Who Would Post "A Basic Guide To Building An Atom Bomb" Online? Who Else??

From the New York Times: U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

As some of my more careful readers may remember, the administration is currently engaged in efforts to contain nuclear proliferation. Or so they say.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

Some docments! Did you download them yet? If not, you're out of luck.

Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials.

That's ok with me. I wasn't gonna build any nukes anyway.

But of course I cannot speak for anyone else.

Needless to say, it would be the ultimate irony if terrorists obtained these documents courtesy of the US government, which supposedly went to war in Iraq to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons ... unless our government really didn't care about nuclear proliferation at all and only wanted to scare us silly while they plundered Iraq for its oil.

They wouldn't be so cynical, would they? Or so stupid?

Oh yes they would!

The documents contain charts, diagrams, and equations from Iraqi atomic research that experts say go beyond the knowledge commonly available on the Internet. "For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible," said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the Department of Energy. The website was created and the documents published under intense pressure from the Republican Congress.

Surely they must be the stupidest elephants in existence.