[bond7]

I have read a number of times that they are useless without the correct codes and that it is nearly impossible to remove the plutonium or uranium and turn them into a new weapon.

Does anyone know the whole story?

[codebreaker]

Right, the electronics are worthless after a few years unless repaired so detonation is out of the question.(that was why Osama needed the 12 retired Parkistan nuke workers)

Could these be manufactured into some sort of 'dirty bomb' with radiation?

[mostlyundecided]

Now, we know that the FBI has been told that the 5000 Muslims in America they want to interview would not talk, that they are too frightened...so you have come up with something that is going to make them more afraid of the terrorists they are protecting.

If they are told the terrorists might have nukes, then they might be more willing to tell what they know.

Call it wishful thinking.

[steve-b]

What kills the "suitcase" models fast is the tritium needed to augment such a small mass of fissionable material. Tritium decays into helium-3 with a 12-year half-life, which means that after a few months there is a significant helium-3 contamination. Helium-3 eats up the neutrons needed to start a chain reaction. No periodic replenishment with new tritium, no big boom.

[El Gato]

I have read a number of times that they are useless without the correct codes and that it is nearly impossible to remove the plutonium or uranium and turn them into a new weapon.

Does anyone know the whole story

While I doubt few really know, I can't imagine that the "fuse" which processes the codes, can be all that hard to work around. At some point the "fuse" has to tell the "package" to go. Now that might be one signal line, it might be multiple ones, but given enough time an electronics engineer or electronics technition should be able to find it, and patch around it. But then what do I know? I do know that I wouldn't want to bet my life, or the lives of countless others on it being impossible.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

I have read a number of times that they are useless without the correct codes and that it is nearly impossible to remove the plutonium or uranium and turn them into a new weapon.

The electronics can be changed out by someone who knows what they are doing. There are plenty of guys from the middle east who came over here for graduate study in electrical engineering. The real issue is whether or not they have also gotten hold of a supply of fresh tritium to recharge the devices. Without a recharge within the past 3 or 4 years the devices would just fizzle.