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U.S. reprisal to be 'annihilation'
Washington Times ^ | 9/09/02 | Joyce Howard Price

Posted on 09/08/2002 11:41:52 PM PDT by kattracks

Edited on 07/12/2004 3:57:00 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

Vice President Richard B. Cheney said yesterday that Saddam Hussein is "actively and aggressively" trying to build a nuclear bomb, and two key senators disclosed that U.S. officials have warned the Iraqi dictator that he and his country face "annihilation" if he deploys a weapon of mass destruction.


(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
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To: AdamSelene235
The USSR refined enough of both for thousands of devices. These materials are now guarded by starving lice ridden Russian soldiers too young/malnourished to shave. While this is too-frighteningly true, what Russian soldier's going to willingly sell this stuff to a country that poses as much a threat to them as to the US (hint, a Moscow-sanctioned sale is more likely than this)?

A state-to-state sale is the likeliest method of Iraq getting enough fast-fissionable uranium. Even then, it'll likely not be pure enough to be just dumped into a weapon. That's where refining comes in. Little Boy's design was so straightforward it was never tested. No timing is required unless you want to add neutron triggering for more yield. 10-20 ktons is pretty much a "firecracker" by modern standards but is more than enough to jack up an urban area. No missle required, thousands of cargo containers enter the US everyday from around the world. If we can't even get a pea shooter in a cockpit in 365 days, how long will it take to get Geiger counters at all of our ports.

And it was so bulky that the largest aircraft in WWII (the B-29) could only carry one 20kT device. A MiG might be able to carry one, but certainly no Scud (and if that particular design could be miniaturized enough to fit on top of a missile, it likely would detonate prematurely due to the physics of launch). The physic and size limitations is why everyone ultimately went with the much-more-complex Fat Man.

As for how a nuke would get from Iraq to the US, you just nailed it. There's no way that even if the Iraqis had a 747 (or other transport aircraft that theoretically would have the range to make it from Iraq to the US), it would make it too far out of Iraq.

Bio's are simpler, more available, and more dangerous. I wouldn't be surprised by the democratization of u-235 guns as well.

Again, you nailed it on the bios. Sure they're not as immediately deadly, but that lack of immediateness would work in the favor of a terrorist that wasn't looking for a quick trip to his 72 Janet Renos.

The Little Boy bomb is, at best, a stepping stone. About its only usefulness is a truck/ship bomb, and not a particularily-powerful one at that. In fact, I'd be a bit more worried about a radiological bomb than that (again, less fingerprints leading back to the terrorist).

121 posted on 09/09/2002 6:48:19 PM PDT by steveegg
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To: A Navy Vet
The synthesis of VX binaries is trivial. Any country with competent organic chemists could pull it off with minimal effort. Most of the effort is in making these things safe for the user, and countries like Iraq appear to take a relatively "minimalist" approach to safety.
122 posted on 09/09/2002 6:48:57 PM PDT by tortoise
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To: Southack
Regarding biological weapons, those are truly weapons of terror, useful only in the strategic sense of killing one's enemies as horrifically as possible with no regard as to the speed of death. In fact, they're not useful if they incapacitate/kill too quickly, as they need to be spread by the people that are infected.
123 posted on 09/09/2002 6:54:47 PM PDT by steveegg
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To: Calamari
Would'nt Saddam have to test his newly aquired nuke to be sure the device worked? Would we not detect a test blast that worked?

No. As AdamSelene235 pointed out, we never tested the Little Boy gun design before we unleashed it on Hiroshima (what we exploded in Los Alamos a month earlier was the Fat Man implosion design). Indeed, for Saddam's purposes, even if his scientists came up with a brand-new design, a failed live shot would be almost as effective as a successful one.

124 posted on 09/09/2002 7:08:49 PM PDT by steveegg
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To: steveegg
Enjoyed your response up until:

but that lack of immediateness would work in the favor of a terrorist that wasn't looking for a quick trip to his 72 Janet Renos.

Eeeewwwwwwww. No dinner for me.

125 posted on 09/09/2002 7:11:01 PM PDT by AdamSelene235
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To: AdamSelene235
Sorry to ruin your appetite, but that's Mohammed Atta's "reward".
126 posted on 09/09/2002 7:21:02 PM PDT by steveegg
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To: ladyinred
VP Cheney was just so eloquent on this show this morning. He is so impressive and just oozes with confidence.

It makes you say, "Thank God for the handful of people who made the extra effort to turn out and vote in Florida!"

Imagine what a Vice President Lieberman would be saying to try and scare off Iraq.

127 posted on 09/09/2002 7:49:42 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan
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To: The Great Satan
>like a biological weapon that could conceivably be misconstrued, at least for some period, as a naturally occurring event

Since no one would misconstrue the anthrax letters as a naturally occurring event, I could not help but wonder if Cheney was privately thinking of West Nile fever when he uttered this phrase.

128 posted on 09/09/2002 8:27:49 PM PDT by Wallaby
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To: AdamSelene235
"Pity they can't fix their damn railways. Kazak trains are a fate worse than death."

Ok Da, R Snayu...

129 posted on 09/09/2002 8:40:13 PM PDT by Southack
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To: Calamari
"Would'nt Saddam have to test his newly aquired nuke to be sure the device worked? Would we not detect a test blast that worked?"

Hard to say. Getting U-235 or plutonium (or even U-238) is problematic, and your final "purity" of the isotope is a relative thing. Maybe your processes (or seller) can get it to 90% pure. Maybe to 94.2% pure.

But you as the nuclear engineer will have to know the precise purity level.

Why? Because the "critical mass" will depend upon that purity, the shape, and a host of other smaller factors. If at any time during your manufacturing process or construction process you have more of the material in one place than the critical mass, then you just vaporized yourself and a couple of square miles of now-depreciated real-estate in what was once your research lab or assembly area.

So you've got to know your precise purity, and THEN your math has to be precise for that purity, shape, et al.

Oh, and every second that passes means that all of your mathematical equations change because all of the materials that you are working with have very different half-lives that change your purity level (e.g Polonium at 138 days, tritium at x days, U-235 at y days, et al).

If you don't have enough fissionable material when you chose to detonate the bomb, then it will merely "fizzle" (i.e. all ya get is a dirty bomb). If you have too much fissionable material, then it explodes as you are constructing it.

And consider that back in WW2, the one side that the world erroneously considered was the most technically advanced (i.e. the Germans), goofed the math and derived the WRONG quantity needed for reaching critical mass. So it's pretty easy to get the whole nuke angle wrong, and the math error might not give you a second chance, if ya know what I mean.

So knowing all of that, the prudent R&D team will at the very least measure the amount of material necessary for a self-sustaining chain reaction (and hope that all of their other fissionable material is precisely the same purity) so that the correct quantities for reaching critical mass can be derived (and who knows, perhaps the self-sustaining chain reaction test can be detected by some means).

Then armed with those precise values, construction teams can then begin to try to shape and form the proper amount of fissionable material per the warhead design of their choice, and if they make an error of not very large proportions at any time, then things don't work out as planned for them.

130 posted on 09/09/2002 9:08:02 PM PDT by Southack
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To: Southack
Yes and no in terms of difficulty. The U.S. did it with 1940's technology, no real computers to speak of, and no specific idea of how to make it work. What America did was, even then, based on principles too widely known to be a real secret. Now, Iraqi physicists have the benefit of modern education, and modern electronic technology for production and ignition.

I doubt there's much beyond their capacity except the acquisition of purified uranium235 or plutonium. The rest is complicated engineering and electronics, but not anything we can count on being beyond their ken.

It's unlikely Iraq could build a thermonuclear bomb in the foreseeable future, but the older, uranium type is awful enough.

131 posted on 09/09/2002 9:18:00 PM PDT by Timm
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To: Southack
Thanks for the info, because that is out of my league. I wasn't aware the stuff decayed so quickly as to cause a pressing problem with shelf-life of weapons.

There was on one of the UNSCOM reports a mention of a model bomb, or prototype, without of course the active ingredent. The indication was that its predecessor had been tested at least for the basics. Whether the test was really a useful one or not is another matter, it may have been a political show to make Saddam think his scientits were making progress so he wouldn't get angry. It could have been something which would fail and be at most a dirty bomb.

But now that you pointed that tolerance in manufacturing out, I reckon if they have to order aluminum pipes they are trying to make up for a weakness in their system; the inability to accurately produce even custom tubing for the centrifuge/refining process. I think one of the most difficult tasks on the design of the Blackbird was the landing gear. The aircraft heated up so much in flight that they had to find a solution to prevent the tires melting and parts failing because of the effects of extreme heat. Tolerances and material properties become a big issue under those circumstances, so must be more so when dealing with the something like this kind of bomb.

I was interested in how secure already refined material is in the former USSR. How bulky and heavy would a smaller crude weapon be with shielding be? I've heard that if such a thing is under water it is harder to detect, but how far under wouid it have to be to shield it from detection? And if it were placed in the bottom of the hold of an oil tanker, immersed in crude, would that be a waste of time to prevent detection?

I suppose it does look more like it's just an extra-intense Baker-type warning to the Iraqi elite. Even Scott Ritter's message to the Iraqi congress seemed to be a made-to-order warning to get the ultimatum through to the next group down from Hussein in Iraqi authority, the people most likely to be able to deal with him. Maybe Ritter was at least useful in getting that message across when broadcasting it might not do the trick, even if it was his real intent or not.

132 posted on 09/09/2002 9:32:04 PM PDT by piasa
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To: Southack
Oh, and every second that passes means that all of your mathematical equations change because all of the materials that you are working with have very different half-lives that change your purity level (e.g Polonium at 138 days, tritium at x days, U-235 at y days, et al).

Gives new meaning to the term 'herding cats.'

133 posted on 09/09/2002 9:42:15 PM PDT by piasa
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To: The Great Satan; keri; Mitchell; Illbay; John H K
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Who did the anthrax attack last fall, Tim?

I gather Cheney does not think it was Hatfill.

134 posted on 09/09/2002 10:58:58 PM PDT by Nogbad
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To: Nogbad
No, he doesn't. And he seems not overly concerned that the FBI has assigned a bunch of bumbling idiots to figure the case out. Which is odd, really.
135 posted on 09/10/2002 12:01:23 AM PDT by The Great Satan
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