.
If it was "decades old", chances are that it would have been a dirty bomb and not a nuclear explosion.
Still not good if true especially if you're one of the techs doing the dismantling.
Well, I certainly hope that's not true, or at the very least misinformation.
Just for reference, the W-56 was the warhead carried by the Minuteman I and Minuteman II ICBMs.
I claim BS! You cannot detonate a nuclear weapon with a chain reaction explosion using any sort of mechanical force. You can blow it up with another nuke and it will not set off a nuclear explosion. You can burn it, you can blow it up, you can run over it with a train and it will not explode with other than he non-nuclear high explosive in the weapon.
Last Cold War-era W56 warhead dismantled
AFX
June 30, 2006
(For personal use only)
The Minuteman missile was a hallmark of America's defenses during the Cold War.
The Energy Department said Thursday it has completed dismantling the last W56 warhead that for 30 years, beginning in the early 1960s, was the deadly core of the Minuteman I, and later the updated Minuteman II long-range missile.
http://www.sgpproject.org/Personal%20Use%20Only/w566-30-06.htm
ping
I know these guys. They are an extreme left anti-military group that opposes all weapons (nuc and conventional) and all defense spending.
For example, they oppose the Osprey tiltrotor, and say we should buy more helicopters... but they oppose helicopters too. They'd let us use sticks and stones if we could do it without disturbing the environment.
They work closely with another misleadingly-named crank group, the "Center for Defense Information," which was a Soviet-controlled front organization during the 1980s. I don't know if external enemies run POGO, or just homegrown ones.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
www.pogo.org is somewhat biased in their views.
I would like to wait until all the facts come in.
RElated article.
Last W56 Minuteman Warheads Dismantled, (June 29, 2006)
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/27-06292006-677660.html
The Energy Department said Thursday it has completed dismantling the last W56 warhead that for 30 years, beginning in the early 1960s, was the deadly core of the Minuteman I, and later the updated Minuteman II long-range missile.
"Dismantling the last W56 warhead shows our firm commitment to reducing the size of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile to the lowest level necessary for national security needs," said Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
I smell bullsh!t. They don't just "go off".
I agree with some other posters. I would consider the source, and this looks like BS.
Everybody knows you got to soak the hell out of'em.
Unidentified kind of sums it up, my BS detector just went off.
Here's the problem
The Project On Government Oversight
A non-partisan non-profit government watchdog whose mission is to investigate, expose, and remedy abuses of power, mismanagement, and government ...
www.pogo.org/ - 30k - Cached - Similar pages
See, we could be decomissioning them over Iran? What a waste!
Well, I'd miss the Big Texan, anyway...