US gov tells all: "how to build a nuke bomb"

[clevin]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15540188/
Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that outside experts, including the director of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, informed the Bush administration that it might have inadvertently publicized how-to-manuals for making nuclear bombs.

A diplomat affiliated with the IAEA said its inspectors were “shocked by the explicitness of the content” on the Web site and that a senior agency official conveyed the concerns to U.S. diplomats in Vienna, where the agency is based.

But Matthew Boland, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the IAEA, said Friday that “Ambassador (Gregory) Schulte did not receive any protest or expression of concern from the IAEA on this issue.” Two intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that outside experts, including the director of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, informed the Bush administration that it might have inadvertently publicized how-to-manuals for making nuclear bombs.

A diplomat affiliated with the IAEA said its inspectors were “shocked by the explicitness of the content” on the Web site and that a senior agency official conveyed the concerns to U.S. diplomats in Vienna, where the agency is based.

But Matthew Boland, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the IAEA, said Friday that “Ambassador (Gregory) Schulte did not receive any protest or expression of concern from the IAEA on this issue.”
how incompetent is this gov.

[Chundles]

Well it's not like it's a big secret. The trouble is getting a hold of the equipment and the materials, not the actual construction.

[Thomas Veil]

CNN headline:

U.S. yanks Web site with reported nuclear secretsYanking seems to be what this administration does best. ;)

[benthewraith]

Well it's not like it's a big secret. The trouble is getting a hold of the equipment and the materials, not the actual construction.

A kid back in the seventies went to his university library and built a working model of a nuclear bomb. If he had the plutonium, it would have worked. And this was during the height of the cold war.

[nbs2]

Oh please... I remember during the infancy of the internet before we were all paranoid actually researching how to homebrew C4, thermite, and build a nuke...while in and at high school.

[Desertrat]

Yeah, I remember all the squabbling about such information, forty years back. Various paranoids would want to classify something "Burn Before Reading", and it was difficult to make them understand that it was public information and had been so for years and years.

Back in 1961/1962, I took a semester of nuclear physics and two semesters of power reactor design. Textbooks, right? Full of "How to..." Bought 'em at the universtity bookstore.

Never try to explain hardware realities to lawyers and liberal arts majors. they're software people. :D

'Rat

[benthewraith]

I guess Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_bomb)'s pretty incompetent too.

[MacBoobsPro]

Well it's not like it's a big secret. The trouble is getting a hold of the equipment and the materials, not the actual construction.

What do you mean?

I have a Plutonium Tree in my garden!

I can just ask mum for some Fairy Liquid bottles and boom!

:D

[clevin]

I guess Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_bomb)'s pretty incompetent too.

well, if u think wikipedia is as powerful as US government, then ... yeah.

[benthewraith]

well, if u think wikipedia is as powerful as US government, then ... yeah.

The issue is, the information has been publically available since the 1960's, available in university libraries, library of congress, etc. Anyone who has a degree in nuclear physics should be able to do it. As for a few documents winding up on the internet, well, Karl Rove has a reason for everything, doesn't he? ;)

[clevin]

The issue is, the information has been publically available since the 1960's, available in university libraries, library of congress, etc. Anyone who has a degree in nuclear physics should be able to do it. As for a few documents winding up on the internet, well, Karl Rove has a reason for everything, doesn't he? ;)
dear, are u telling me the classified information about nuke isn't different from the stuff in your local lib? plzzzzzzz

[Don't panic]

http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/blm/1985/blm850318.gif

[clevin]

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell comments:
Mitchell: …Peter Hoekstra in fact said, Quote: "Let's unleash the power of the Internet on these documents to see if there was a smoking gun on WMD's"—the intelligence experts were reluctant to release these documents..Skeptics at the time said that all this was being done by conservative bloggers and others on the Intelligence committees to try and bolster their argument that the war was in fact justified in the first place.

These specific dozen documents–they did have a blue print for making bombs and those technical documents could have been helpful to terrorists…The net affect would likely be that it would hurt the administration because it shows that they—once again—were the gang that couldn't shoot straight!—they forced the Intelligence community to do something that the experts didn't want to do and the President himself overruled John Negroponte on.

[it5five]

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work, and they were talking about this.

They were saying that while there are many places on the internet where you can get instructions on making bombs, the documents that were put on the internet had very technical engineering instructions about triggering mechanisms and other things. They were more in depth and much more instructive on how to make the bomb than what you could normally find online.

EDIT:Here is the link (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6430419)

[zimv20]

can you imagine if this had happened with a dem president and congress?

[it5five]

I only hope these last 6 years have taught everyone a lesson: never vote republican again.

[mischief]

Why doesn't someone post a freakin link!?!

MR could declare itself sovreign if we had the stinkin Bomb on board.... Just ask that crazy midgit from NK. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QdzzZCgFbU)

[beatsme]

it's not like it's a big secret. And anyway, knowing how to do it is one thing, but being able to is something else entirely.

personally, I think I have a right to know how they're made, how they work, etc. Science belongs to everyone, not just the government.

[Dont Hurt Me]

I only hope these last 6 years have taught everyone a lesson: never vote republican again.
I wish it was so but lets face it we have people in this country who are partison Republican first, Americans later. More of the same from this party of big business. They couldnt do the peoples work if they were forced to. Is anyone in charge? Oh wait George and his republicans are in charge, that explains it.

[it5five]

it's not like it's a big secret. And anyway, knowing how to do it is one thing, but being able to is something else entirely.

personally, I think I have a right to know how they're made, how they work, etc. Science belongs to everyone, not just the government.

If you had read my link though you'd have found out that these instructions answered tough engineering questions and gave very specific instructions on firing mechanisms and other things. These instructions were much more useful than something you'd normally find online.

[beatsme]

If you had read my link though you'd have found out that these instructions answered tough engineering questions and gave very specific instructions on firing mechanisms and other things. These instructions were much more useful than something you'd normally find online.

I did

[solvs]

can you imagine if this had happened with a dem president and congress?

You'd have heard more about it. I didn't even know until I came here. You'd think this would be bigger news than Kerry's botched joke, which people are still talking about. :rolleyes:

[zimv20]

You'd have heard more about it.
had this happened under clinton's watch, it would have been bigger than monica.

- lead or near lead story on nightly news for months
- both houses of congress would have stopped all other business
- conservative radio would have nothing else to talk about
- republican leaders would be calling for clinton's immediate resignation and calling for treason hearings
- congress would open multiple investigations and call for public hearings of just about everyone in the clinton WH

let's not kid ourselves, that we're hearing nothing makes the elephant bigger than the room it's supposedly in -- this is a double standard unlike any other i've seen.

liberal media, my ass.

[link92]

So now we know why U2 went and released an album with a "mad long title" [Bono, CNN interview in 2006] called How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.