"Game, Set, Match" The Unmasking of WMD

OK, Iraq had the plans. Did it have the equipment, the materials? With the sanctions blanketing the country, I find it hard to believe that Hussein was at the point where he could have actually built one. He would have restarted the program once the sanctions were lifted, but that was a future threat, not an imminent one, as the Bush administration claimed.

Mr. Geraghty does make a good point when he says that Saddam could have sold the plans to Al-Qaeda. But it seems unlikely, given that Al-Qaeda despised Saddam, a secular dictator, almost as much as we did, and he knew that. Even if he would have sold them the plans, our actions haven't reduced the threat very much. Al-Qaeda could still get the plans from any one of a number of unemployed scientists from the former Soviet Union, or Pakistan, or North Korea. Any of them would be more likely to cooperate with Al-Qaeda than Hussein was. So we invaded Iraq and have been fighting for the past three years to reduce the threat by what, 2%? 5%? 10%, at most. I'm no strategist, but this seems like a very ineffecient way to keep us safe. At this rate, Al-Qaeda can take its sweet time getting those plans.

Funny that it seems only either Norse Pagans or those who take names from Norse gods are responding to you...

Anyway, you can find enough information in the average encyclopedia in any gradeschool to build a nuclear bomb if you have the appropriate equipment. The only hard part is the enrichment. The rest is pretty easy. IN fact, a gun-type nuclear bomb is rediculously simple. Just a conventional bomb that sends one piece of fissile material into another big enough one at high enough speeds to start the chain reaction. Not complicated at all. Implosion type devices are harder, and harder still are initiator devices. But these are all quite possible to build with the right equipment.

The only think that protects us is control over weapons-grade material. That is all... Scary, huh?