What the Heck is a Reconstituted Nuclear Weapon?

[adios]

Andy referred to a widely published Cheney quote where Cheney stated that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons. What is a reconstituded nuclear weapon anyway? I was employed for several years doing dismantlement of US nuclear weapons and I never heard that term used. It sounds like it may be a nuclear weapon that was once active but is currently in a dismantled state. Dismantling nukes of course involves removing the nuclear material of the weapon and inventorying it somehow.

[BruceZ]

The weapons program is reconstituted, not the weapon.

From: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/politics/6772435.htm

The vice president, however, said he had been wrong six months ago when he said on his last appearance on "Meet the Press" that Saddam had "reconstituted nuclear weapons."

"I did misspeak," he [cheney] acknowledged. "I said repeatedly during the show `weapons capability.' We never had any evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon."


From:
power line (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/003807.php)

Now, it is perfectly clear, as Luskin has pointed out, that what Cheney said was that Saddam was "pursuing" nuclear weapons and "trying to produce" nuclear weapons. Cheney said that he disagreed with the IAEA's claim that Iraq did not have a "nuclear program," and when he said that "he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons," it was a slip of the tongue. What he meant to say--as Tim Russert clearly understood--was that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear program. A reconstituted program makes sense; a reconstituted weapon does not.


From:
National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-volokh063003.asp)

But then if you do a bit more research, you see a rather different picture. First, a clue that there might be more to see: People don't generally talk about "reconstituted nuclear weapons," but they often talk about a "reconstituted nuclear weapons program." That was my sense when I first heard the Cheney line, and a LEXIS-NEXIS search confirms this — all 15 pre-March 16 uses of the consecutive words "reconstituted nuclear weapons" were within the phrase "reconstituted nuclear weapons program."

I likewise did a hotbot.com Internet search for pre-March 16 uses of "reconstituted nuclear weapons," and found over 30. I then did a hotbot search for pre-March 16 uses of "reconstituted nuclear weapons" that didn't also include "reconstituted nuclear weapons program" (not a perfect way of checking how often "reconstituted nuclear weapons" has been used alone, but pretty close), and found two — both simply referring to "reconstituted nuclear weapons programme," using the English spelling. I also manually checked those pages yielded by the first hotbot query; some were no longer accessible or had been changed, but the remaining ones all referred to a "reconstituted nuclear weapons program."

It's the program that's being reconstituted, not the nuclear weapons. I suppose you might be able to rebuild a nuclear weapon that had earlier been dismantled, but I've never heard of that being referred to using the word "reconstitute." Maybe Cheney just misspoke, and was simply saying that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear program, in order to eventually produce nuclear weapons — not claiming that Saddam already had a nuclear weapon.

[adios]

"It's the program that's being reconstituted, not the nuclear weapons. I suppose you might be able to rebuild a nuclear weapon that had earlier been dismantled, but I've never heard of that being referred to using the word "reconstitute." Maybe Cheney just misspoke, and was simply saying that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear program, in order to eventually produce nuclear weapons — not claiming that Saddam already had a nuclear weapon."

Thanks Bruce, explains it fully to me anyway and makes perfect sense.

[Cyrus]

So when the pitstiff and the dealer were trying to reconstitute a Blackjack hand that the newbie dealer had misplayed (and misspaid) (to a certain player's detriment), the dealer sneezes a royal sneeze on the table. We had a lot of trouble reconstituting the hand after that, because the stiff ordered a deck change.

Maybe there are some similarities between this reconstitution and the idea of a reconstituted Iraqi nuclear weapons program, in that they are both very wet.

[andyfox]

My guess is Cheney meant the program to develop nuclear weapons had been reconstituted, i.e., started up again.