A nuclear Pandora's box
Pssst, you want to build a dirty bomb?

Okay, we all know about North Korea -- and it only gets nastier all the time. Here's former Secretary of Defense William Perry on the subject (It's Either Nukes or Negotiation, the Washington Post,):

"If it keeps on its present course, North Korea will probably have six to eight nuclear weapons by the end of the year, will possibly have conducted a nuclear test and may have begun deployment of some of these weapons, targeted against Japan and South Korea. By next year, it could be in serial production of nuclear weapons, building perhaps five to 10 per year. This is a nightmare scenario, but it is a reasonable extrapolation from what we know and from what the North Koreans have announced."

As for Iran, the Los Angeles Times' Douglas Frantz reports today on a three-month-long investigation into the Iranian bomb (Iran is seen moving close to producing nuclear bomb):

"After more than a decade of working behind layers of front companies and in hidden laboratories, Iran appears to be in the late stages of developing the capacity to build a nuclear bomb... Technology and scientists from Russia, China, North Korea, and Pakistan have propelled Iran's nuclear program much closer to producing a bomb than Iraq ever was... North Korean military scientists recently were monitored entering Iranian nuclear facilities. They are assisting in the design of a nuclear warhead, according to people inside Iran and foreign intelligence officials. So many North Koreans are working on nuclear and missile projects in Iran that a resort on the Caspian coast is set aside for their exclusive use."

But never fear our leaders have an infallible plan in response: "Foreign intelligence officers told the Times that the CIA, which has long contended that Iran is building a bomb, has briefed them on a contingency plan for US air and missile attacks against Iranian nuclear installations." If, of course, they even know where they are.
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  thanks to Cursor