He doesn't need a missile to attack us with nukes. He just has to put the nuke in a shipping container on a boat headed for New York harbor (or Norfolk, Jacksonville, etc.). In this case, there's nothing we could do to stop the attack unless the Coast Guard happens to inspect and search that ship. I don't think we can inspect all the ships entering our ports. Well I wonder. If Hussein were that intent on committing suicide, he could have put 20,000 pounds of plastic explosive in a shipping container anytime in the last ten years and had one hell of an explosion. He doesn't have to wait until he has a nuc. Don't we check shipping containers? Otherwise what's there to prevent people from sending in anthrax, fertilizer bombs, plastic bombs, AK-47s, mortar rounds and short range missiles?
Even if it were easy to get a weapon of mass destruction to the United States in a ship, I still don't understand what's in it for Hussein. Whatever else is wrong with the man he's not a religious fanatic dreaming of 72 virgins. He wants to be remembered for a 1000 years as the heroic leader who saved Iraq, not as the damn fool who got himself (and his country) incinerated in a retaliatory nuclear blast.
An attack with a nuke in a shipping container wouldn't necessarily be suicidal. In a really tight covert operation, there might not be enough evidence for us to figure out conclusively who attacked us. Remember, all the physical evidence would be destroyed in the blast (and I mean all of it...no truck axles left behind like in Oklahoma City). And we can't just vaporize Baghdad or any other place without conclusive evidence of their guilt. These are the scenarios that the pentagon evaluates constantly. Cheney has talked a great deal about the threat of nuclear attack and blackmail by Iraq. Don't think it can't happen just because it hasn't happened yet. The coffee's brewing my friend...take a whiff and wake up.