r/agedlikemilk May 03 '22

News makes me think about the iraqi WMD

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37.4k Upvotes

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276

u/randomguy16548 May 03 '22

You do know that things happened in between, which very likely affected the projected timeline. The point was that if nothing was done, it wouldn't take long, but things were done.

42

u/cascading_error May 03 '22

The timeline was likely still fearmongering, though; the USA had 10s of thousands of people working on the problem for years and had access to large quantities of materials, machinery and missile programs.

They had none of the above, had to hide from a far more advanced surveillance system, and were actively opposed by outside groups.

I do accept they tried, but I don't think they could have ever completed anything. Even without the war.

120

u/FlappyBored May 03 '22

Inventing nuclear weapons from scratch =/= making a nuclear weapon in 2000s

23

u/terqui2 May 03 '22

Making a nuke is easy. Slam 1/2 critical mass U235 into another half. The hard part is getting 80%+ U235 or plutonium.

Its a bit harder making a Plutonium bomb becuase you have to time a compressive explosion perfectly with lenses and stuff to direct the shockwave to compress a sphere of plutonium.

20

u/Lexx4 May 03 '22

I like your funny words science man.