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[10ebbor10]

Anyway, back to Gaza. For your latest conspiracy theory, this entire ruckus is to allow the IDF to capture Gazian oil gas.

linkie

[LordSlowpoke]

that's a conspiracy theory?

i'd file it in the "saddam's wmds" category

[10ebbor10]

Completely nonexistent but propagated because it fits our national interests?

[misko27]

Why is ISIS having Nuclear material is worse then, say, North Korea?

North Korea is stable. They have China watching them. ISIL? Look at this for a second:

Spoiler: Courtesy of Wikipedia, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Allies and Enemies (click to show/hide)

--------------------------------------------------------

Their allies are nobodies. Their enemy list reads like a Who's Who of the Middle East. They can and will go down. And when they do, what happens then?

The only enemies of ISIS close to them are:
Syria
Iraq
Iran
Pick one to support.

Bombing is also ineffective without ground spotters...

Face it, this is a problem you cannot solve militarily.

Tell that to this guy:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This problem could very much be solved with the military. It's just debatable whether or not it's worth it to do so.

That said, it's probably not too bad, though Iraq did specifically say "can be used to make weapons of mass destruction"; Iraq has an incentive to make the threat look bigger, but it's still out there.

[Sergarr]

Aren't car bombs which ISIS uses already a weapon of mass destruction?

[LordSlowpoke]

if you want to be a smartass, nothing is a weapon of mass destruction because you can't destroy mass

[10ebbor10]

The only way 40 kg of uranium cokpound can be used to create a weapon of mass destruction is for it to be either hcighly radioactive, or have a high enrichment grade. I highly doubt iraq got to store weaponsgrade material.

On the radioactive part, no isotopes of uranium are sufficiently rasioactive. Some have dangerous decay production, but I doubt Isis is planming to set up it's own breeder reactor.

On a side note, you can do destroy mass. That's what nuclear energy is all about. You can't destroy energy though.

[Sergarr]

if you want to be a smartass, nothing is a weapon of mass destruction because you can't destroy mass

anti matter says hello

[Darvi]

Nuclear reactions, while not outright destroying it, also cause some of the mass to turn into massless photons.

Oh wait Ebbor mentioned it already. NEVERMIND THAT, THEN.

[Zangi]

Well...  I guess the best solution is to kill them all by lobbing exploding objects at their vicinity?

[Sergarr]

Well...  I guess the best solution is to kill them all by lobbing exploding objects at their vicinity?

sadly their vicinity is filled with civilians

[palsch]

If we are playing the game of how scary they could be with a stash of uranium, the absolute worst thing I could imagine with 40kg of material would be making uranium rounds for some of their captured anti-tank weaponry.

I'm assuming here that they have purified but non-enriched uranium, not just ore. They could, with extensive expertise and machining capability (both of which are doubtful, but not beyond the realm of imagination), create rough approximations on American or Soviet designed depleted uranium rounds. They certainly have a few weapons (including T60 and 72 tanks) capable of firing a uranium sabot round if they could produce such a tool.

Their deploying DU (or non-depleted uranium; the essential chemical/mechanical workings are near identical) weapons, even in a single verifiable case, would be catastrophic in psychological effect. Not to mention it being a highly effective munition; DU sabots fracture on impact, with each splinter (including the tip of the primary round) remaining sharp even as the dust from the splintering ignites as it expands within the target.

The amount of uranium in question would only provide a very small number of shells, or a more significant but still small number of small arms rounds (harder to verify their use and so get the psychological punch). But it's more feasible approach than pretending they could get an actual nuclear WMD of any sort from such material.

[Sergarr]

They've already captured a lot of Iraq's army stocks. Does anybody know if Iraqi's US gear included depleted uranium shells for tanks?

[QuakeIV]

Who cares, our main battle tanks armor can stop depleted uranium shells.  No literally, they cannot actually destroy eachother except with specially developed ammunition that we probably didnt give to iraqis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams#Armor

There was a special project started to make said ammo after the incidents mentioned in the last paragraph of that section.

[smjjames]

They've already captured a lot of Iraq's army stocks. Does anybody know if Iraqi's US gear included depleted uranium shells for tanks?

Who cares, our main battle tanks armor can stop depleted uranium shells.  No literally, they cannot actually destroy eachother except with specially developed ammunition that we probably didnt give to iraqis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams#Armor

There was a special project started to make said ammo after the incidents mentioned in the last paragraph of that section.

We gave them tanks without the DU layers in the armor, and probably some other sensitive military stuff.