Remember when Christiane Amanpour reported finding all those nuclear documents in Afghanistan?

[NNN0LHI]

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/16/ret.amanpour.otsc/index.html

Christiane Amanpour: Mysterious, ominous documents

November 16, 2001 Posted: 12:47 PM EST (1747 GMT)

(CNN) -- Nuclear weapons-related documents were found in an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan -- a discovery made even more significant in light of Taliban threats to bring about the "destruction of America" -- Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge had announced on Thursday.

CNN Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reports from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, about CNN's discoveries of some documents found in houses in Kabul that were abandoned when the Northern Alliance took the city and Taliban retreated. CNN's team members say that at least one of the al Qaeda houses they and other news organizations visited was "cleaned out" overnight. While the houses are still full of trash, all the interesting documents have been removed. CNN's Jamie McIntyre has confirmed U.S. forces have been on site.

AMANPOUR: "We've been going through houses in what used to be a diplomatic quarter of Kabul. When the Taliban took over, this became the quarter for their privileged Arab guests, we're told by the residents. These Arabs left within hours after it was evident that Kabul was going to fall.

"They left behind documents in many of the houses that journalists have visited. We went today to a house that in fact had been locked. We did scale the wall and we went in and found these documents, including this one in my hands that was found in a bag and looked like it was being tossed out.

"This, in Arabic, says 'The Biggest Bomb.' When we turn over the carefully photocopied and handwritten pages we see all sorts of references to uranium 235 and to the words nuclear --atomic bomb. We see references to TNT. There was even a heading which said 'How to make a nuclear bomb.'

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/11/16/ret.al.qaeda.documents/

Al Qaeda documents, manuals found in Kabul

Papers reveal plans to construct nuclear weapons

November 17, 2001 Posted: 2:10 AM EST (0710 GMT)

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- As the Taliban fled Kabul after opposition forces moved into the city, discarded documents from the al Qaeda terrorist network were discovered in their wake, revealing terrorism plots and plans to construct nuclear weapons.

CNN found several documents in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul, including one bound together by a note with the words "the biggest bombs" in Arabic script. The following pages indicated research into nuclear weapons material, including uranium-235, and one heading read "how to make a nuclear bomb." snip

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge confirmed Thursday that nuclear-related documents were found in an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. At the same time, Ridge downplayed the significance of the material on CNN's "Larry King Live," saying much of it could have been taken off the Internet years ago.

"To my knowledge there wasn't anything there that isn't in some public library or that you couldn't pull off the Internet," he said. "I think the concern that we have is this individual, he's talking about acquiring the broadest possible range of weapons; so we have to prepare against all of them."



As it turns out these were the "Mysterious, ominous documents" she found:

http://twin-peaks-video.com/darkstar/so_you/want%20to%20build%20an%20h-bomb.htm

How to Build an H-Bomb

<snip>First transform the gas into a liquid by subjecting it to pressure. You can use a bicycle pump for this. Then make a simple home centrifuge. Fill a standard-size bucket one-quarter full of liquid uranium hexafluoride. Attach a six-foot rope to the bucket handle. Now swing the rope (and attached bucket) around your head as fast as possible. Keep this up for about 45 minutes. Slow down gradually, and very gently put the bucket on the floor. The U-235, which is lighter, will have risen to the top, where it can be skimmed off like cream. Repeat this step until you have the required 10 pounds of uranium. (Safety note: Don't put all your enriched uranium hexafluoride in one bucket. Use at least two or three buckets and keep them in separate corners of the room. This will prevent the premature build-up of a critical mass.) snip

Step 2: Assembling the A-Bomb

Now that you've acquired the enriched uranium, all that's left is to assemble your A-bomb. Go find a couple of stainless steel salad bowls. You also want to separate your 10 pounds of U-235 into two hunks. (Keep them apart!) The idea is to push each half your uranium into the inside of a bowl.

Take one hunk of your uranium and beat it into the inside of the first bowl. Uranium is malleable, like gold, so you should have no trouble hammering it into the bowl to get a good fit. Take another five-pound hunk of uranium and fit it into a second stainless steel bowl. These two bowls of U-235 are the "subcritical masses" which, when brought together forcefully, will provide the critical mass that makes your A-bomb go. Keep them a respectful distance apart while working because you don't want them to "go critical" on you... At least not yet.

Now hollow out the body of an old vacuum cleaner and place your two hemispherical bowls inside, open ends facing each other, no less than seven inches apart, using masking tape to set them up in position. The reason for the steel bowls and the vacuum cleaner, in case you're wondering, is that these help reflect the neutrons back into the uranium for a more efficient explosion. "A loose neutron is a useless neutron" as the A-bomb pioneers used to say.

As far as the A-bomb goes, you're almost done. The final problem is to figure out how to get the two U-235 hemispheres to smash into each other with sufficient force to set off a truly effective fission reaction. Almost any type of explosive can be used to drive them together. Gunpowder, for example, is easily made at home from potassium nitrate, sulfur, and carbon. Or, you can get some blasting caps or TNT. (Buy them or steal them from a construction site.) Best of all is C4 plastic explosive. You can mold it around your bowls, and it's fairly safe to work with. (But, it might be wise to shape it around an extra salad bowl in another room, and THEN fit it to your uranium-packed bowls. This is particularly true in winter, when a stray static electrical charge might induce ignition in the C4. A responsible bomb maker considers it impolite to accidentally destroy more of the neighborhood than absolutely necessary.)

:rofl:

[NNN0LHI]

1. I remember posting a thread here on this subject just about the time when it happened in 2001

The mod who seen the tread must have thought I was disclosing nuclear secrets here and poofed the thread back then no kidding. Not locked. It was gone. It disappeared without a trace. I thought the vacuum cleaner part would have been a dead giveaway? Hey it fooled Christiane. Things were really weird back then.

Don