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300 of the 10,000 who came as students are under a careful watch. Some of

the 300 are members of Iran s Revolutionary Guard and their intentions are

far from academic. (McGirk 35)If they have nuclear capabilities, who knows? Plus

another suspected nuclear state, Libya, won t accept American passports.

That shows how much they like us.

What would it be like if one of these countries or terrorists did drop

the bomb? I mean if they don t make one they could just steal one. There

is 18,000 warheads compared to 2300 cities throughout the world.(Williams) Maybe

even a crazy American president with followers could start it. In 1973 the

United States signed the War Powers Act in which the president could

conduct and start a nuclear war for 60 days without congressional approval.(Mayers,

Teena) And what if he does, in 1862 Henry Adams said, “Someday science may

have the existence of mankind in it s power and the human race will commit

suicide by blowing up the world.”(Mollins) Since the 60 s the superpowers were able

to destroy each other over and over. This is called MAD, Mutually Assured

Destruction.

What would it be like at ground zero after the fallout. The three main

effects of the blast is pressure, heat, and radiation. The pressure of the

explosion causes physical damage to anything that happens t be in the way.

The heat of the blast burns everything, even things that aren t supposed to

burn. With the combination of the two can even vaporize people near the

epicenter. Then there is radiation which is just a side effect and can reek

havoc for generations with mutations and cancers etc. It s no wonder that

a terrorist wants this against a certain ethnic group or nationality. Especially

Islamic fundamentalist countries, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Libya as well as

Israel and it s Jewish population.(Andrews)

On November 23, 1994 the United States military completed

Operation Sapphire. This took place in Kazakhstan and the U.S. had to

take 600 kilograms of very highly enriched uranium from the Ulba

Metallurgical Plant. That is enough to build 25 Hiroshima-type bombs.

(Sapphire)Iran had been at the base and was actually on it s way to pick it up when

President Clinton approved the operation and sent Americans on the way

with 20 million in cash to buy it and airlift it back to the United States and

brought it to Tennessee.

Terrorists acquire the materials to build the nukes from either the third

world countries, China, or poor, underpaid, overworked, Russian nuclear

power workers who have not been paid in months. There has 14 different

occasions in Germany alone of nuclear smuggling being caught at airports!

There has many incidents involving a base in Obninsk and a man

named Leonid Baranov. One such incident occurred when Baranov recruited

Aleksandr Sherbinin to smuggle material out of Obninsk, roughly 30 miles

outside of Moscow, to Prague. Sherbinin was in Prague for six months trying

to sell his material. Finally on December 14, 1994 he was arrested. They

found 6 pounds (2.72 kilograms) or weapons grade uranium in the back

seat of his car. That is only enough to build one tenth of a bomb, but what

if he spread it into part of a city. Then it could seep into the water supply

and air conditioning system, contaminate buildings and streets, and drift

invisibly without even an explosion! Baranov is a suspect in two other

smuggling cases in Germany. One such case involves three Spaniards,

Justiano Torres Benitez, Julio Oroz, Javier Bengoechea. They were caught

in a German sting with 560 grams of MOX fuel (363 grams of uranium &

plutonium). This is a very controversial case in Germany because they

allowed this substance to be let into Germany. It is also controversial in

Russia because the Russians were notified of the sting and believe that

it was a ploy against them because they international atomic controls

implemented against the Russians. Although it is well known it was

stolen by Leonid Baranov and from the Obninsk facility the Americans

and Russians refuse to admit it. There is a way to tell where it is from by

it s radioactive fingerprint but the Russians will not release theirs.(PBS)

The first known theft of nuclear materials was by the Russians against

Leonid Smirnov at a train station in Podolsk. It was 98% enirched uranium

238 with uranium 235. He said quote, ” I didn t know what I was doing,

I needed money”. He had over 1.5 kilograms of the highly enriched uranium

and was going to just go around knocking on peoples doors trying to sell it.

He got it by taking little by little over five months and no one noticed. His

co-workers didn t suspect anything because he would take it when they were

on their smoking breaks. He was found guilty on March 11, 1993 of stealing

and storing radioactive materials. His sentence was only 3 years of probation

but it could have been up to 10 years in jail. He still lives in the same

apartment as he has for 25 years. (PBS)

On June 14, 1995, a training exercise was carried out at the Kursk

Atomic Power Plant in the summer of 1995, is an event that Russia’s

security forces point out to show that they are taking seriously the threat of

terrorism involving nuclear and radioactive materials. In the scenario,

terrorists take the nuclear plant hostage, declaring that they will

blow

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