Three items to help you sleep tonight

1) From the New York Times for March 19:

To cope with the possibility that terrorists might someday detonate a nuclear bomb on American soil, the federal government is reviving a scientific art that was lost after the cold war: fallout analysis.

The goal, officials and weapons experts both inside and outside the government say, is to figure out quickly who exploded such a bomb and where the nuclear material came from. That would clarify the options for striking back. ...

Most experts say the risk of a terrorist nuclear attack is low but no longer unthinkable, given the spread of material and know-how around the globe.

Dr. Jay C. Davis, a nuclear scientist who in 1999 helped found the Pentagon's part of the governmentwide effort, said the precautions would "pay huge dividends after the event, both in terms of the ability to identify the bad actor and in terms of establishing public trust."

In a nuclear crisis, Dr. Davis added, the identification effort would be vital in "dealing with the desire for instant gratification through vengeance."

2) From the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, March 19:

Tajikistan's Plutonium Scare: Police foil an attempt to smuggle weapons-grade nuclear material for sale in Afghanistan or Pakistan

The arrest of three men arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle plutonium through Tajikistan has highlighted concerns about the security of the republic's borders. ...

According to Vladimir Echouprov, a coordinator with Greenpeace's energy department in Moscow, this amount of plutonium is far too small to make a nuclear bomb, but it is more than sufficient to make a so-called dirty bomb, in which radioactive material is spread by conventional explosives. ...

Defence analysts have long considered Tajikistan to be the weakest link on the long-established smuggling route linking Afghanistan with Russia and western Europe. A recent series of attacks blamed on Islamic extremists has heightened fears that a "dirty bomb" could be constructed using plutonium smuggled through Central Asia. ...

This is not the first time that weapons-grade material has been confiscated from would-be smugglers in Tajikistan. However, the plutonium in those cases originated within the republic - a legacy of the uranium mines and enriching factories built by the Soviets but now decommissioned.

This time there seems little doubt that the plutonium came from Russia. According to Major Avaz Yuldashev of the DCA, "The container holding the plutonium had special marking signs which identify it as having been produced at one of Russian nuclear plants."

3) From AP for March 21:

Sydney, Australia - Osama bin Laden's terror network claims to have bought ready-made nuclear weapons on the black market in central Asia, the biographer of al-Qaida's No. 2 leader was quoted as telling an Australian television station.

In an interview scheduled to be televised on Monday, Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir said Ayman al-Zawahri claimed that "smart briefcase bombs" were available on the black market.

Speaking of sleeping tonight: Considering that the US developed nuclear weapons, remains (at least so far) the only force to have used them, promoted nuclear power during the Eisenhower administration as a means of ensuring a sufficient supply of enriched uranium for the nuclear weapons then planned, continues to promote nuclear power, undermined nuclear weapons nonproliferation efforts by its failure to restrain its own arsenal (by far the largest in the world), and failed to provide assistance to the former Soviet states (including Russia) in efforts to dismantle their weapons and dispose of the nuclear materials, this may be a case of "you made your bed, now lie in it." A very uncomfortable bed, indeed.