The primitive nuclear device tested by North Korea in 2006 is estimated to weigh more than 1, 500 kilograms (3, 307 pounds).
Ever since 1974, when India tested a supposedly peaceful nuclear device, it has had the technical wherewithal to build the bomb.
But advocates for preventing nuclear proliferation say it highlights the risk that terrorists could obtain enough fuel to build a nuclear device.
This has been true even though India had not tested a nuclear device since 1974 and Pakistan is believed never to have done so.
Joseph De Trani, former head of the National Counterproliferation Center, predicted U.S. intelligence would determine the size and composition of the nuclear device in one to three days based partly on radioactive elements released into the environment.
Experts including Duelfer and Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, believe Saddam has the sophisticated triggers, weapon housings and everything else he needs to build a nuclear device--except for a sufficient supply of weapons-grade enriched uranium.
If an aggressor launches a nuclear device of whatever size and detonates it above the atmosphere and in the line of site of its target country, the x-rays and gamma rays emitted by the blast will cause an electromagnetic pulse, or wave a million times stronger than the strongest radio wave.
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Such units, for example, generally come with a nuclear waste storage containment device.
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South Korean experts say they have not detected any radioactive isotopes from North Korea's nuclear test, hampering efforts to assess the device.
The idea is that a person would operate a robotic device remotely, but would receive or "feel" signals from a dangerous environment, such as a nuclear reactor or the surface of another planet.
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