to be called "suitcase nukes" contain subcritical amounts of fissile material, and require a "booster" made of tritium or some other short-lived isotope as a neutron source. Over the course of a few years the tritium decays and is no longer able to boost the reaction to criticality unless it is replaced. And replacement is a high-tech operation, beyond the technical capabilities of anyone who isn't capable enough to build their own nuclear weapons from scratch in the first place.
At least one of the US nuclear tests in the 50's failed because the tritium booster wasn't up to snuff.
So the good news is that portable nuclear weapons have a limited "shelf life".
I thought he was vaporized earlier.
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