Well, actually, I did quite well in chemistry. A year of the regular Chemistry course and three more semesters of Advanced Chemistry/Independent Study in high school. Then in college I double-majored in Chemical Engineering and Nuclear Engineering for two years until it became obvious that the liberal anti-nuclear activists (useful idiots for the Soviets) had effectively destroyed the nuclear industry. So I switched from Nuclear Engineering to Computer Science and have had a productive career since then. But if you are resorting to ad homonym attacks, I must be winning the argument. And I will be sure not to criticize your spelling.
"The shaped charges, and the timing of the explosion is crucial to successful detonation of the fissile material."
Simple geometry (I did quite well in math, too. Another independent study in Calculus. My first math course in college was Differential Equations). Oh, and some basic physics.
"Plutonium is not particulary radioactive"
That much you have right.
"but does oxydize readily in the air, and produces a fine powder in dong so that contaminates everything and is easily inhaled."
Who said anything about sloppy handling? Simple does not mean stupid.
"Did I mention that it is EXTREMELY toxic?"
That's two right. Back in ancient times on this forum I have said exactly the same thing. Plutonium is far more dangerous as a chemical hazard than as a radiological one (as long as you don't put too much together). Again, simple does not mean stupid.
"Once you have the pit, you have to have the mathematics necessary to know how much overpressure needed to fizz the pit, and have the specilized skills necessary to construct the charges."
No you don't. All you need to know is how the charges were shaped in the device the "pit" came from. After that, pretty close is close enough.
"Not exactly something that is taught in the Madrass."
Yes, of course you are right. All the terrorists are frothing religious fanatics with third grade educations. None of them would ever conceivably be able to learn to drive, or fly a jumbo jet or put together a bomb or anything.
"These things cannot be slapped together, and expected to work."
Again, who said anything about sloppy work? It isn't, nor was I suggesting, like slapping a glob of C4 on a door and having a person sized hole magically appear after the blast, as one might see on TV.
"General nuclear weapon theory is common. Having the resources plutonium to build one is not."
Ever notice that there is no real effort to control the knowledge of how a nuclear weapon works, just the access to the fissile materials? There is a reason for that. You put forth these trivial problems as insurmountable obstacles - keeping the plutonium in an airtight environment, delivering an electrical charge to multiple points simultaneously (the simplest scenario), copying the geometry of a shaped charge - when they really are trivial.
It's not trivial. Nuclear weapon design, in public, has been deliberately sanitized and *over* simplified. But even what is in the Public domain is complex. Here's Fermi's reactor patent for getting a mere chain reaction (note: a chain reaction is insufficient for an atomic bomb):
First Atomic Reactor Patent by Fermi, 1944