Originally posted by: Particle Man
Sorry but the science is getting wacky now.
Suitcase bombs are urban legends, unless you have some type of government intelligence stating otherwise. The physics of a thermonuclear weapon (U235) requires a given distance/mass ratio or else it will go critical (Chernobyl). The best that Iran could do would be like a fatman bomb, which is a behemoth. The little boy was using Plutonium instead and different design, which again is huge. Trying to launch one of these will be very difficult without detection. Now, if technology from the former Soviet Union was implemented, they would have to make ultra caution to not contaminate anything in the process (many, many times better than any clean room in a fab processor plant). In addition, they would have to use special explosives to accelerate the U235 to reach critical mass at a finite point under extreme pressure to give the mushroom explosion. Remember that this is under the best conditions possible to build one of these warheads. If contamination or miscalculation in critical mass timing does occur, then it could become more like a dirty bomb without the mushroom cloud. Just because you have weapons grade materials does not necessarily mean that a thermonuclear bomb can be made from it automatically. It can take a lot of weapons grade material to make a single bomb with extreme caution.
If Iran wanted to threaten with a dirty bomb, then it still will cause tensions with neighboring countries. Testing a nuke is not a small task and it requires lots of $$$ and good scientists to do so.
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