Absolute nightmare scenario. I'm voting for Bush again. We can't play games with our national survival. Bush is going to have to open up a much bigger can of whoop(stuff) if the taliturds try any stunts like this. When I saw that these devices went AWOL from Central Asia (one of the "Stans" I believe) (info. in the public record) in the last year or so, I knew something was seriously up.
By studying reports of missing or stolen weapons, reports of illegal arms sales and/or alleged proliferation, one can piece together a potential threat scenario. Combine those threat systems with potential buyers and "end users," the threat picture becomes clearer. All that needs to be determined are potential delivery systems, targets and dates, and a defense and contingency plan can be formulated.
The missing mini-nukes were allegedly acquired by Al Quaida elements, which is still hell bent on attacking the USA, again.
We need to pray for protection and also for wisdom as to how to deal effectively with this evil.
Who knows if they are operational or not. I'm sure they are working O.T. to get them operational if purchased in a semi-obsolete state.
20 ??? BTW, someone had better have some hard, verifiable inside Intel to make a qty "20" claim.
The problem is that these terrorist organizations really do have extremely wealthy supporters from a region that closely resembles the Middle East ... A major security concern is that not all ex-Soviet weapons facilities are as secure as they should be, and in some cases, personnel may be tempted to let go of some of the NBC materials for large cash payments.
The income levels of some of the ex-Soviet military, security and scientific personnel (absent extremely strong ethics and morality) open up the possibility of cash deals and incentives for NBC materials to be offered from the "black market" (IE: non-state terrorist actors with cash reserves to burn).
If you were a commandant at a semi-secure weapons facility in the former USSR making $60-$100 month U.S. (or whatever minimal amount) and someone (also with veiled threats) initially offered you $10 million US cash for some of the materials in your care, what would you do?