U.S. Publishes Guide To Building Atom Bombs To Web

Jeff writes "The New York Times is reporting that the feds have shut down the 'Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal' due to concerns from weapons experts that the 'papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.' One diplomat is quoted as saying, 'If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.' Indexes to older (less sensitive) documents (and some html from pdfs) are still cached at Google today. Rep. Pete Hoekstra pushed for the public release of the archive to help determine 'whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them'. Critics have said the archive was created to perpetuate misinformation about WMDs."

Comments

.torrent?

[CaptainPinko]

These would be fascinating to look it and I'm sure anyone who could get the raw materials already has this knowledge.

Um, "Short circuit"?

[ScentCone]

If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things

I guess we have to assume he means "would be a short cut past a lot of things," presumably some re-inventing-the-wheel R&D that was done 50 years ago and has been repeated in Pakistan, India, and now North Korea (where you can get a free pizza with any weapon you buy, as long as you pay shipping). Worrying about it seems a little silly since the Khan network had already done a fair business in selling complete, down-to-the-schematics and Home Depot shopping list tutorials to all sorts of folks. Any country/party that wants to build nukes is going to have a much harder time getting the riht fissile material pulled together than they're going to have setting the thing off.

Re:But I Thought They Didnt Exist?

[Zenaku]

Jesus. If you were following the story you would know that these documents are from Saddams pursuit of nuclear weapons prior to the 1991 gulf war. It has never been in dispute that he had an active weapons program before that 1991 war. We sure as f-ck didn't go into Iraq because we though he might still have some documents on how to build an A-bomb. We went into Iraq because he allegedly still had an active weapons program and/or WMDs lying about somewhere, and/or the raw materials to make them. All 3 of which proved to be a complete fabrication.

These documents do not show anything new about what Saddam had or didn't have. They only show that while our government was willing to start a war just in case Saddam was dumb enough to give such designs to a terrorist group that hated him, our government is itself dumb enough to take those designs and give them to a terrorist group that hates us.

Bravo. Darwin awards for all!