Useful tips from the U.S. Government

Want to build a bomb? Better yet, aiming to design some WMD in your basement? You'll probably need some sort of instructions, right? And perhaps maybe a basic understanding of chemistry or physics. Not to mention equipment, a secret lair, a secret handshake, and probably a Swiss bank account.

But even with all that other stuff, you're nowhere without instructions.

That's where the federal government steps in.

The New York Times today reports that a website the government set up to detail all of Saddam Hussein's weapons initiatives had posted for some time detailed instructions on some of the steps needed to build an atomic weapon. The IAEA apparently protested this level of detail sometime last week. Yet the site stayed up until NYT made some phone calls.

(Sidebar: amazing how NYT is seen as more of an expert on these things than the lil old International Atomic Energy Agency.)

It gets better.

This wasn't the first time such information had been posted. Apparently back in the spring there were directions on how to build chemical weapons. They stayed up until some UN agency got really uppity. Better still, the documents translated into English from Arabic.

This was apparently all part of some huge effort to convince the American people that the whole Iraq war thing was justified.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents