Nuclear Blast Resources

RealClearPolitics has linked to this story in the SF Chronicle about the likelihood of a nuclear attack in an American city in the next ten years. Excerpt: "The gravest danger, however, and the one requiring the most urgent attention, is the possibility that terrorists could obtain highly enriched uranium or plutonium for use in an improvised nuclear device," according to Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and former Sen. Sam Nunn, now head of the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative." "This new nuclear nightmare was summoned up in the presidential campaign last month, when Vice President Dick Cheney warned in a widely reported speech:" "The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us -- biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind, to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans." Hmmmm . . . enriched uranium? Perhaps this is why the Persians are so high on the short-list for headlines these days. The next Part of the Adventures of Chester's Iran series will be tomorrow, but we haven't determined its topic yet. It may be a look at Iran's capabilities. Or it may be a response to the many reader comments from the last post. Although the series has stalled a little, you readers should be proud because you've caused me to question the form of my analysis thus far (though not the content). Suffice it to say that we'll continue discussing Iran in one way or another, so feel free to make more comments in the post for Part III,or to add more comments here. (That six-page post on intelligence reform took up a good bit of my day. Please don't miss it.) Some other nuclear blast resources: The Nuclear Files | Video Library contains footage of US nuke tests and is rather sobering. Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe is the website for the new book by Harvard's Graham Allison (who was an observer in the Atlantic war game that kicked off our Iran discussion last week). Part of the book website is entitled Nuclear Terrorism - Blast Maps and shows the blast effects for a 10-kiloton weapon anywhere in the US -- you just enter the zipcode. Also very sobering. See what would happen to your neighborhood. Until tomorrow . . .