thomas malloy wrote:
The discussion about the missing nuke makes me wonder about stealing one verses buying or building one.
All of the expert opinion I have seen is that it would be easiest by far to purchase a "loose nuke" from one of the ex-Soviet Union states. This is the most likely scenario. Many of the bombs are held in poorly guarded facilities, which are manned by corrupt troops who often go for months without pay.
The US and Russia have a joint program to destroy these loose nukes and improve the security of the remaining facilities for bombs and also for radioactive material from disassembled bombs and nuclear reactors, which can be used in a dirty bomb. Unfortunately the Bush administration has reduced funding and delayed the completion of the program for many years. I regard this as most worst terrorist threat, but also -- paradoxically -- as the easiest to eliminate. Terrorism is supposedly the main concern of the Bush administration, but their inaction on this proves that they are not serious about terrorism.
A few experts have suggested that a terrorist might be able to buy one from North Korea but based on their failed test last year, Mizuno and I do not think the North Koreans are capable of making nuclear weapons. This points out the extreme difficulty of option three: building one. If the nation state such as North Korea cannot do it, I think there is no chance that a small organization could independently build one. It would be like surreptitiously trying to manufacture an Apollo rocket, or a billion-dollar microprocessor fab plant.
- Jed
