550 Tons of Iraqi Uranium

Nuclear watchdog fears terrorist dirty bomb after looting at al-Tuwaitha

United Nations nuclear inspectors, barred from Iraq by Washington, are increasingly worried that the widespread looting and ransacking of Iraq's nuclear facilities may result in terrorists building a radioactive "dirty bomb".

The inspectors' concerns are shared internationally and the British government has report edly offered to raise the matter with Washington to try to get agreement on a return of the UN nuclear inspectors to Iraq.

The main worry revolves around the fate of at least 200 radioactive isotopes which were stored at the sprawling al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 15 miles south of Baghdad. It has seen widespread looting, and reports from Baghdad speak of locals making off with barrels of raw uranium and the isotopes which are meant for medical or industrial use.

"If this happened anywhere else there would be national outrage and it would be the highest priority," said a senior source at the UN nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The radioactive sources, some very potent ones, could get on to the black market and into the hands of terrorists planning dirty-bomb attacks," said Melissa Fleming, an IAEA spokeswoman.

The IAEA chief, Mohammed El Baradei, has appealed twice to the US in the past month to be allowed to resume inspections of the Iraqi nuclear sites. The requests have gone unanswered, although the IAEA has forwarded details of suspect nuclear sites to the US.

On Monday, Dr El Baradei raised the problem in London with the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, who is said to have been "supportive and sympathetic".

"The Brits are saying they agree with us, that something needs to be done and that they will speak to the Americans," said the IAEA source.

In recent sessions in Geneva on preparations for a review of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty in 2005, several delegates also attacked US security failures at al-Tuwaitha.

Experts are muttering that the US, as the occupying power in Iraq, is now technically in breach of the non-proliferation treaty. There is a fear that the occupation, ostensibly to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, could result in more such weapons being created.

Before the war there were 1,000 or more such devices in Iraq, at least 200 of them stored at a site known as Location C in al-Tuwaitha. It is not clear how many are missing, but IAEA officials have seen footage showing looters with casings containing isotopes.

Mark Gvozdecky, the chief IAEA spokesman, said: "If this was happening anywhere else in the world _ we would insist on an immediate inspection. It has been more than a month since the initial reports of looting, more than a month since US forces took control."

But UN inspectors are pessimistic about being allowed back, and note that the Anglo-American UN resolution on Iraq being negotiated in New York has no provision for a resumption of UN inspections.

Wmds For The Taking?

While U.S. Troops Pushed On To Baghdad, Iraqis Were Looting Radioactive Materials From Once Protected Sites

From the very start, one of the top U.S. priorities in Iraq has been the search for weapons of mass destruction. Weren't WMDs supposed to be what the war was about? Even so, no one has yet produced conclusive evidence that Iraq was maintaining a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) arsenal. Two very suspicious trailer rigs turned up last week in Mosul. The Pentagon called them mobile bio-labs. Maybe, but although they "looked like a duck and walked like a duck," as one U.S. officer put it, they didn't quack. The first of the huge, truck-drawn labs, intercepted at a roadblock, had been swabbed clean. The other, discovered Friday, was stripped by looters before U.S. troops found it. So far there's a lot more belli than casus.

Looters outran the WMD hunters almost every time. "Once a site has been hit with a 2,000-pound bomb, then looted, there's not a lot left," says Maj. Paul Haldeman, the 101st Airborne Division's top NBC officer. In the rush to Baghdad, Coalition forces raced past most suspected WMD sites, and looters took over. After Saddam's fall, there were too few U.S. troops to secure the facilities. Roughly 900 possible WMD sites appeared on the initial target lists. So far, V Corps officers say, fewer than 150 have been searched. "There aren't enough troops in the whole Army," says Col. Tim Madere, the overseer of V Corps's sensitive-site teams. "There just aren't enough experts to do everything."

Some of the lapses are frightening. The well-known Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, had nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes, when International Atomic Energy Agency officials made their last visit in January. By the time U.S. troops arrived in early April, armed guards were holding off looters--but the Americans only disarmed the guards, Al Tuwaitha department heads told NEWSWEEK. "We told them, 'This site is out of control. You have to take care of it'," says Munther Ibrahim, Al Tuwaitha's head of plasma physics. "The soldiers said, 'We are a small group. We cannot take control of this site'." As soon as the Americans left, looters broke in. The staff fled; when they returned, the containment vaults' seals had been broken, and radioactive material was everywhere.

U.S. officers say the center had already been ransacked before their troops arrived. They didn't try to stop the looting, says Colonel Madere, because "there was no directive that said do not allow anyone in and out of this place." Last week American troops finally went back to secure the site. Al Tuwaitha's scientists still can't fully assess the damage; some areas are too badly contaminated to inspect. "I saw empty uranium-oxide barrels lying around, and children playing with them," says Fadil Mohsen Abed, head of the medical-isotopes department. Stainless-steel uranium canisters had been stolen. Some were later found in local markets and in villagers' homes. "We saw people using them for milking cows and carrying drinking water," says Ibrahim. The looted materials could not make a nuclear bomb, but IAEA officials worry that terrorists could build plenty of dirty bombs with some of the isotopes that may have gone missing. Last week NEWSWEEK visited a total of eight sites on U.N. weapons-inspection lists. Two were guarded by U.S. troops. Armed looters were swarming through two others. Another was evidently destroyed many years ago. American forces had not yet searched the remaining three.

Not finding WMDs doesn't mean there are none. "We haven't found Saddam Hussein yet," says a senior Bush administration official. "Does that mean he didn't exist?" Last week the ground-forces commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, told NEWSWEEK he's confident evidence will emerge. "We haven't found yet the big, hard evidence, but I think that will come," he said. Officials in Washington spoke more cautiously. "I think we're going to find that they had a weapons-of-mass-destruction program," said Stephen Cambone, under secretary of Defense for intelligence--carefully not saying the weapons themselves would be found. Proving Saddam's guilt is almost beside the point. The urgent job now is to keep his WMD materials out of terrorist hands--if it isn't already too late.

Obviously I was completely wrong, but I'm going to soldier on in this thread as if I had been right in order to avoid admitting embarrassment.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=300323577877918

Quote:

Saddam's Nukes

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT

In recent weeks, the U.S. secretly has helped the Iraqi government ship it all to Canada, where it was bought by a Canadian company for further processing into nuclear fuel — thus keeping it from potential use by terrorists or unsavory regimes in the region.

This has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Yet, as the AP reported, this marks a "significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy."

gungasnake wrote:

Obviously I was completely wrong, but I'm going to soldier on in this thread as if I had been right in order to avoid admitting embarrassment.

Cycloptichorn

Obviously not a major secret in the world, but George Bush fixed the problem. Demokkkrats would have simply ignored the problem until it grew and overwhelmed them.