Joe Didn't Get It Quite Right

It was an odd moment during the VP debate when Joe Biden was laughing as Paul Ryan was talking about Iran getting nuclear weapons. He then went on to say in his best know-it-all Eddie Haskell voice that even if Iran manufactured enough fissile material, they had nothing to deliver it with so DON'T WORRY; BE HAPPY. Well, as is usually the case with Joe, there really is something to worry about after all, as set out below. Please note the letter writer 's credentials at the end of his letter.

"Regarding your editorial "Biden's Intelligence" (Oct. 13): I'm writing to clear up the nuclear misinformation spouted by Vice President Joe Biden which was not rebutted during the Oct. 11 debate. Iran's nuclear program is going critical.

Mr. Biden said, in effect: Don't worry. Even if Iran gets fissile material, it needs something to put it in.

But the facts are quite different. Once any nuclear wannabe gets 160 pounds of uranium enriched to 80% U-235 (the enrichment level of the Hiroshima bomb and of South Africa's Melba) he has a weapon. "Little Boy," the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, did not need to be tested; we knew it would work. The design is now in the open literature: It is 1940s technology, easy to build.

Iran's first nuke will not be fired at a target, any more than was India's, Pakistan's or North Korea's. A confirmed Iranian nuclear detonation within a mountain or in the desert will let the world know the game has changed.

The Hiroshima design can be carried by air, of course. Even easier, it can be delivered by boat, truck or train."

Thomas C. Reed

Healdsburg, Calif.

Mr. Reed, a former secretary of the Air Force, designed thermonuclear devices while at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

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