[HawaiianGecko]

 

	Correct. RDX is nothing more than plastic explosives. RDX is considered the most powerful and brisant of the military high explosives.  It was invented in 1890 and was used in the first "plastic explosives" created. For 380 tons of it to be "looted" 18 months ago, yet NOT show up in a car bomb to date tells me this whole story is a load of crap.  Absolutely none of the I.E.D.s that have been blowing up in and around Baghdad have been from RDX and/or HDX, although if I were inclined to build a bomb I most certainly would prefer to use a bit of easy to use, easy to mold, easy to detonate, yet extremely safe to work with RDX. It's like a bunch of looters robbing a bank but not spending a single dime of the booty over an 18 month period.  I'm just not buying it. For what it's worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX It is a colourless solid, of density 1.82 g/cm³. It is obtained by reacting concentrated nitric acid on hexamine. It is a heterocycle and has the shape of a ring. It starts to decompose at about 170°C and melts at 204°C. Its structural formula is: hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine or (CH2-N-NO2)3 At room temperatures, it is a very stable product. It burns rather than explodes, and only detonates with a detonator, being unaffected even by small arms fire. It is less sensitive than pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN). However, it is very sensitive when crystalized, below -4°C. .

 

[ml1954]

I was just looking at the same link. From other links I've found that RDX has a 170% TNT equivalent. So this 380 tons is equivalent to less that 700 tons of TNT or a .7 kiloton nuclear device. I'm not even sure a nuke can be made with that small of a yield. This is much ado about little. Terrorists with enough money should be able to get their hands on all of the high explosives they want.