Responding to msg by perry@imsi.com ("Perry E. Metzger") on Tue, 23 Aug 9:18 AM

This is sheer ignorance.

Hey, that's what commercializing the national security treasure is all about. Ignorance is essential for the market in nuclear "terrorism". The staid NY Times headlined a summary of this topic with "Call 1-800-TERROR". The unknown threat is the weapon. Intelligence is the magic shield. The National Resources Defense Council pointed out in an execellent series on nuclear weapons a few years back that it is impossible to make an accurate count of nuclear devices because every country dissembles even while leaking data to sow fear. Even now, says NRDC, the need is for a reliable way to count so the fictitious can be separated from the real. Lack of precision, ignorance, thank you Perry, helps market fake as well as real nuclear material, just like any other market-driven exotic product (supercomputers?). Recent reports describe the Russian nuclear materials managers proffering their real and Potemkin cache for buy-out to the most gullible deep-pockets, governments. And so goes pumping this lucrative market, and its concomitant market of intelligence, now commercial where once affairs of state. More national security legislation, more powerful computers, more money for salesmen (er, agents). Ignorance drives this market, always has; starting some forty years ago with George Kennan's lurid 'X' essay on containment. Jim Dixon, help out with gritty facts. John