Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 20 Feb 2004

Sunil · Post by **Sunil** » 27 Feb 2004 22:35

> Pu sample detected in the air by U2

I feel that this was simply an air sample taken to search for trace Kr-85 over the Khushab puref. It may be that Pu did not vent.

Hi Tim,

There were only two seismic events detected. The Pakistanis claimed that the Chagai mountains muffled the other 4 on the first day of the test. There is no independent confirmation of that.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Feb 2004 22:35

shiv, the May 30th test was detected by seismographs. It was in the low 4s and matched the last Chinese test. All this was discussed in my PU sample at Chagai article which is now lost in the BR Archives.
The buried device was at POKII. It was recovered by BARC. I dont recall any Paki stuff being unexploded. What does the def journal link say about it?
The sample was detected from air by a U2 plane flying overhead.
Older Pu can be detected by the geiger counter count to determine the half life stuff. So they can tell if its NK circa or otherwise.

Folks we all are in this together to uncover the truth- satyameva jayate or the Truth will set you free for the others.

The non-prolif mullas by obfuscating the issues aided and abetted the skunks in proliferating. They gave the feeling they could get away scot free for US national interests will put a blanket on all news of Chinese misdeeds. I still remember Perkovich e-mailing me that the Pu sample was from POKII. And he will tell us how to rid the world of weapons!
That is the last word on the Lenoard Spector crowd.
----------------
Added later:
vsunder, Wallace paper has a deconvoluted seismogram for Chagai showing three peaks on May 28th. All in one graph so they may have set off three in that test like sindbad's 'seven at one blow!"

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 27 Feb 2004 23:06

Something is not right.

For years, Pakistan focused on making weapons out of highly enriched uranium, using centrifuge enrichment technology that Dr. Khan stole from Europe, improved in his laboratories and ultimately began to sell. The North Koreans, meanwhile, focused on plutonium, producing a few bombs' worth from the spent nuclear fuel it extracted from its small nuclear reactors making electrical energy. It takes far less plutonium to make a large nuclear explosion, so plutonium missile warheads are smaller and more powerful.

North Korea was forced under a 1994 accord with the United States to freeze its plutonium program. It secretly began purchasing Dr. Khan's uranium enrichment technology, according to both American officials and Dr. Khan's testimony. When caught by South Korea and the United States in 2002, North Korea expelled international inspectors, and now appears to be moving forward with both uranium and plutonium programs. The Bush administration says both must be dismantled if an accord is to be reached.

North Korea has never tested a weapon on its own territory, leading many to wonder whether it can make working bombs. That is why the mystery of the last Pakistani test, on May 30, 1998, is tantalizing.

Of several tests Pakistan conducted then, the last one differed from those that preceded it in other ways besides the plutonium traces it produced. It was 60 miles away from the first test site. The shaft leading to the bomb was dug vertically rather than horizontally, experts said, a lower cost method. The detonation was also smaller. Pakistani officials said they had used a "miniaturized" device, but gave no other details. By all accounts, Dr. Khan was closely involved with that final test.

The next day, asked by a reporter about rumors that Pakistan had once tested a weapon in China, Dr. Khan snapped, "No country allows another country to explode a weapon."

But at the Los Alamos laboratory, some experts believed that might have been exactly what happened. Pakistan, most analysts believed, had insufficient material and experience to make a plutonium bomb.

"It could only have come from one of two places: China or North Korea," said one senior intelligence official involved in the debate. "And it seemed like China had nothing to gain," he said, from providing plutonium to Pakistan.

In a clash between old rivals, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory raised questions, claiming Los Alamos had erred, experts familiar with the dispute said. The problem was inadvertent contamination of the sample by American researchers, Livermore experts said. Eventually, a consensus emerged that the plutonium did come from Pakistan.

A compromise hypothesis, experts said, was that Pakistan had exploded a uranium bomb with a plutonium experiment on the side.

Wasnt the expert opinion that spent fuel Pu makes bad fissile material and could lead to fizzles unless powered by an advanced trigger? So how did NK a down and out low tech saavy nation come up with this advanced trigger? Daal me kuch kala hain!

Y I Patel · Post by **Y I Patel** » 27 Feb 2004 23:06

Shiv

Since there is a constant decay of Pu into its daughter elements, the time elapsed since Pu got produced can be measured by using isotopic ratios, just like we would do in C14 dating. Specific isotopic ratios for nuclear weapons constitute a unique signature of the weapons design and manufacturing process, and are among the closest guarded secrets in any nuclear program.

Hope this helps explain how we can have "older" Pu

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 00:45

Originally posted by Y I Patel:

Since there is a constant decay of Pu into its daughter elements, the time elapsed since Pu got produced can be measured by using isotopic ratios, just like we would do in C14 dating. Specific isotopic ratios for nuclear weapons constitute a unique signature of the weapons design and manufacturing process, and are among the closest guarded secrets in any nuclear program.

This is true if you assume that the original sample was 100% Pu and then follow the decay chain fractions.

In reality, one has to have a good idea of the original isotope content in the sample. Since enrichment techniques differ, there can be variations in the promoted nuclei fractions. How does one account for that in this dating method?

Tim · Post by **Tim** » 28 Feb 2004 00:58

Ramana,

It may be the P-II device in the shaft that I'm thinking of. If anyone has a copy of Bennett Jones' book, there are several sections that talk about the Pakistani nuclear tests.

Looking back over old notes (best I can do on short notice), they refer to a 1-3 kiloton estimate for the 30th, and two detonations on the 28th - although an early Indian report (May 31st) claimed that the 28th was a single detonation.

A footnote I've recently written reads:

"There is some confusion about this second set of tests. Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan announced that Pakistan had detonated two devices at approximately 1:00 pm. At 6:00 pm, however, official Pakistani spokesmen corrected this statement and announced that only one detonation had occurred. Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 189-190."

That's the strange event on the 30th. One plausible explanation for the snafu would be that Pakistan was playing a game of numerical equivalence - they announced just enough tests to match India's number (this is the usual explanation in the US). But it's possible that this actually was a foul-up. If they did do two tests on the 30th (and I'm not sure if the physics of the test site could support that or not), why would they want to deny one? Perhaps because it was a Pu device with materials from a foreign source? That's one way to read the new evidence and interpretations that are coming out of the labs. It's circumstantial, but it might be worth looking into.

Tim

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 28 Feb 2004 01:17

Tim, One way would be to see if there are any Space Imaging shots of Chagai II? Since the May 30th tests were in vertical shafts they would leave craters. Am sure the experts at LLNL would have looked at it. Check with Perkovich or Carey Sublette of FAS?

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 03:23

Originally posted by ramana:

Older Pu can be detected by the geiger counter count to determine the half life stuff. So they can tell if its NK circa or otherwise.

Geiger counters measure the integrated inonizing particle flux. To differentiate between isotopes one has to do some sort of mass spectroscopy or neutron activation studies.

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 28 Feb 2004 03:24

Originally posted by Mani T.:

Originally posted by Y I Patel:

Since there is a constant decay of Pu into its daughter elements, the time elapsed since Pu got produced can be measured by using isotopic ratios, just like we would do in C14 dating. Specific isotopic ratios for nuclear weapons constitute a unique signature of the weapons design and manufacturing process, and are among the closest guarded secrets in any nuclear program.

This is true if you assume that the original sample was 100% Pu and then follow the decay chain fractions.

In reality, one has to have a good idea of the original isotope content in the sample. Since enrichment techniques differ, there can be variations in the promoted nuclei fractions. How does one account for that in this dating method?

Mani, there's often information on the isotopic signature of uranium fuel loaded in to reactors, and there's also information on the design and operating periods of nuclear reactors.

So it should be possible to make a range of 'guestimates' of the age and isotopic signature of the Plutonium going in to a device (as opposed to radiochemical analysis of fallout for clues to design and performance) without actual samples. Of course its tricky because fuel might come from some unexpected source, or there might be difficulty retroactively estimating the operating periods of some reactors with precision.

On the other hand the judgement in this case has been reported to be based on fallout that came *after* a nuclear explosion. How seriously you wish to take arguments about the age of the plutonium based on fallout may depend on what you think about the accuracy and precision of the design information the analyst had for the bomb that produced the sample.

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 03:35

Originally posted by Johann:

With such evidence how seriously you wish to take arguments about the age of the plutonium may depend on what you think about the accuracy and precision of the design information the analyst had regarding the bomb that produced the sample.

Exactly. Since, I do not have that design information, I can not make an estimate on the accuracy of the "dating" measurements. The second source of error would be purely statistical ... based on the sample size collected in fly-by missions.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 28 Feb 2004 03:52

Originally posted by Tim:
It may be the P-II device in the shaft that I'm thinking of.

I seem to recall reports of a failed TSP device that remained in its shaft.

The recovered Indian device was another report.

James Bund · Post by **James Bund** » 28 Feb 2004 03:52

A Pu bomb given by China in April 1998 using recently reprocessed Pu would appear as 1998 vintage, conversely a Pakistani or North Korean bomb made 10 yrs earlier would appear as 'old Pu' bomb even though detonated in 1998.

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 28 Feb 2004 05:01

Originally posted by Johann:
How seriously you wish to take arguments about the age of the plutonium based on fallout may depend on what you think about the accuracy and precision of the design information the analyst had for the bomb that produced the sample.

http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/230855.pdf

hints at some possible answers.

Link corrected.

Kuttan · Post by **Kuttan** » 28 Feb 2004 05:29

I've heard that uranium is a heavy solid metal, but what is the form of the "pu" in these "bums"? Is it powder? solid metal? Liquid? Slush? Compressed gas?

"Pu" is not a naturally occurring element, unlike its namesake substance which the neighborhood musharrafs leave on my yard, right?

IOW, can u send a bum to PRC for "phree rephill" if the Pu starts losing its - er - phragrance? Or, like the famous scene in the Mouse on The Moon, can u just pour the Pu into a bum, screw the lid on, and slap it inside a Dongless?

Johann · Post by **Johann** » 28 Feb 2004 05:51

Originally posted by Mani T.:

Originally posted by Johann:

With such evidence how seriously you wish to take arguments about the age of the plutonium may depend on what you think about the accuracy and precision of the design information the analyst had regarding the bomb that produced the sample.
Exactly. Since, I do not have that design information, I can not make an estimate on the accuracy of the "dating" measurements. The second source of error would be purely statistical ... based on the sample size collected in fly-by missions.

However one thing we do know is that the IAEA has sampled DPRK plutonium and nuclear waste, and has a good idea of the reprocessing technology available to it from inspections.

So in this case *if* the analysts had high quality information on the design that produced the sample they would have something solid to check against for a North Korean connection.

The IAEA has not had access to Khushab or Chinese military plutonium and associated facilities.

Originally posted by Mani T.:

Originally posted by Arun_Gupta:
http://www.llnl.gov/tid/lof/documents/pdf/230855

hints at some possible answers.
That link doesn't work.

Mani, add ".pdf" to the URL.

Mostly about identifying fissile material seized before a nuclear explosion.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 28 Feb 2004 06:04

Originally posted by narayanan:
I've heard that uranium is a heavy solid metal, but what is the form of the "pu" in these "bums"? Is it powder? solid metal? Liquid? Slush? Compressed gas?

In Fatman type implosion device, Pu is solid metal in low density delta phase (stabilized by alloying it with 3% gallium)

Gadget and Fat Man design

A_Gupta · Post by **A_Gupta** » 28 Feb 2004 06:09

Originally posted by Johann:
Mostly about identifying fissile material seized before a nuclear explosion.

And a few statements about deducing the neutron fluxes the samp;le has been subjected to....

vsunder · Post by **vsunder** » 28 Feb 2004 06:31

Ramana, the two, three peaks dont necesarily mean two or three devices, there are all types of waves coming from the source, and they arrive at different times for example compressional and transverse waves will both be created and they will travel at different speeds and arrive thus at different times, so the different peaks as each one arrives. What one has to see if both peaks are primarily compressional then two devices were detonated a little bit apart, though this is a crazy scenario, if they were in the same shaft the later device is surely toast, if in different shafts the shock waves from the first could damage the electronics of the second, imagine cracks in the explosive lenses, I mean why would you even take a chance, there are other ways to do the shake and bake test,
remember this was the reason given by Chidambaram for simultaneous detonation at POK-2, fear of damaging the second device. The fact that the second peak is also compressional would surely have been remarked if noticed, it is an interesting fact wouldnt you agree, but to my knowledge I have not seen any such observation made by anyone. I say compressional because in a nuke test unlike an earthquake the compressional waves which travel faster than the transverse predominate unlike an earthquake where transverse waves predominate due to slippage of plates, so seismograms from earthquakes have at the beginning all these small squiggles(initial compressional waves carrying a little bit of energy) and then boom big peaks from transverse waves, for nukes the seismograms have the big peak up front and then smaller peaks and then
surface waves peaks and so on. I think the # of peaks is not a compelling reason how many devices were there, but the total yield is a pointer.
I still stand by the at most two. I will look Wallace up and get back to you though, thanks for the heads up.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 28 Feb 2004 06:55

Originally posted by Gerard:
I seem to recall reports of a failed TSP device that remained in its shaft.

It speaks volumes for the virility of the Pakistani that a failed device should remain in the shaft. It is wrong to dismiss Pakistani capability altogether.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 28 Feb 2004 07:04

If the May 30 Pakistani testes were detected on seismograms I would certianly like to see a tracing of the squiggles myself from Indian monitoring stations - to which I would give highest credibility, followed by similar tracings from a host of other monitoring stations around the globe.

In the absence of that - it's all hearsay. The seismology crowd are starting off with an imprecise "science" which works with inadequate information and guesstimates and they like to bullsh1t on top of that. You could get someone to explode a bomb under the seismoolgy crowd's bottoms and they would deny that it occured if it pricked their egos in some way. Lifafa to the core.

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 07:06

Originally posted by vsunder:
I say compressional because in a nuke test unlike an earthquake the compressional waves which travel faster than the transverse predominate unlike an earthquake where transverse waves predominate due to slippage of plates, so seismograms from earthquakes have at the beginning all these small squiggles(initial compressional waves carrying a little bit of energy) and then boom big peaks from transverse waves, for nukes the seismograms have the big peak up front and then smaller peaks and then
surface waves peaks and so on. I think the # of peaks is not a compelling reason how many devices were there, but the total yield is a pointer.

These are interesting points. It would be great if the data were available for scrutiny. By the way, isn't there also the reflected pulse (from the mantle-core interface) that arrives later?

arun · Post by **arun** » 28 Feb 2004 08:02

AP via Aberdeen News :

Posted on Fri, Feb. 27, 2004

Pakistan threatened to give nukes to Iran

By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Pakistan warned the United States 14 years ago that it might give nuclear technology to Iran, but the administration of President Bush's father did little to follow up, former Pentagon officials say.

Word of the 1990 threat from Pakistan's top general apparently was not passed along to the Clinton administration when it took office three years later, according to interviews by The Associated Press.

One of Pakistan's top nuclear scientists admitted last month that he sold nuclear technology to Iran, as well as North Korea and Libya - all nations on the U.S. list of terrorism sponsors. President Bush said the underground nuclear network was exposed by U.S. and British intelligence agencies' work over the past few years.

But former government arms control officials and declassified documents show the United States knew about Pakistan's nuclear procurement network since 1983 and suspected the transfers to Iran since the mid-1980s. The United States had hints of the transfers to North Korea in the mid-1990s, officials say.

The clearest evidence of the Iran link came in January 1990, when Pakistan's army chief of staff conveyed his threat to arm Iran to a top Pentagon official. Henry S. Rowen, at the time an assistant defense secretary, said Pakistani Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg issued the warning in a face-to-face meeting in Pakistan.

"Beg said something like, 'If we don't get adequate support from the U.S., then we may be forced to share nuclear technology with Iran,'" said Rowen, now a professor at Stanford University.

Beg has acknowledged Iran approached him seeking nuclear assistance that year and he publicly advocated military cooperation between Pakistan and Iran to counter U.S. power in the region. Beg said he never authorized nuclear transfers to Iran or made threats to the United States.

"I have said many times it's all pure lies," Beg said in a telephone interview. "Am I a fool, to tell the U.S. what to do or what not to do?"

In recent weeks, evidence has emerged that Pakistani nuclear aid to Iran began in the mid-1980s but accelerated after 1990 and included transfer of some of Pakistan's most advanced nuclear technology.

The former Pentagon officials' accounts suggest the United States may have missed an early opportunity to thwart some of those transfers.

"We knew they were up to no good," said Henry Sokolski, the Pentagon's top arms control official in 1990.

The Pakistani scientist at the center of the nuclear network, Abdul Qadeer Khan, made a public confession this month and said Pakistan's leadership was unaware and uninvolved. President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan a day later.

President Bush has said the United States became aware of Khan's network only in the past few years through daring work by U.S. and British intelligence agents.

"We unraveled the Khan network and we are putting an end to its criminal enterprise," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said in a speech Thursday.

But Sokolski and Rowen said former President Bush's administration did little to follow up on Beg's warning. "In hindsight, maybe before or after that they did make some transfers," Rowen said.

Ashton Carter, an assistant defense secretary from 1993 to 1996, said he doesn't remember even being told about the problem when he joined the Pentagon.

Rowen said he told Beg that Pakistan would be "in deep trouble" if it gave nuclear weapons to Iran. Rowen said he was surprised by the threat because at the time Americans thought Pakistan's secular government dominated by Sunni Muslims wouldn't aid Iran's Shiite Muslim theocracy.

"There was no particular reason to think it was a bluff, but on the other hand, we didn't know," Rowen said.

Declassified documents and former officials say U.S. officials knew since at least 1983 about Pakistan's extensive underground supply network for its nuclear weapons program, which first tested nuclear explosives in 1998. Former officials say Washington had other murky clues about Pakistani help to Iran and strong suspicions of the North Korea link by the late 1990s.

Most of the middlemen for Khan's network in the 1990s were either investigated or convicted in Europe for supplying Pakistan's nuclear program in the 1980s.

Pakistan never cracked down on its scientists when former President Clinton and other U.S. officials shared their suspicions with Pakistani leaders, former U.S. officials say.

"The response was, 'Yes, we'll examine your concerns, but we don't believe they are well founded,'" said Robert Einhorn, who was the head arms control official in the State Department from 1999 to 2001.

While Islamabad and Washington squabbled about the evidence, the Khan network provided sophisticated technology to Libya, North Korea and Iran, three countries the United States considered among the most dangerous.

A decade earlier, the Reagan administration had looked the other way on Pakistan's nuclear program, said Stephen P. Cohen, a State Department expert on the region from 1985 to 1987. Back then, Washington used Pakistan as a conduit for sending weapons and money to guerrillas fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

"They were covering up our involvement in Afghanistan, pretending we played no role in Afghanistan, so they expected us to cover up their role in procuring a weapons system they saw as vital to their survival," said Cohen, now with the Brookings Institution think tank.

American officials scolded Pakistan repeatedly for buying nuclear technology from sources in Europe, Asia and the United States, Cohen said. But often those warnings were with "a wink and a nod" that Washington would tolerate those activities, he said.

A declassified State Department memo from 1983 says Pakistan clearly had a nuclear weapons program that relied on stolen European technology and "energetic procurement activities in various countries."

Cohen said the United States suspected Pakistan was helping Iran in the late 1980s, in part because Pakistan had cooperated with Iran on nuclear matters before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. The evidence, however, was murky, Cohen said.

vsunder · Post by **vsunder** » 28 Feb 2004 08:11

Shiv, Ramana: These discussions are bringing back memories of old days. Anyhow I just checked the NEIC data base for earthquakes for May 30th.Well, this is what the data base has, off course there are hundreds of earthquakes that day but there is one at 6.54am GMT, at surface depth zero,(nukes will come up as surface depth zero, things are not that precise yet in this field so that the data reveals the precise depth nuke devices are buried when emplacement depths are of the order of a few 100 metres)at roughly Ras koh(??) latitude and longitude with magnitude 4.60mb. I think 6-8 kt seems very reasonable for this sort of body wave signature.I think the device probably came apart, the masters of evil I believe had still not mastered the technology for a Pu device yet.

Mani you are right about the mantle-core and reflections, though there will be a fraction that will be transmitted also, this is the usual phenomena for the wave eqn., two media(mantle-core) with different propagation speeds.

arun · Post by **arun** » 28 Feb 2004 08:11

Pakistan responds to the NYT Joint Nuclear Test with N.Korea story :

No Joint Nuclear Tests with North Korea, says Pakistan.

And the A.Q.Khan fan club continues to grow. This time the Lahore High Court Bar Association steps in :

Dr Qadeer’s portrait fixed at Kiani Hall

With the plea bargain he got away with, an undoubtedly deserving candidate for beatification particularly by the Lahore Bar.

vsunder · Post by **vsunder** » 28 Feb 2004 17:53

Just a remark about two explosions detected at Chaghai. I again checked the NEIC database which is maintained by USGS(United States Geological Service), Chaghai went off at 10.16, and 15.23 seconds am GMT. No other event is reported in that area after that. NEIC assigns a body wave magnitude of 4.80mb to the May 28 event. So if there were two explosions as some are suggesting it does not register even to the 1/100th of a second. So either the detonations were simultaneous as is rational or there was only one device which I am inclined to believe. I also did not hear Pakistan claiming any interference effects, normally they copy Indian statements.

Now about Ras Koh, there are two possibilities.
The Chaghai event proved confidence in one perhaps aircraft deliverable device, a heavy object based on HEU, known to work from Chinese tests. This was mutually exchangeable with DPRK. So it was the DPRK turn to show that their Ding-dong mountable device worked. This is akin to having a S-2 type device of Pokharan-2 at the first shot with all the bells and whistles. I think they chewed off more than they could handle and the device disassembled before complete fission took place. Could be any number of reasons, design(trying to fit it into a geometry adapted to the Ding-dong), materials(old Pu etc., new stuff not available in the short time frame needed for immediate testing or saving the new material since Pu was scarce in DPRK). These are all possibilities so take it with a pinch of salt.
One thing is sure DPRK would have sensors and other careful monitoring to monitor the device and would try to find the reasons why full yield was not attained. Also in first time shots the Ras Koh test would be lowest by any country.

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 28 Feb 2004 18:13

1. Were there any reports of visits to NK by Pak in the May 26-28 time frame?

2. Is it possible that the Chinese provided materials to the NK, leading external inspectors to erroneously conclude that the Pu-signature from Pakistan were NK-origin, whereas they were Chinese origin.

Kuttan · Post by **Kuttan** » 28 Feb 2004 18:31

So if there were two explosions as some are suggesting it does not register even to the 1/100th of a second. So either the detonations were simultaneous as is rational or there was only one device which I am inclined to believe.

Or, when they described an "event", they posted the time at the leading edge. Probably in their SOP manuals, it says, "all fluctuations occurring within 1 second shall be construed as one event"

Otherwise the database will be filled with stuff at twice the Nyquist frequency of the digitizing system as people studiously describe each squiggle as another "event".

Calvin:

The obvious answer to all the mysteries is that the PRC provided both the weapons and the fissile / fusile material to stuff in them., to BOTH TSP And NoKo. Probably also to Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Angola, Kerala, Bengal, Bangladesh, Jaffna, and all the rest of the not-Islamic-yet world. For all I know, France got its nuclear weapon technology from China too.

Probably the stuff was all stolen/pattered from Los Alamos / Livermore developed designs - not that the PRC didn't have other things stolen from, say, the Russians, but they wanted to really rub the American noses in the dirt by showing that it was American technology that proliferated.

For obvious reasons, the NonProliferation Lifafas (NPL) will not admit that. So they end up wrapped in their own lies such as "North Korea developed Poo-bums inside 2 years." "North Korea developed IRBMs in 3 years". "Pakistan developed hydrogen bum technology and passed it on to North Korea via Iran, Libya and Tahiti"

Ever heard of any engineering schools in North Korea? Exactly where are they finding the people to operate anything other Xerox machines?

Now, sure, I don't have an iota of hard evidence for the above, but does that make my WAG any less of a peer-reviewed thesis than the dung that these American "experts" put out? Most of them can't even SAY "nuclear".

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 19:47

Originally posted by narayanan:

So if there were two explosions as some are suggesting it does not register even to the 1/100th of a second. So either the detonations were simultaneous as is rational or there was only one device which I am inclined to believe.
Or, when they described an "event", they posted the time at the leading edge. Probably in their SOP manuals, it says, "all fluctuations occurring within 1 second shall be construed as one event"

I recall reading somewhere that simultaneous explosions are preferred becasue it allows for interferometric studies by placing an array of sensors.

The interferometric data is only available to nearby testers while those spying on it (in other countries) will see a merged signal only. Was that not the case with Pokharan-II?

Otherwise the database will be filled with stuff at twice the Nyquist frequency of the digitizing system as people studiously describe each squiggle as another "event".

my impression was that the wiggles were on purely analog chart recorders and not in digitized samples.

Kuttan · Post by **Kuttan** » 28 Feb 2004 20:16

Shh!!! Pls don't use words like anal-log and "digital" on BRF. This is a phamily phorum. General GUBO-Gola Musharraf might get offended at His Name being taken in vain..

Squiggles will occur, whether *****al or ****og. Since this is Saturday morning, let me explain.

I believe the squiggles are accelerations occurring due to waves. When a large-amplitude wave (such as nookuleear "poo-bum " going "boom") which starts out as, say, as sharp step function, propagates through a medium whose properties are not entirely linear over a very large range, the sharp leading edge gets smoothed out, and after a while, it may generate a number of distinct waves as well. The former effect is because of the difference in propagation speeds of waves of different frequencies. High frequencies travel faster (in some media) than low frequencies. So the sharp step leading edge runs out in front and also decays more. The slower, lower frequencies attenuate less (IOW, run if u feel the sharp step moving under ur pheet because the Big One Cometh later).

The above is called "dispersion" of the various phrequenjiej, IIRC. (minus 20 if I don't

)

In addition, the nonlinear response of the medium to large-amplitude disturbances causes the wave to distort. Vely vely jimple onlee. Consider sine wave going up and then down and then returning to "zerrow". (like Lahore poster: "Osama is our Herrow, Gola is a Zerrow").

If the above were a pressure disturbance in air, consider that increased pressure means increased temperature, and speed of sound increases with the square root of temperature. So the upper part (high pressure region) moves phajter and low pressure region (expansion) moves slower. Pretty soon, what started out as a nice curvy sine wave like musharraf's belly becomes more like Osama's nose - N-wave.

In addition, the medium may develop its own responses to various frequencies present in the wavetrain, and may resonate at those discrete frequencies. For example, the last part of the squiggle going on for a long time may be the building shaking. Or the sound of Xerox Khan and Co. running, pitty-pat, pitty-pat when they saw the mushroom cloud rising from the shaft.

Hope this is clear as mud.

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 28 Feb 2004 21:46

Folks: The Osama being captured story may be being denied, but we have to ask:

(a) why was it put out?
(b) was someone of consequence captured in S. Waziristan in the last week? - recall rumor of Zawahiri (jr.) being captured, followed by this?
(c) Where is Rumsfeld after being sighted in Baghdad 4days ago

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 21:49

Originally posted by narayanan:

The above is called "dispersion" of the various phrequenjiej, IIRC.

not clear if you have something buried in your creative english that did not come through ...

however, dispersion will simply slow down the rise-time of the original step function. It will not create pulses travelling at different speeds.

If the above were a pressure disturbance in air, consider that increased pressure means increased temperature, and speed of sound increases with the square root of temperature. So the upper part (high pressure region) moves phajter and low pressure region (expansion) moves slower. Pretty soon, what started out as a nice curvy sine wave like musharraf's belly becomes more like Osama's nose - N-wave.

In addition, the medium may develop its own responses to various frequencies present in the wavetrain, and may resonate at those discrete frequencies. For example, the last part of the squiggle going on for a long time may be the building shaking. Or the sound of Xerox Khan and Co. running, pitty-pat, pitty-pat when they saw the mushroom cloud rising from the shaft.

pardon me for getting lost in your english once again ... but your claim that high and low pressure zones relate to different temperatures is erroneous.

a given volume of air will have alternating high and low pressure disturbances which do not have enough time to equilibrate. Temperature is an equilibrium concept not an instantaneous function.

I would appreciate it if you could explain (in conventioal english) why you think that dispersion leads to bimodal wave propagation. Thanks.

Hope this is clear as mud.

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 28 Feb 2004 21:58

Originally posted by narayanan:

Squiggles will occur, whether *****al or ****og. Since this is Saturday morning, let me explain.

That was not the point. You brought up Nyquist's theorem which only applies in the case of digitization, and not for analog capture. ( c.f. my post at 8:17 am)

[ for completeness, Nyquist's theorem states that an analog signal waveform may be completely reconstructed from samples taken at equal time intervals provided the sampling rate is greater than twice the highest frequency component in the analog signal.]

Alok Niranjan · Post by **Alok Niranjan** » 29 Feb 2004 02:06

Originally posted by narayanan:
And "anal-log capture" without use of digit-ization is just also way above my head -

Analog capture, for example, is the use of a magnetic stylus driven on a rolling piece of paper -- a simple "chart recorder". The response of such devices is detrmined by the bandwidth of the amplification system and the hysterisis in the stylus.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 29 Feb 2004 04:07

SOme people do not want to give away everything and should be allowed in the forum and members should take what is given.

BTW - San Jose Mercury News has a report that the source of Iranian Uraninum is Russia. Can someboyd post that here.

Nandu · Post by **Nandu** » 29 Feb 2004 05:17

acharya>> San Jose Mercury News has a report that the source of Iranian Uraninum is Russia. Can someboyd post that here.

It is a reprint of this NYTimes report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/international/middleeast/28NUKE.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8064717.htm

Since both URLs become pay only after a week, here is the report in full.

Surprise source of Iran's enriched uranium: Russia

By William J. Broad

New York Times

Inspectors have found evidence that some of the highly enriched uranium found on nuclear machinery in Iran came from Russia, European diplomats and American experts said Friday.

The nuclear fuel appears to have come through the global black market, the experts added, and not with the blessings of Moscow.

With the findings, Russia emerges as a new and unexpected source of supply to Iran's nuclear efforts.

Recent revelations had shown that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan provided Iran with sophisticated centrifuge technology that could be used to refine weapons-grade uranium through his hidden nuclear trading network, according to international nuclear officials and Khan's own testimony.

The Bush administration has long accused Iran of harboring a secret bomb project, which Tehran denies, saying its nuclear program is only for peacetime purposes.

In that light, last year's discovery of highly enriched uranium in Iran sparked an international crisis about the country's nuclear intentions and raised questions about where it had originated. Iran claimed it was contamination that came in on imported centrifuges, which Iranian officials said they bought to concentrate uranium for reactors to generate electricity. The centrifuges spin rapidly to concentrate uranium for both nuclear reactors and nuclear arms. High concentrations of the rare isotope uranium-235 can fuel warheads.

In a report Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said its inspections had found that indigenous Iranian centrifuge gear -- but not imported gear -- showed many traces of the concentrated fuel, leading experts to doubt the Iranian explanation and suggest that Iran had enriched the uranium itself. Its purity was 36 percent U-235 -- short of the 90 percent needed for most nuclear weapon designs but greater than that needed for most nuclear reactors.

Friday, however, European diplomats said the agency's laboratory at Seibersdorf, Austria, had discovered a likely match between the atomic signatures of Russian uranium and samples that agency inspectors had gathered from Iranian centrifuges.

In its sleuthing, the lab studies such things as a sample's isotopes -- atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons. A distinctive mix of such isotopes can amount to a fingerprint that experts check against atomic data banks.

The agency, a diplomat cautioned, was being extremely careful in its interpretation of the Seibersdorf data and other evidence and was still actively looking at alternative explanations.

Y I Patel · Post by **Y I Patel** » 29 Feb 2004 07:52

Originally posted by Mani T.:

Originally posted by Johann:

With such evidence how seriously you wish to take arguments about the age of the plutonium may depend on what you think about the accuracy and precision of the design information the analyst had regarding the bomb that produced the sample.
Exactly. Since, I do not have that design information, I can not make an estimate on the accuracy of the "dating" measurements. The second source of error would be purely statistical ... based on the sample size collected in fly-by missions.

Mani T: your response may be based on a slight misreading of Johann's post, if I may - it is very likely that US will have some design/manufacturing information to base their estimates on, so you can not dismiss the possibility of dating Pu on those grounds. You said yourself that the initial isotope ratio is unique to the manufacturing process and design, so that itself should tell you why getting information on it becomes so important to an intel agency. And never misunderestimate the techincal ingenuity of chefs and assorted helpers, my friend

Kuttan · Post by **Kuttan** » 29 Feb 2004 08:50

Nuclear-related info collected by intel agencies is generally Classified.

All data of such sort can be doctored to suit the needs of the relevant government or those who control the data in that government.

Thus, only data captured, available and demonstrated to be correct in the public domain are worth even discussing.

There is at present a big effort by the GOTUS to claim that "heroic efforts by the US and UK (Tonto always needed next to Lone Ranger) intelligence experts uncovered information about the Pakistani and Libyan and North Korean and Iranian proliferation programs".

Associated with that are all these different sorts of dramatic "evidence".

This is ALL B.S. Unless proven otherwise, (and I don't see how) it must be assumed that the GOTUS knew in 1980 about TSP's nuclear program, and its precise status.

When the NoKo ship was intercepted by IN, they knew even clearer.

The Dongless tests in 2002, with live video, made clear where the missiles came from, and the satellite photos of the C-130 shuttling between TSP and NoKO clinched evidence.

The real question is WHY ARE THEY REVEALING THIS NOW?

The apparent answer to the western media readership is: "Because they want to show that the Intel Agencies are not incompetent - they are angry because they are being made to look like idiots about the Iraq WMD lies"

The real answer is somewhere else. I claim (since I KNOW the answer

from the Aliens) that the real reason is to provide Musharraf a "soft landing" capability where he can reveal what is becoming ever harder to conceal: TSP's nook-noodity.

They have a firm deadline plus the probability of an earlier explosive deadline. In Dec. 2004 Mush is to "retire" as COAS if still not turned to fertilizer. When the succesor takes over, he gets the keys to the "nookulear bum vaults" and will discover (because the guys who know will then be under HIS command) that the vault is empty.

If the J-e-M succeeds in its next attack on Mush, then the successor will come to power even quicker (maybe tomorrow) and the revelation will come even sooner.

In either case, the successor will NOT agree to keep quiet, because then HE will be blamed for selling out the nukes when the opposition finds out. Self-preservation.

SO - the only way out is to say: "Oops! Its all that idiot Abdul Xerox's fault. Now the Americans and the Chinese have insisted on taking the nukes away. ANYWAY, now that the Samjhauta Express is running, no danger of India invading, so its fine."

Which is why it is in our interests to let the Paki People know that they are TRULY Dong-less. Nook - nood.

So that's why I am asking the "experts" here: Please try to give your best answers to the list of questions above. Lets see if there is substantial disagreement between experts, and lets see why.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 29 Feb 2004 11:16

A drama would only unflold if Musharaf and X.Khan & Co.gets kidnaped, by some inside-jobbers of isi-jem collab., pte. ltd.

else, uncle sam has in control to his terms. pakis nu-noodity, perhaps might have been stage played for some objective against cold-foes, and got mis-directed altogether, to jems benefits.

let see, if the so called nu-checking devices work in pakistan. if it can work in US ports, it should in the mullah-islands.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 29 Feb 2004 16:46

<a href=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... 46305>From Yahoo (Reuters): Pakistan tightens security after suicide bombing<a/>

Calvin · Post by **Calvin** » 29 Feb 2004 19:16

ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat has said that a four-day high security alert declared at all the airports of the country on Saturday is part of the security arrangements taken for maintaining peace during Muharram.

"There is nothing unusual about it. Security measures all over the country have been intensified to maintain peace during Muharram. We have called out army, paramilitary troops and reserve police to meet any untoward incident and the security alert at the airports is just a part of the exercise," Mr Hayat told Dawn.

The minister denied that the high alert had any thing to do with the ongoing operation in Wana, South Waziristan, or to facilitate any unusual air traffic.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/02/29/top6.htm