AQ Khan: North Korea paid bribes to Generals for nuclear know-how

[rubyjackass]

He is maligning the Army, which knocked him off his pedestal and tried him in court for his crimes.

The guy is an ego-maniac who strutted around claiming he 'gave Pakistan the bomb', when his area of expertise was mettalurgy. He assisted in Pakistan's drive to enrich Uranium, but he was far from the most important cog in the system.

To be fair to him, enrichment is the most critical part in making a bomb. Given a sufficiently enriched mass of U or Pu, it is 'easy' to make A bomb, in that the rest of the principles of the bomb are well understood even by school children. May be the next tougher part is the making of a trigger to generate neutrons. Apart from this, AQ Khan's role in the bomb making is indeed overstated. However his contribution to the table was indeed vital.

 

[The Deterrent]

To be fair to him, enrichment is the most critical part in making a bomb. Given a sufficiently enriched mass of U or Pu, it is 'easy' to make A bomb, in that the rest of the principles of the bomb are well understood even by school children. May be the next tougher part is the making of a trigger to generate neutrons. Apart from this, AQ Khan's role in the bomb making is indeed overstated. However his contribution to the table was indeed vital.

It is not that easy....the pictures given in textbooks only display the concept used...

Using HEU or Plutonium inside a nuclear weapon involves a very complex approach...you have to design the warhead,safety mechanisms,arming mechanisms,detonation mechanisms...all of them which are multi-stage...also the warhead should give efficiebt yield...but this only about the warhead.

Next you need a reliable and credible delivery system...Aircrafts are good,but no more for Pakistan...Making missiles is the ultimate part...the whole RV is designed to ,ake sure that it survives all tests (friction,BMDs etc)...

So if you have only HEU then its good for making a terrorist dirty bomb...