Just to cover a couple bits of ground here:

Size of nuclear weapons; see:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...itions/vla.htm

Size and possible availability of nuclear payloads, whether recovered or purchased:
http://www.lostsubs.com/Soviet.htm

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/m...row/shkval.htm
"Apparently fired from standard 533mm torpedo tubes, Shkval has a range of about 7,500 yards. The weapon clears the tube at fifty knots, upon which its rocket fires, propelling the missile through the water at 360 kph [about 100 m/sec / 230 mph / 200-knots], three or four times as fast as conventional torpedoes. The solid-rocket propelled "torpedo" achieves high speeds by producing a high-pressure stream of bubbles from its nose and skin, which coats the torpedo in a thin layer of gas and forms a local "envelope" of supercavitating bubbles. Carrying a tactical nuclear warhead initiated by a timer, it would destroy the hostile submarine and the torpedo it fired. The Shkval high-speed underwater missile is guided by an auto-pilot rather than by a homing head as on most torpedoes."

Just something to ponder.

Apparently the difference between us is that I don't get my experience from fiction books. Posted were facts commonly reported in major publications. It requires reading more than one page. Daily News and Fox News consumers will find everything here new which is why they will be skeptical. But those who come from where the work gets done have long taken special care that this most obvious possibility - a terrorist atomic weapon - will never happen. Its called the lessons of history. When it is that obvious and that destructive, then it just does not happen. Unless leadership is so corrupt as to not even read a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US". Remember that little fact from the 9/11 Commission report that you did not read and therefore denied? You could not deny it, did not like the fact, so instead you took a snide insult at this poster. IOW I then knew you have a problem with first learning reality.

When one cannot challenge the facts, then one instead questons the messenger's integrity. Rather than reply to numerical relationships as posted, instead there is some silly proof that mutual funds outperform stocks by exampling some selected mutual funds. Even Peter Lynch, the most famous mutual fund manager, says that common stock ownership provides a better return than mutual funds or bonds. More facts that you do not refute.

Stated up front for so many reasons (you admit you cannot read them all) are numerous reasons why a terrorist nuclear attack is all but non-existant. All one need do is steal one, transport it, and explode it anywhere? Its that easy? Who writes this stuff?

Please feel free to teach us how easy it is to build, steal, transport, arm, and trigger a nuclear device. Anyone who knows mutual funds are superior also knows one need only press a button to trigger a nuclear device. Clearly so easy that any fiction writer even can explain it.

Just another reason such terrorist attack is so unlikely. The US government, at least during Clinton's time, was actively 'gaming' so that such events would not happen. IE. "... a terrorist group called the FBI and announced that it had a nuclear weapon in Washington. The report went on to state that the joint Energy-Defense search team, acting on a tip from the Coast Guard, located the weapons in a cabin cruiser tied up in a yacht club less than two miles from the White House." Of course you knew?

Obvious and tested threats are rarely the challenge. Threats that are unique or unknown - especially those that the president (should have) reads on 6 Aug and ignores - are the greatest threat. Terrorist with nuclear weapons in this generation is just not possbile without a major worldwide disruption - such as a president so ignorant of the world to alienate Pakistan or India.

Please demonstrate how one can steal a nuclear weapon. Steal arming codes. Do this without being detected so that the entire world is not looking for that weapon - especially a weapons that advertises its existance. Maintain that weapon so that it remains operational. Transport that weapon across national boundaries that are security hyped. Do all this with hundreds of operatives that all remain completely undetected. Of course his only repeats what was posted before and what you could not answer (instead disparaging this poster). For this attack to happen, one needs an American President such as pre - 11 September George Jr; who outrightly suspended anti-terrorism programs that were active, ongoing, and successful during the Clinton era.

Terrorists can obtain, deliver, and activate nuclear weapons only because you know. Sounds more like business school reasoning to me. So let's see. You cannot provide a single valid reason why terrorist could obtain a nuclear device. Instead some wild speculation that Russia does not keep track of its nukes. You just know this which is sufficient as proof.

So tell us - on what day will George Jr launch his attack on Iran? A question to see if Outlook123 first reads what he replies to. A long list of reasons why terrorists will not obtain nukes was listed. Outlook123 never bothered to challenge any of them. He just knows they are wrong because Fox News told him otherwise?

"... a terrorist group called the FBI and announced that it had a nuclear weapon in Washington. The report went on to state that the joint Energy-Defense search team, acting on a tip from the Coast Guard, located the weapons in a cabin cruiser tied up in a yacht club less than two miles from the White House." Of course you knew?

Hang on a sec... you're saying it's impossible for a terrorist group to get a nuclear weapon, and to back up your argument you present evidence that a terrorist group DID HAVE a nuclear weapon less than 2 miles from the White House? The fact that we happened to locate the weapons before they were detonated does not change the fact that they somehow managed to get there.

Actively "gaming" to prevent attacks is obviously a good thing--but by its very nature it admits that an attack is possible.

that's it i've had all i can stands and i can't stands no more. up until this point i didn't understand why anyone would put another on "ignore". now i understand. i still choose not put anyone on my "ignore" list but from this moment on i vow to never pound my head against the brick wall known as tw.
tw- you can take that as a victory if you like, i don't really give a shit. i haven't put a whole lot of creedance into your posts since you disappeared after getting shut down with facts in the mutual fund thread a few months ago... but now i just give up. for you there is a devil behind every Bush and there can be now way to persuade you of anything beyond your own preconceived ideas.

TW, there is no such thing as "weapons grade" U238. U238 makes up better than 99% of all Uranium mined, which is why it was so difficult to come up with the amounts of U235 necessary to make a bomb. Developing processes to separate out the U235 were a major part of the Manhattan Project. U235 is the rapidly fissionable material used for bomb making. When you introduce an extra neutron to U235, the result is unstable and breaks down into two lighter atoms, such as Cesium and Strontium. There are also additional neutrons released, which go off and fission other atoms of U235. This is the "chain reaction". Energy is also liberated in the fissioning which is where the big boom and destruction and radiation comes from. When you throw an extra neutron at 238 it absorbs it, which is what makes P239, which is weapons grade plutonium. The graphite and uranium pile at the Squash Court was a primitive precursor to today's breeder reactors, if I remember my Manhattan Project history correctly.

Gee, thanks, Wolf. I was just getting ready to go to sleep and you have to go and get me scared of Naturita all over again. Did you know that my cat's eyes glow in the dark? Consider it, your post, my imagination, and my cat. Probably won't sleep all night. :eek:

I have no desire to engage in further discussion with TW on this issue, but for the rest of you that have read his assertions that it is impossible for a terrorist organization to make a nuclear strike - this article is for you. you can find other support for the position if you choose to look for yourself. i am only posting a few quotes from the article found at Armscontrol.org. i have posted the link for the whole article.


[i]However, Moscow’s reductions have not been transparent, fueling concerns about the extent to which Russia actually fulfilled its pledges under the initiatives, how many tactical nuclear weapons remain, and how they are stored. There have been occasional, vague announcements from Russian officials about progress made, but Western experts and officials rightly see the lack of information on the location and safety of these weapons as a serious security problem. Without reliable data on the vast number of Soviet-era tactical weapons, no one can be sure if any have fallen, or are in danger of falling, into the wrong hands. [i]

The “loose nuke” problem in Russia has, of course, been a source of concern for some time, but viewed through the prism of the September 11 attacks, Russia’s lax nuclear security is even more troubling. For example, Colonel General Yevgeniy P. Maslin, chief of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, which is responsible for nuclear munitions, claimed in 1996 that theft from Russian nuclear weapons facilities is “impossible.” But he qualified his statement by noting that during transport Russia’s nuclear weapons could be vulnerable to theft by criminals or terrorist groups. Maslin expressed concern about the potential theft of nuclear weapons by insiders, rhetorically asking, “What if such acts were to be undertaken by people who have worked with nuclear weapons in the past? For example, by people dismissed from our structures, social malcontents, embittered individuals?”8

As defense analyst Matthew Bunn has pointed out, Russia’s security problem stems partly from its communist past in which Russia had “a closed society; closed borders; pampered, well-cared-for nuclear workers; everyone under close surveillance by the KGB. Now, it’s largely the same security system having to face a world with an open society; open borders; rampant theft; crime; corruption; desperate, unpaid nuclear workers. It’s a totally different situation that the system was never designed to address.”9 In a February 2002 report, the CIA explained, “The [Russian nuclear weapons] security system was designed in the Soviet era to protect weapons primarily against a threat from outside the country and may not be sufficient to meet today’s challenge of a knowledgeable insider collaborating with a criminal or terrorist group.”10

Armscontrol.org

13.6 pounds was sufficient in 1945. Two bombs designed without the benefit of any existing weapons technology, without even electronic computers (let alone supercomputers). Yield: 21kt.

And plutonium is heavy. So the quanity is less than you might think, in terms of its volume. I imagine a coffee can full of the stuff would be enough.

Just the fact that 'powers that be' are gaming to avoid and deal with such problems at many levels demonstrates that a terrorist nuclear device is all but impossible. I never said it was impossible. I said there is a long list of 'filters' that make atomic terrorist weapons not probable. So that Outlook123 may even read it, I will group those reasons he would not read in general categories. And these are but an abbreviated list of reasons:
1) weapons don't go missing without knowledge AND without virtually every nation looking for that rogue weapon.
2) the weapon virtually advertises its location for so many reasons including large numbers of human operatives to make it into a terrrorism device.
3) only Outlook123 and his cadre of fiction writers and Fox News reporters thinks this weapon can simply be triggered by pushing a button.
4) superior terrorism actions are far easier. What kind of people are terrorists? Typicically the mentally weak such as Richard Reed who could not even give himself a hot foot or the LAX bomb transporter who was scared off simply by how a black lady custom guard looked at him. Typically those of low intelligence - a view of the world only in black and white; good and evil - become extremists. They will then steal, transport, maintain, arm and trigger a nuclear device? Only in the fictional world of Outlook123. What color is the button to push to activate a nuclear bomb?

Again to post what was already posted: the possibility is near zero. But the consequences are catastrophic which is why we have but another layer to make such terrorism all but impossible. When leadership has intelligence, then the principles are forced by an intelligent president to play 'games'. Those games make that kind of terrorism extremely more unlikely.

Now we go back to why terrorism succeeded - the most important condition to permit terrorism: It sat right there on George Jr's desk. The 6 Aug PDB. A blunt warning of an immenent hijacking and attack on the US involving planes and buildings. Those two CIA agents who wrote it wanted a title that would most catch the President's attention because they were so worried about the immenent attack. How could intelligence be MORE actionable? That is as good as any intelligence will ever get! Instead George Jr ignored it.

We know federal agents in AZ, MN, IL and now (thanks to the 9/11 Commission) even agents in NY were on the trail of the 9/11 Terrorists. All they needed was one good reason so that their bosses stopped impeding the investigation. George Jr and Condi Rice, instead, had Richard Clarke demoted from the Principles level! Richard Clarke's group was promoted to Principles level because Clinton wanted terrorism stopped - and did so multiple times. But George Jr had been educated by people still living with a Cold War mentality and an agenda to save the world from itself - Wolfowich and Rice. Therefore terrorism was about ballistic missiles and pre-emption. IOW George Jr made it so easy for bin Landen to attack. Just another classic example of a well proven concept: 85% of all problems are directly traceable to top management - George Jr - god's choosen president.

IOW an administration that does not 'game' a cabin cruiser in a Washington Yacht Club makes a terrorist nuclear device just a little more possible. Please put this all into numerical perspective and not into the black and white world of Outlook123. An atom device is not even on the first page list of probable terrorist strategies - except when a reader such as Outlook123 cannot put facts into perspective. It is but one of so many possible scenarios used to game - so that we know how to respond to the real attack we never expected.

And again, I listed here previously a simple terrorist attack that would have far more success and would be massively devestating. I will not post that example again for good reasons. But anyone who thinks bin Laden will use an atomic device is simply making a 'real' bin Laden attack easier.

If leadership were not gaming, then a terrorist atom device is but slightly more likely. Because good leaders game these scenarios and because the atomic terrorist device concpet is even understood by idiots, then it just will not happen.

Another example - fertilizer bombs. Will more happen? Again put that way down on a list of possible terrorist weapons. Been there. Done that. Everyone knows that terrorist tactic. It will not happen again. No, that does not say it can never happen. Don't interprete what is posted here in black and white like Outlook123 does. The fertilizer bomb is now top the list of potential terrorist devices in every citizen's mind which means a terrrorist could not do it without being discovered.

What will be the next terrorist device? Well, what has not yet been attempted? Again, I posted a massively destructive example some years ago and will not post that example again. It has certain characteristics necessary to be an effective weapon. Takes very few operatives. Uses rather obviously simple materials and technology. Would be easy if we have more leaders, such as George Jr, who cannot bother to read his Presidential Daily Briefings.

This nation's number one anti-terrorist investigator was literally pushed out of government by this George Jr administration because he was doing his job properly - loudly warning that another attack was coming. John O'Neill died exactly where he said, in Elaine's the night before, that the next terrorist attack would probably happen. WTC. After being forced out of government anti-terrorism, and after almost discovering two of the 9/11 attacker, instead, John O'Neill was killed by those terrorists - after the George Jr administration drove him from anti-terrorism. Terrorists he could have caught had a mental midget president all but stopped anti-terrorism activities by the US government.

Again, don't use black and white. I did not say George Jr stopped all anti-terrorist actions. And I did not say a terrorist atomic attack was not possible. I said it is so unlikely that only someone like Outlook123 would worry about an attack in this decade. Read those sentences with care and don't assume a political agenda. But an atomic terrorist device in the US is simply too far from the world of reality - in part because we now routinely 'game' for it.

If this could be answered in black and white, then I too would post single paragraphs like Outlook123. But then I am providing 'real world' facts and putting those facts into perspective - rather than attacking another poster.

Wolf has properly and accurately corrected my numbers. U235 is necessary for weapons grade uranium. It is quite easy to convert weapons grade uranium back into commercial grade. Simply mix U235 with U238. Seperating the stuff is so difficult that WWII and Cold War processing plants were located where electricity was plentiful.

The squash court chain reaction by Fermi and Sklar was simple uranium and graphite similar to how many early commerical nuclear reactors including (I believe) Chernoybl work. Don't know how much U235 was in that Uranium. But that world's first chain reaction was not bomb grade. Important point - graphite is a moderator.

Breeder reactors are a whole new concept originally pioneered after WWII. Because of how a breeder works, many breeder reactors use liquid sodium - not water. Sodium because it is not a moderator. How dangerous is liquid Sodium - a reference to some text in a very good citation by Troubleshooter? Simply put a little bit of sodium into water - and run.

All reactors create some plutonium. Idea is to design a reactor and its fuel so that minimal plutonium is created. But a breeder reactor has a completely different agenda. Its purpose is to create energy AND create more fuel than it 'burns'. We have a problem. There just is not enough Uranium to keep all these nuclear plants going. Idea is to put depleted uranium or other euqivalent materials (ie thorium) into a reactor that includes plutonium. Have no moderator that would slow down neutrons. It produced electricity and even more nuclear 'fuel' in its first demonstration reactor in the western desert. Reactor had initials something like ERMI. Have long since forgotten.

Fermi 1 which residents of Toledo and Detriot can visit was this nation's first commercial breeder reactor. The story goes largely untold. But those who love adventure books and detest a-hole fiction will read "We almost lost Detroit". In short, breeder reactors are unstable, not well understood, and have killed people. We gave up and entombed Fermi 1 (next door to Fermi 2 - a conventional reactor). Europeans tried and also failed (I don't know those details).

So where is most of the world's plutonium? I answered that some years ago in a post that truly defined a serious terrorism threat. Massive amounts of plutonium were processed in Britian and France. Then shipped to Japan without any military escort (Japan would not permit their warships to go international). Terrorists never expedited the oppurtunity.

So now most of the world's plutonium is in Japan supposidely to make a breeder reactor. (There are very good political reasons to believe that plutonium may have also had secondary purposes). But at any rate, Fermi and Sklar's chain reaction had little in common with breeder reactors other than both involve nuclear reactions and uranium.

Good luck finding a missing 10 pounds of plutonium. You would be better off trying to photograph secret alien aircraft in Area 51.

Even one pound of missing plutonium would cause massive evacuations and would loudly advertise itself. The stuff is that well monitored first and foremost because it would kill many if simply misplaced. Again, it is in fiction books that terrorist happens to stumble on even one pound of plutonium hidden on a back road.

TW, I agree with you that a terrorist is going to use whatever method is the most inexpensive and expedient. I was mostly just fooling around with my "wilds of Colorado" scenario. However, I disagree with your assessment of terrorist mentality. I think many intelligent people in the Middle East both fear and hate the West for reasons from both current and past history. The minions who carry the actual tasks out may indeed be evil mental midgets, but the hand behind the scenes is an intelligent one. Intelligence is no guarantee of emotional stability, and any number of otherwise bright people are guilty of black and white thinking in at least some areas of their lives. Any soldier who goes to war must think in black and white terms, otherwise he could never stand his ground on the field of battle.

I also do not share your complacency regarding the efficacy of soviet nuclear security. The Soviet Union has become pretty chaotic, at least when compared to the days of the old Communist regime, and there are plenty of desperate people who would look the other way for enough money and the border with the MidEast is right there in the backyard. I'll agree, it would be a major pain in the ass to pull off, but if it were to happen, I think the former USSR would be a more likely vector than would cautious, strait-laced Japan.

I dropped the possibility of Bush attacking Iran into a conversation today. 2 of the 4 people gave me a "Duh, well of course he is". :eek:

Yes, that was a typo. The office staff made the error from "Iran" to "Iraq". They're both kinda the same, right? Next we'll be going for original target, Iran.