Incorrect. We aren't talking about wiring up a Maytag washing machine here!
Even minuscule changes in resistance in wires can wreck what would have otherwise been a successful implosion.
Posted on 07/14/2005 12:24:33 PM PDT by Sweetjustusnow
Paul M. Williams author of The Al-Queda Connection which is due to be released soon, provides a compilation of data based on; FBI, CIA, Vice President Cheney, Homeland Security, Attorney General Ashcroft and news sources. Makes a strong case that there are 20 suitcase nukes in the USA which have been smuggled in through the border with Mexico.
A thank you for that post and a Nomination for 'Post of the day' BUMP! (I've just printed that out to memorize and repeat, the next time I hear this conversation come up around acquaintances. Great link too.)
Thanks, I'll keep an eye out for Pancho the terrorist dishwasher the next time I'm in the US.
Of course not silly, we have a few thousand military over there thinning them out, unlike here where we have 55,000 guards frisking little old ladies at the airport.
Incorrect. We aren't talking about wiring up a Maytag washing machine here!
Even minuscule changes in resistance in wires can wreck what would have otherwise been a successful implosion.
How many of these pass in and out of the country running drugs?
These devices are not fragile. They are so mechanically simple that they are sort of disappointing. They can be totally disassembled, with the core only transshipped across the border. It can be assembled in perhaps thirty minutes.
The core is a hollow sphere of metal. The core weighs only a few pounds, and is somewhere between the size of a softball and a grapefruit. This is the only portion subject to maintenance if it is kept separate from the other parts. The implosion device is cast Pentolite. This is several pieces that assemble just like the pentagonal sections of a soccer ball. This material is stable, and mechanically sound. The detonators are molded into the back sides of the Pentolite sections. These are exactly like ordinary electrical blasting caps, except that they are very carefully matched to detonate in a precise time period following the application of electric current. The wires from those detonators simply plug into the electronics package. That unit contains batteries and capacitors to supply current to the detonators. The detonators receive current through carefully matched SCRs so that current flows at exactly the same time when triggered. The wires are equal length so that the impulse is received at the detonators within a few nano seconds of each other.
Only the core will decay. The explosives, detonators, and electronics are not subject to decay. The batteries can be replaced. Ordinary tools are used for assembly. The core is not a radiation hazzard to the crew.
This is very simple. Anyone who can handle LEGOS can handle maintenance and assembly of one of these.
I suspect they want to have a measure of our resolve. If they get the idea that we won't retaliate against Islamic holy cites or widen the war in a spectacular fashion, I suspect they will do it.
No, not "new" in terms of atomic decay. The Soviet Union (read the article) fell in 1991. 14 years of constant clean room lab maintenance, at a MINIMUM, would be required for any such Soviet suitcase nukes.
That's just utter nonsense to think that they would WAIT to use one if they had one. Al Qaeda isn't expending enormous amounts of its resources to *MAINTAIN* a nuke.
I'll agree that AL Qaeda could come up with large sums of cash for the PURCHASE of such a device, if the opportunity arose, but there is no way that they are spending money maintaining them for later use.
If they get one, they'll try to set it off. If they wait, the nuke will decay. The smaller the nuke, the faster its useable life will pass, too.
Sprinkle some radioactive stuff on top before detonation and presto, a small but (to the general public) scary radiological weapon. However I can't see it being militarily significant even if there were a dozen of them.
The only way I can picture terrorists having a working mini-nuke is if they bought an old Soviet basket case (and there are probably at least a few 'missing'), and hired some ex-Soviet nuke engineer with a PHD and making $50 a month to refurbish it. Not easy, but not impossible either.
No way. At least one of them would have been found by now.
Arabic is one of the most difficult critical languages to learn, we still have a massive deficiency in the U.S. in that regard. I've been learning it for two years, taught by a fluent teacher, and I can attest to the challenge. 90% of my classmates dropped the class after the first semester.
What does this mean?
You do that SA.
I approach this topic two ways, the first is the jihadists groups seek nukes and will use them at the time and place of their choosing. Bin Ladin has made this clear and he has a fatwa to do it.
Stories and rumors about dozens of loose nukes I am skeptical about...however I am not skeptical of the possibility of one or a few...in the hands of al Qaida.
This article by LTC Myers was very interesting and on a more termperate level....
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44251
There is a bootleg of the full article posted at Free Republic somewhere, he challenges the analysis and finding of both the CIA and the WMD Commission... and feels less confident about this issue after reading the WMD report than before.
In my view the use of a nuke is something al Qaida would not rush, would prepare for at many times the effort of 9-11 and would want to ensure a successful detonation that [after reading the Myers article] may be what all the nuke activity in Afghanistan was about...training operatives and handlers to lite-one off, not build their own wheel...
Myers gives it a moderate probability they have access to one or more nukes...so given that possibility, the real question is what do we do now?
As a minimum, I think we have to assume they do have one. So what are our plans and strategy and what do we do to deter its use? Because they got it from someone and some countries, people, entities, have assisted them in being able to use it. If the mushroom cloud goes up what is will be our response....?
So we are also behind the power curve in forestalling this possibility in my view as well from warning aiders and abetters...
Balderdash. We're not talking about the wires being in a radiaition field equivalent to the inside of a nuclear reactor, which is what it would take to have the kind of effect you're talking about.
I can see MAYBE warhead radiation having an effect on thin-film resistors and capacitors, as these are in the pretty much the same category as chips, WRT radiation effects---BUT NOT WIRING.
Tell me Smart A$$, how does that explain why I live in KY and not in position of authority. Make yourself clear.
How precise does the detonation timing have to be to achieve a successful implosion?
They will use them to destroy our economy. They will wait for high gas prices and deficit spending to peak.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.