Posted on 11/16/2001 1:13:05 PM PST by Bad~Rodeo
Nuclear Weapon Blueprints Found In Bin Laden Hideout
Documents with detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons hav been found in Kabul safe houses used by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
The partly burnt papers were found by The Times in a hastily abandoned house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city, the newspaper reported.
There are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT compresses plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and ultimately a thermonuclear reaction, it said.
Documents were found in two of four al-Qaida houses which has been used by Arabs and Pakistanis and even reportedly by bin Laden himself, the newspaper said.
They included studies into the development of a kinetic energy supergun capable of firing chemical or nuclear warheads, external propulsion missiles, preliminary research on the creation of a thermonuclear device, and many instructions for making smaller bombs.
The discovery of the detailed instructions, written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, confirms the West's worst fears of an attack far worse than the September 11 atrocities, the newspaper noted.
Nuclear experts say the design suggests bin Laden may be working on a fission device similar to Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, but they emphasise it is extremely difficult to build a viable warhead, it added.
The houses were abandoned on Monday night as Taliban units and their allies fled the city as the Northern Alliance advanced.
How specific might these "plans" be? seems the real question.
Though if the enemy possessed the actual weapon, my real concern would be for our forces as they close in.
Then be concerned because the little general has about 25 of these jewels and the ability to deliver them world wide in the cargo hold of his five, PIA, 747-300s.
But if his group has radioactive material of any nature, that would not be good.
It would be surprising if he didn't have some of the raw materials. He may have been reluctant to "waste" them in a dirty bomb, but he may feel that he's running out of time to develop a real bomb.
Only if you insist on a nice efficient implosion type device. A crude gun type device, such as "Little Boy" used on Hiroshima, it's not that difficult. The designers were so certain the gun type device would work that they didn't even test it before handing one over to the Army Air Force to drop on Japan. They did test the implosion device, in what was/is called the "Trinity" test. The characterisics of plutonium made it unsuitable for a gun type bomb, but enriched uranium worked just fine. Enriched uranium was much harder to get/make than plutonium, at least then, so they had the "makings" for several Fat Man type bombs, but only the one "Little Boy" type was sent to the Pacific.
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