Indeed, while nuclear weapons have only been used once during times of war, dropped in Japan in August 1945, killing over 215,000 innocent people, there are a greater number of countries acquiring nuclear capabilities in the 21st Century making them more of a threat than ever before. Nuclear weapons are just one of many weapons of mass destruction that threaten innocent citizens worldwide ("World Mysteries" 1),.
There are weapons of mass destruction other than the different kinds of nuclear warheads. Anthrax was a threat to our country not more than one year ago, and Smallpox is a current threat talked about quite often. Only a few countries possess Anthrax, but Iraq, North Korea, Russia, France, and the United States all possess Smallpox. The International Terrorist Group "al Qaida" is also thought to possess the deadly disease according to the State Department (Staff A6). An outbreak of Smallpox would bring the disease back from over 25 years of eradication, and could cause the death of thousands of people (McEnery B1).
Nuclear weapons pose a great threat to the world, by not only third-world countries, but also terrorist organizations using "Dirty Bombs". Dirty bombs are conventional explosives, however encased by nuclear material such as Uranium or Plutonium. In addition to atomic bombs, and dirty bombs, there are over seventy-five other different variants of nuclear weapons, creating a constant threat to countries all around the world, including the United States of America.
There are over seventy-five top-secret presidential nuclear bunkers in which the President and some select few can go to during and after a nuclear war ("50 Facts" 3). On September 11, 2001, George W. Bush and others went to one of these facilities in Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska (Gibbs 33). Also until 1988, there was over $2,000,000,000 stored by the Federal Reserve in a facility for use after a nuclear war ("50 Facts" 3).
