Marines may have broken seals on known radioactive material

Marines may have broken seals on known radioactive material
Posted: Thursday, April 10, 5:48pm EDT - Christian Science Monitor

American troops who suggested they uncovered evidence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq unwittingly may have stumbled across known stocks of low-grade uranium, officials said Thursday. They said the US troops may have broken UN seals meant to keep control of the radioactive material.

Leaders of a US Marine Corps combat engineering unit claimed earlier this week to have found an underground network of laboratories, warehouses and bombproof offices beneath the closely monitored
Tuwaitha nuclear research center just south of Baghdad.

The Marines said they discovered 14 buildings at the site which emitted unusually high levels of radiation, and that a search of one building revealed "many, many drums" containing highly radioactive material. If documented, such a discovery could bolster Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weaponry.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the US Central Command, said officials there have not heard anything through military channels about a Marine inspection at Tuwaitha.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspected the Tuwaitha nuclear complex at least two dozen times and maintains a thick dossier on the site, had no immediate comment.

But an expert familiar with UN nuclear inspections told The Associated Press that it was implausible to believe that US forces had uncovered anything new at the site. Instead, the official said, the Marines apparently broke UN seals designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use, or end up in the wrong hands.

"What happened apparently was that they broke IAEA seals, which is very unfortunate because those seals are integral to ensuring that nuclear material doesn't get diverted," the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.