Govt Releases Nuclear Bomb How-To Documents

November 3rd, 2006

Washington, D.C. - The Bush administration has shut down a government Web site after criticism from weapons and arms control experts that the site offered a guide to building a nuclear bomb.

The Web site was set up in March to make public archived Iraqi documents captured during the Iraq war, The New York Times reported. The Bush administration set up the Web site under pressure from Republican leaders in Congress, who said they wanted to "leverage the Internet" to uncover evidence of prewar threats posed by former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the newspaper said.

However, the site recently posted documents that weapons experts say offer details about Iraq's secret nuclear research prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War -- and experts say the documents provide a guide to building a nuclear weapon, the Times reported.

A spokesman for John Negroponte, director of national intelligence, told the newspaper access to the site was suspended "pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing."

The questionable documents contain charts, diagrams, equations and test about bomb making that apparently surpass what had previously been available publicly, the Times said.

Source: © UPI News