Word: capacitor
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...some experts, the capacitor discovery was a chilling indication that Iraq might be on the verge of building a nuclear bomb. Says Paul Beaver, publisher of the authoritative Jane's Defense Weekly: "Saddam is getting close to when he will need that part of the nuclear mechanism." Other experts strongly disagree. U.S. intelligence officials, despite the Administration's alarms, insist that Iraq is not on a fast track to being able to produce anything more than a single low-yield device...
Smaller than a soda can and with a sticker price of about $200, a capacitor hardly appears lethal. Its industrial applications range from use in copier machines to air-conditioning units to aerospace equipment. But take a highly miniaturized capacitor capable of storing 5,000 volts, feed it into a peanut- size switch called a krytron, and the result is a device that can be used for the deadliest purpose of all: triggering a nuclear explosion...
Pause. More conferring in Arabic, and as the meeting wore on, the Iraqis kept changing the specs until they fitted those of a nuclear warhead detonation capacitor. But Supnick informed them that the U.S. Government would not license the capacitors for export if the true destination, Baghdad, were revealed. The Iraqis' solution: the shipment would be described as parts for "computer-room air conditioners...