It is true that Iran is going down the uranium enrichment route, not the plutonium route, thus my little understanding is that a uranium based a-bomb is larger than a plutonium one? Either way it would be somehting that could be put in a container, a yacht, a truck, maybe even drop if it from a cessna caravan as it flies across the border with the US from mexico.
Uranium is the quickest route to a bomb. To go the plutonium route for a nuclear weapon you need to build a specialized version of a breeder reactor. A nuclear reactor for power production will not work because the burn up is too high (you actually end up with more plutonium, but is the wrong isotopes and very variable in composition). Basically you need the enriched uranium first in order to make plutonium. You also have to build a large chemical plant to extract the plutonium and recycle the uranium.
Uranium based bombs are much larger because of several design factors. They also have lower yields because the neutron multiplication factor is lower. It will probably be too large and awkward to drop from a small plane into water. Missiles designed for nuclear warheads have a payload in excess of 200kg.
Radioactive material is easier to detect, and harder to conceal, than Hollywood writers makes it appear. In fact, with the right equipment, it is easier to catch people smuggling radioactive materials than drugs. Nearly all the major border crossing now have sensitive radiation detectors that can easily spot a container with a radiation source in it. Many major cities now have mobile units as well that would cover the area in a week or 2.
Another point here is that you will probably
not be able to get the help from any established smugglers. While the payoff may be a once in a lifetime opportunity, the risk of their involvement being traced back to them, and the subsequent penalties, is too great. The likelihood of witnesses being made to disappear is also high. Successful smugglers are not stupid and have good instincts, and will steer clear, or even report your approaching them to authorities for a little quid pro quo. This means using your own people who are less experienced and more likely to trigger suspicion.
Israel has better border security than the US, yet Bedoin still manage to smuggle people and drugs across the border from Egypt. It is called Slave trafficking. Some of the tunnels into Gaza are so big that they smuggle cars through, it is true that Gaza is not Israel proper.
The weakness of smuggling tunnels is not the tunnel, but the ends where it comes above ground. With the Gaza end is in friendly territory all the problems for a tunnel operator are on the Egyptian end. Fortunately the Egyptian border guards are notorious for taking bribes. Note also that no portion of the tunnel is on or under Israeli territory.
Note that Hezbollah have rockets, maybe Israel can stop most of them, but what happens if Hezbollah fire 4000 conventional rockets, plus one that has an a-bomb on the end of it. You think you will be able to stop them all? If you choose to stop only a selected number, how do you know which one is the most dangerous one?
Nearly all of Hezbollah rockets are far too small for a nuclear warhead. They probably have only a few that can, and they are MUCH larger.
Here was what I was thinking last night.
Here is what happens in sequence, very hypothetical
Iran closes the straights of Hormuz for 24 hours to conduct "essential" Naval manouveres. Question: do you bomb Iran?
The US and other countries would ignore such a declaration by Iran, and may have done so once already. If Iran attempts to enforce it by firing on a foreign vessel it will be the signal to declare open season on the Iranian navy. It is unlikely that anything other than Iran’s naval assets will be targeted. The general population will not be indiscriminately targeted.
Say you choose to, you have started a shooting incident and people are dying
Next Iranian leadership instructs its technical people to leave the IAE inspection protocol and make as many a-bombs as you can, deep deep undergound where air power cant reach them.
They will have to stop doing this before they can start doing it again.
10 Jan 2014; Iran has now developed 15 a-bombs.
Jan 16 2014; Iran tests an a-bomb underground in the Iranian desert. It works
Jan 17 2014; Iran government releases a statemnet via Al Jazeera, it reads,
North Korea’s first attempt fizzled. Iran will not dare attempt to start the operation to get the bombs in place until
after the completion and evaluation of the 1st successful test. If it fizzled they would have to retrieve the warheads from US territory without being detected, which would be a nightmare.
The probability of the operation being blown doubles with each additional warhead. Just deploying the warheads in the US would constitute an act of war that the US could not ignore.
"the peaceful and democratically elected goverment of Iran, on behalf of its people have placed ten a-bombs in US cities in retaliation for the unprovoked and indisciminate use of force by the Zionist puppet supporter and world agressor the United States. These a-bombs are set to go off via timer. The first a-bomb to go off in 32 days is buried in teh desert in the Western US.
The governemnt of Iran is prepared to detail the exact location of all these weapons, and the codes to disarm them provided the US complies with teh following demands
1. Remove all US forces from Aghahistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Barhain and the Persian Gulf within 140 days
2. Immediately cease all military and non-military aid to the Zionist regime of Israel
3. Recognise the Paltestinian state as a sovereign nation and have Israel return to its pre 1967 boundaries
4. Pay compensation of 1 million dollars each to the 1245 families of Iranians killed in the unprovoked attack on the peaceful country of Iran
5 Pay compensation of 500,000 dollars each to each of the 3411 families of Iranians seriously injured in the unprovoked attack on Iran
6. Apologise for the shooting down of Iranian Airbus A300 in the 1980s
7. Apologiise for teh deposing of the democraticallly elected government of Iran in 1956 and the installation of a US puppet regime
8. Pay war compensation of 150 billion dollars
9. Remove all sanctions from Iran, and recognise the right of Iran to leave peaceably as a member of the world of nations
10. Stop all hostile and covert actions against the peaceloving peoples of Iran
Should the US comply with these modest demands, then the exact location of all pre-positioned atomic devices will be handed over to the US via an intermeiatory
Should the US not comply with these modest demands, then the peaceful and democratic peoples of Iran will assert the right to defend themselves against agressor nations.
End of statement"
Now you are president of the US, what do you do next?
US response – “The use or attempted use of any weapon of mass destruction on US soil will be treated as an act of war and the US will respond with the full force of its unrestricted might.”
{translation: Iran will be destroyed}
Probably response if an Iranian nuke detonates in a US city would start with nuclear warheads targeting all major Iranian cities. This would be followed by a ground invasion, possibly including the use of tactical nuclear weapons, i.e. unrestricted warfare. Casualties would be massive and one sided.
Meanwhile US cities are being combed for the additional nukes and the bomb planters activities traced. Most will be found. Actually, with a 30 day notice most, if not all, will be found and disarmed before they can be detonated.
I doubt that the US would bother with an occupation of Iran, the best thing to do would be to turn what is left over to a coalition of the Arab powers. The Iranian rulers are Persians, and the Sunni Arabs hate them for that as well as being Shia.
As way of context, only a few months ago North Korea torpedoed a South Korean corvette. What military action was taken against North Korea? about zero. My point is that once a county has the a-bomb then dealing with them in a military means becomes very difficult
The North Korean nuclear weapons had nothing to do with it. South Korea just did not have any preplanned responses. The top military leadership was forced out in disgrace because of it.
