And BTW...That article is about the creepiest article I have read on these threads.
If there is any truth to it, "be afraid, be very afraid".
Actually I only mean this as a figure of speech, I don't believe in running around terrified, but we can only imagine the difficulty of the intel services, law enforcement, and decision makers. If they don't err on the side of caution, which may seem they are being overly cautious, when nothing happens, the devastation of a missed attack could be unimaginable.
My personal assessment is that I don't know whether such a thing as red mercury exists or doesn't, but I really do believe that the terrorists and some of the rogue nations do have capabilities, to which the term WMD doesn't even do justice.
Here is another article -- an interview with a nuclear scientist -- it underlines and adds credibility to the previous article, in why the Iraq invasion was indeed urgent. It's an article from 1997!
http://www.manuelsweb.com/sam_cohen.htm Bomb inventor says U.S. defenses suffer because of politics
06/15/97
By Christopher Ruddy
FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Cohen is the physicist who invented the neutron bomb, the one that kills people but leaves things like tanks and buildings intact. Plans to deploy his creations in Europe during the '70s and '80s awakened the "peace movement" across that continent, stopping its deployment.
Other nation's haven't been afflicted by the U.S. blindness regarding neutron bombs. According to Cohen:
Evidence exists that China has neutron bombs stockpiled, and that the United States gave the Chinese the technology to build them.
Russia has a large quantity of such weapons, as well as the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Most frightening for Cohen is the relative ease by which neutron bombs can be created with a substance called red mercury. Red mercury is a compound containing mercury that has undergone massive irradiation. When exploded, it creates tremendous heat and pressure - the same type needed to trigger a fusion device such as a mini-neutron bomb.
Before, an obstacle to creating a nuclear bomb was the need for plutonium, which when exploded could create a fusion reaction in hydrogen atoms. But red mercury has changed that. The cheap substance has been produced in Russia, Cohen said, and shipped on the black market throughout the world.
Cohen said that when U.N. inspectors went to Iraq to examine the Iraqis' nuclear weapons capabilities, the U.N. team found documents showing that they had purchased quantities of red mercury. The material means a neutron bomb can be built "the size of baseball" but able to kill everyone within several square blocks.
The public isn't being warned about this development because the politicians have little desire to combat the menace or to confront nations like Iraq, Iran and Libya that likely would use such weapons, Cohen said.