For Cliff, Tweety, and the rest of the bird brains here...


Associated Press exclusive -

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge
stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port
Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week
airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for
higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing
the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and
Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or
smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the
remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex
about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts
recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

....

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g...5BV2QD91O4NJ82

Also...
down towards the end...

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled
radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed
irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain
elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a
weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS
Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:46:19 -0500, cavelamb himself
wrote:
snip
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake"
snip
===============
And just where does the yellow cake and/or the money go from
here?



Some analysts are suggesting 100$US per ounce. Anyone know what
the yield for this type of yellow cake is? FWIW a metric ton is
1000KG or 2200 lbs.

Even assuming a 60% yield we are talking 550 X 2200 X 90$ X 0.6
or 66 million $US in unvouchered/uninventoried assets.

Current U308 price appears to be about 90$US/pound.
http://www.bestwaytoinvest.com/stori...FQJvswodJhp6uQ
but some of the commodity bucket shops are suggesting 100$US per
ounce
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/PPC/Ur...Zlswodz gNkuQ

F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:46:19 -0500, cavelamb himself
wrote:
snip
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake"
snip
===============
And just where does the yellow cake and/or the money go from
here?

At least the uranium isn't going back that region. As for the money,
they'll waste it on something stupid I'm sure.

It's not like anybody there wants to be civilized and start with some
basic industry or anything like that.

F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:46:19 -0500, cavelamb himself
wrote:
snip

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake"

snip
===============
And just where does the yellow cake and/or the money go from
here?


Canada!

Gomon, George, I gave the AP link.


Teach a man to read and he'll pester you for all the answers.
Teach him to click and he can entertain himself all day.

F. George McDuffee wrote:

And just where does the yellow cake and/or the money go from
here?


Probably the same places yellow cake from Sudbury goes. Canada has uranium mines.

Wes

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m...
For Cliff, Tweety, and the rest of the bird brains here...

There are definitely some bird brains here and you are most definitely one
of them. Even after all this time here you are still trying to find a
justification for the US invading Iraq. You still have not succeeded with
that any more than we have "won" in Iraq. Our military is still tied down in
Iraq. As long as it can't leave the country is not pacified. So the so
called victory is not here and as much as you wish it was the case there
still was no legitimate reason for our attack. You can think so all you want
but most of America and the rest of the world disagrees. The consensus view
is that we could have dealt with Saddam and Iraq without this war. I don't
give a **** if you believe that or not because you have such a teeny, tiny,
brain that you never get anything right anyway.

Hawke



Associated Press exclusive -

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge
stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port
Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week
airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for
higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing
the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and
Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or
smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the
remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex
about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts
recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

...

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g...5BV2QD91O4NJ82

Hawke wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m...

For Cliff, Tweety, and the rest of the bird brains here...


There are definitely some bird brains here and you are most definitely one
of them. Even after all this time here you are still trying to find a
justification for the US invading Iraq. You still have not succeeded with
that any more than we have "won" in Iraq. Our military is still tied down in
Iraq. As long as it can't leave the country is not pacified. So the so
called victory is not here and as much as you wish it was the case there
still was no legitimate reason for our attack. You can think so all you want
but most of America and the rest of the world disagrees. The consensus view
is that we could have dealt with Saddam and Iraq without this war. I don't
give a **** if you believe that or not because you have such a teeny, tiny,
brain that you never get anything right anyway.

Hawke



I haven't been trying to do any such thing, Twitt.
It just showed up on the news.

You Lose.

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...
Hawke wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m...

For Cliff, Tweety, and the rest of the bird brains here...


There are definitely some bird brains here and you are most definitely
one
of them. Even after all this time here you are still trying to find a
justification for the US invading Iraq. You still have not succeeded
with
that any more than we have "won" in Iraq. Our military is still tied
down in
Iraq. As long as it can't leave the country is not pacified. So the so
called victory is not here and as much as you wish it was the case there
still was no legitimate reason for our attack. You can think so all you
want
but most of America and the rest of the world disagrees. The consensus
view
is that we could have dealt with Saddam and Iraq without this war. I
don't
give a **** if you believe that or not because you have such a teeny,
tiny,
brain that you never get anything right anyway.

Hawke



I haven't been trying to do any such thing, Twitt.
It just showed up on the news.

You Lose.


Sorry Bro, but when you are always coming up with things you hear or read
that bolster your case you can't pretend that you didn't post that
information for a reason. There is plenty of evidence that you could find
that shows things are still very bad over there but somehow you don't ever
post any of that. Any time you only put up information that supports your
belief you are trying to make a point. So you are either doing it
unintentionally, which I doubt. Or it's willful, which I think is the case.
Why post it otherwise? Fess up.

Hawke

Hawke wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...

Hawke wrote:

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
news:Y_GdnZ8cqv3kHuzVnZ2dnUVZ_rvinZ2d@earthlink .com...


For Cliff, Tweety, and the rest of the bird brains here...


There are definitely some bird brains here and you are most definitely

one

of them. Even after all this time here you are still trying to find a
justification for the US invading Iraq. You still have not succeeded

with

that any more than we have "won" in Iraq. Our military is still tied

down in

Iraq. As long as it can't leave the country is not pacified. So the so
called victory is not here and as much as you wish it was the case there
still was no legitimate reason for our attack. You can think so all you

want

but most of America and the rest of the world disagrees. The consensus

view

is that we could have dealt with Saddam and Iraq without this war. I

don't

give a **** if you believe that or not because you have such a teeny,

tiny,

brain that you never get anything right anyway.

Hawke



I haven't been trying to do any such thing, Twitt.
It just showed up on the news.

You Lose.



Sorry Bro, but when you are always coming up with things you hear or read
that bolster your case you can't pretend that you didn't post that
information for a reason. There is plenty of evidence that you could find
that shows things are still very bad over there but somehow you don't ever
post any of that. Any time you only put up information that supports your
belief you are trying to make a point. So you are either doing it
unintentionally, which I doubt. Or it's willful, which I think is the case.
Why post it otherwise? Fess up.

Hawke




-

I posted it for a reason alright.
I've seldom - IF EVER - posted anything about conditions in Iraq.

This was good news.

First, the materials were removed from a very unstable place.

Second, they WERE trying to set up a nuke production syste,

I posted this note HERE because YOU were wrong.

And you've made such an ass of yourself about it for so long, been so
obnoxious about it that it's FUN to show you up.

You Were Wrong Hawkie,

Fess Up.

cavelamb himself wrote:
Hawke wrote:
"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
...

Hawke wrote:

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m...



I posted it for a reason alright.
I've seldom - IF EVER - posted anything about conditions in Iraq.

This was good news.

Not news at all really.


First, the materials were removed from a very unstable place.

Not really.


Second, they WERE trying to set up a nuke production syste,

No they weren't. This stuff was at Tuwaitha, a site that had been blown to
kingdom come in the 80's.
The IAEA had this material under lock and key and had for 20 years or so.


I posted this note HERE because YOU were wrong.

No, you are.


And you've made such an ass of yourself about it for so long, been so
obnoxious about it that it's FUN to show you up.

How. By sticking your foot in your mouth?


You Were Wrong Hawkie,

Sorry


Fess Up.

Go ahead.

--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com

Disagree, we must.

Yellow cake isn't that dangerous on it's own except if inhaled.
(It won't explode, but it's a great poison)

But the unknown elements that have been cooking away in the bottom of
the pile are.

I'm glad it got cleaned up and out of there.

"cavelamb himself" wrote in message
m...
Disagree, we must.

Yellow cake isn't that dangerous on it's own except if inhaled.
(It won't explode, but it's a great poison)

But the unknown elements that have been cooking away in the bottom of
the pile are.

I'm glad it got cleaned up and out of there.

Why? What's it matter to you what the Iraqis do in their own country? It is
a sovereign nation isn't it? Oh wait, we have 350,000 people there so I
guess it's not sovereign after all. The point is that Iraq has been a mess
for a long, long time and we should never have gotten ourselves involved
there. Most people feel that way about it now. There are still a few die
hards that won't admit a mistake when one is made. Are you one of them or do
you have any sense of reason left in you at all? Because as Dr. Phil likes
to say you can't fix something unless you acknowledge that something is
wrong. The first step in making things right in Iraq is admitting we were
wrong to go there to begin with. Can you even make that small step in the
right direction?

Hawke

cavelamb himself wrote:
Disagree, we must.

Yellow cake isn't that dangerous on it's own except if inhaled.
(It won't explode, but it's a great poison)

It's not even much of a poison, certainly less so than the depleted uranium
we've been showering the place with for seventeen years now. Roundup will
kill you a lot quicker and with a far smaller dose.


But the unknown elements that have been cooking away in the bottom of
the pile are.

Nothing has been "cooking away" LMAO.
Get a grip.


I'm glad it got cleaned up and out of there.

They didn't clean up anything Richard.
The mess, and what is truly dangerous, remains and will have to be dealt
with.

--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com

cavelamb himself wrote:
Disagree, we must.


Here you go Richard. The guy that put this together is a little whacky but I
looked it over carefully and his sources are verifiable and he mostly got it
right.
http://www.mahablog.com/oldsite/id13.html


Tuwaitha is a town about 15 kilometers southeast of Baghdad. It sits next to
a 23,000-acre nuclear waste site that once included a nuclear reactor. Last
weekend a team of safeguards inspectors from the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) arrived to inventory the nuclear material there, or at least
what was left of it.

Iraqi guards at the nuclear site left their posts in mid-March, as U.S.
Marines approached. But the Marines did not arrive until April 7. In the
interim, the people of Tuwaitha broke into the facility and carted off
anything that looked useful or saleable or just interesting.

Brightly colored 55-gallon barrels were especially prized. The men of
Tuwaitha emptied hundreds of the barrels of yellow-brown mud and used the
barrels to haul water from wells and canals for drinking, baking, and
cooking.

The yellow-brown mud was uranium oxide, or "yellow cake," a low-grade form
of enriched uranium.

"How Did the World Miss All of This?"

Shortly after U.S. Marines occupied Tuwaitha, stories about an amazing
discovery of nuclear material popped up in American news media.
So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have discovered 14
buildings that betray high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show
nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.

A few hundred meters outside the complex, where peasants say the "missile
water" is stored in mammoth caverns, the Marine radiation detectors go "off
the charts."

"It's amazing," said Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's
nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist. "I went to the off-site
storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened
the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly
radioactive material."

To nuclear experts in the United States, the discovery of a subterranean
complex is highly interesting, perhaps the atomic "smoking gun" intelligence
agencies have been searching for as Operation Iraqi Freedom unfolds. ...

The mayor of this high-tech city is, for now, Capt. John Seegar, a combat
engineer commander from Houston, Tx. He trudges up the 10-story hillocks
hiding the campus from the surrounding villages and, crossing near a
demolished mud bunker, it all opens up, gleaming and swaddled in roses.

"I've never seen anything like it, ever," said Seegar, who leads a company
of combat engineers turned into combat grunts. "How did the world miss all
of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?" [Carl Prine,
"Marines Hold Nuclear Site," Pittsburgh Review Tribune, April 9, 2003]

And the answer is, "the world" knew good and well about the nuclear material
at Tuwaitha. The world, however, didn't bother to brief the Marines or the
people (called "peasants" by Mr. Prine) of Tuwaitha.

What the World Knew: In the 1970s, Iraq built a 40 megawatt light-water
nuclear reactor at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center near Baghdad with French
assistance. France also supplied approximately 27.5 pounds of 93%
Uranium-235 [source]. The reactor was called Osiraq by the French, Tammuz 1
by the Iraqis.

Israel believed Iraq planned to use the reactor to develop weapons-grade
material. On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16s accompanied by six F-15s
dropped fifteen 2000-lb. bombs deep into the reactor structure, reducing the
facility to rubble. Justification for this attack remains controversial. But
in the months leading up to the recent war on Iraq, the Bush Administration
cited the bombing as a precedent for the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war.
Rumsfeld was asked if he believed preemptive strikes against rogue states
such as Iraq were likely. He immediately recalled Israel's 1981 bombing raid
on Iraq's nuclear facility. [Joseph Laconte, "Rumsfeld's Just War," The
Heritage Foundation, December 24, 2001]
Further, the IAEA had inspected the site several times before the Iraq War
began in March, most recently on February 11, 2003 [source]. United Nations
weapons inspectors had visited the facility in December, 2002 [source].

In short, the nuclear site at Tuwaitha was no secret, except to people most
in danger from it.

Confirmed: It Could Be Plutonium

News of the Marines' "discovery" at Tuwaitha concerned the IAEA, which
worried the Marines had broken inspection seals.
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 U.N. nuclear inspections told The Associated
Press that it was implausible to believe that U.S. forces had uncovered
anything new at the site. Instead, the official said, the Marines apparently
broke U.N. 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. [Associated Press/Fox News, "Experts: U.S. 'Discovery' of Nuke
Materials in Iraq Was Breach of U.N.-Monitored Site," April 10, 2003]

But many could not let go of a potential "smoking gun." After IAEA's
concerns became news, Fox News reported,
U.S. Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive
underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex,
Fox News confirmed Friday. ... U.S. defense officials on Friday confirmed
that preliminary field tests did in fact indicate the material could be
plutonium. [Fox News, "Weapons-Grade Plutonium Possibly Found at Iraqi Nuke
Complex," April 11, 2003]
Did the Fox News audience catch those qualifiers? Or did they hear
"confirmed ... plutonium"? I contacted Fox News to find out of this story
had ever been retracted, but as of this writing I have not received a
response.

"His Teeth Are Still There"

By mid-May, reports of possible radiation sickness in Tuwaitha began to
surface.
Amar Jorda is a boy who said he has fallen ill after drinking water from a
plastic barrel from the site.

"My skin itches. I can't breathe well, and my nose bleeds at least four
times a day," Amar said. [Karl Penual, "Iraqis Complain of Illness Near
Nuclear Facility," CNN, May 16, 2003]

A spokesperson for the U.S. coalition, however, downplayed possible health
problems:
"Our initial assessment is that the risk for health effects is not large,"
the spokesperson said.

"We have had folks there at the site, my deputy went there and his teeth
are still there, and his hair is still in." [Ibid.]
U.S. reassurances could not be corroborated, because at that point the Bush
Administration was refusing to allow UN and IAEA inspectors back into Iraq.
IAEA director general Mohamed El Baradei feared a radiological emergency and
pleaded repeatedly with the Bush Administration to be allowed back into the
Tuwaitha site. Finally, in late May, the Bush Administration relented. All
the while looting continued.
U.S. troops are now guarding the research center, but looting nonetheless
has continued, and scientists are worried that missing nuclear material can
result in a slew of safety and health problems.
"We're concerned about the health and safety of these people, and then
we're also concerned about environmental contamination, and we're also
concerned that this material could be used for illicit use -- a dirty bomb,
or even a nuclear bomb," said IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky in a phone
interview from Vienna. [John Hendren and Tyler Marshall, "U.S. Moving to
Secure Iraqi Nuclear Research Center," Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2003]

However, the White House made it clear that the U.S. will limit the IAEA to
the storage site itself. The seven-member IAEA team has been given two
weeks to compare their February inventory with what remains at the
Al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center. Further, the team will work with heavy
military escort. The IAEA team will be guarded more closely than the yellow
cake.

Ari Fleischer told reporters that no more help is necessary; the coalition
has the situation in hand.

Q: Does the U.S. support having the international inspectors go back in
and do the full-fledged search that they were trying to do before the war
started?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, that full-fledged search is well underway now as a
result of the increasing involvement of the coalition.

Q: But that's primarily with U.S. personnel --

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct.

Q: -- not IAEA, which has a very limited role right now.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the IAEA is different. The IAEA is going in, that's
the International Atomic Energy --

Q: Right.

MR. FLEISCHER: They're going in to look at the nuclear facility.

Q: Right. Just to make certain that the facility is intact?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's correct. The search for WMD involves biological and
chemical, which was not headed by IAEA.

Q: Well, why not have the other agency go in and be able to work without
any --

MR. FLEISCHER: Because IAEA is going in to take a look at actual
inventoried items that they, themselves, knew precisely where they were,
what their status was, because they inventoried them. That wasn't the case
with the chemical and biological. What the United Nations concluded about
the chemical and biological is he had tons of it -- anthrax, VX, sarin --
but it was not accounted for. They had accounted for these nuclear
materials. And that's why the difference.

Q: But if, indeed, the threat was imminent before we went in, in the
middle of March, why not have as many people as possible on the ground,
regardless of their affiliation, to find these weapons? Because the last
thing that you want is to have them get into --

MR. FLEISCHER: Because the coalition is leading this effort and will
continue to do so, for those reasons.

Q: Is it enough people?

MR. FLEISCHER: It is. And the DOD will make continued judgements, as we
work with the agencies, about the ebb and the flow of it. And they make
those decisions. [White House Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, June 9, 2003]


However, military commanders in Iraq say they are "unequipped to handle the
nuclear site. 'I know that the Tuwaitha facility is larger than the assets
we have now in country to deal with it,' said Lt. Gen. David McKiernan,
commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq." [Associated Press, June 7, 2003]
Perhaps Mr. Fleischer should speak with General McKiernan.

Conclusions, and Questions

The war on Iraq was supposed to be about weapons of mass destruction, not
oil. Yet the Pentagon moved quickly to secure oil fields but forgot about
Tuwaitha.

The war on Iraq was supposed to benefit the Iraqi people. If the United
States is concerned about the health of the people of Tuwaitha, why not
invite in the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders and Meals on Wheels
and anybody else willing to come and help? The Pentagon says only that a
health study in Tuwaitha will begin soon.

José Padilla, a United States citizen, has been held in military custody as
"enemy combatant" for one year. He was suspected of conspiring to release a
"dirty bomb"; however, he had no bomb, no materials for a bomb, and
apparently little idea how to make such a bomb. Yet the Justice Department
considers him to be so dangerous he cannot be allowed to speak to a lawyer.
How many dirty bombs might be made from materials looted at Tuwaitha?

Why was the White House and Pentagon so complacent about Tuwaitha that the
IAEA is just now being allowed back into the facility, two months after the
Marines arrived? And why is the White House putting such stringent limits on
their mission?

And, if the situation in Tuwaitha is such a mess, what about the rest of
Iraq?

Sources:

ABC News, "UN Inspectors Search Iraq Nuclear Facility," December 4, 2002

Associated Press/Fox News, "Inspectors Visit Chlorine Plant, Nuke Site,"
December 9, 2002

Associated Press/Fox News, "Experts: U.S. 'Discovery' of Nuke Materials in
Iraq Was Breach of U.N.-Monitored Site," April 10, 2003

Associated Press/Rocky Mount (NC) Telegram, "Iraqi Nuke Site Was Close to
Making Bomb," June 6, 2003

Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, "UN Nuclear Agency Has Returned to Iraq,"
June 7, 2003

Ellen Barry, "For Neighbors, Atom Plant May Inflict Scars," The Boston
Globe, June 8, 2003

Federation of Amerian Scientists, "Weapons of Mass Destruction Around the
World: Osiraq / Tammuz I"

Fox News, "Weapons-Grade Plutonium Possibly Found at Iraqi Nuke Complex,"
April 11, 2003

John Hendren and Tyler Marshall, "U.S. Moving to Secure Iraqi Nuclear
Research Center," Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2003

IAEA, "IAEA and Iraq: The Next Steps"

Joseph Laconte, "Rumsfeld's Just War," The Heritage Foundation, December 24,
2001

Colum Lynch and Bradley Graham, "UN Presses Bush on Iraq," The Washington
Post, June 6, 2003

Karl Penual, "Iraqis Complain of Illness Near Nuclear Facility," CNN, May
16, 2003

Carl Prine, "Marines Hold Nuclear Site," Pittsburgh Review Tribune, April 9,
2003

William Reilly, "International Inspectors Return to Iraq," UPI, June 6, 2003

Tina Susman, "Iraq Village's Nuclear Fallout," New York Newsday, June 7,
2003

United States Department of Defense, "Background Briefing on IAEA Nuclear
Safeguards and the Tuwaitha Facility," June 5, 2003

White House Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, April 22, 2003

White House Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, June 9, 2003



Postscript

While researching this article, I came across an Associated Press story in
the Mount Rocky (North Carolina) Telegram headlined "Iraq Nuke Site Was
Close to Making a Bomb." The article itself said no such thing.

Note: Every progressive web site in the world will be linking Krugman's
Tuesday column. Why should I be any different?




From the June 12, 2003 Mahablog:


American journalists mince daintily about the missing weapons of mass
destruction issue, and polls say most Americans think the war on Iraq was
righteous even if no WMDs are found.

Will this be a campaign issue? Maybe, but most potential Democratic
candidates will have to (a-HEM) explain why they didn't ask more questions
last October. I am still waiting for my senators -- my allegedly liberal New
York senators -- to publicly apologize for voting for the dadblamed Iraq war
resolution. And, in my opinion, Lieberman and Gephardt have no hope of
getting the support of the rank-and-file in a presidential campaign.

But here's an issue the Dems should be all over like ketchup on freedom
fries: The looting of radioactive waste at Tuwaitha.

Let's review (for details and documentation, see the June 10 Mahablog,
below):

The Tuwaitha nuclear waste site is a short distance from Baghdad, and it was
no secret. Inspectors from both the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) and the United Nations visited Tuwaitha last winter to take inventory
of its contents. According to the IAEA, the Tuwaitha site held 1.8 tonnes (1
tonne = 1.1023 U.S. tons) of low enriched uranium and 500 tonnes of natural
uranium.

And, we know that the Bush Administration was aware of Tuwaitha. Twenty
years ago, Israelis bombed a nuclear reactor there shortly before it was to
be loaded with fuel. They did this to prevent Iraq from developing nuclear
weapons. Some in the Bush Administration -- Donald Rumsfeld, for example --
cited the bombing of Tuwaitha as a precedent for the Bush Doctrine of
preemptive war.

Yet last March, the Pentagon seemed in no hurry to secure Tuwaitha. Iraqi
soldiers and civilian guards abandoned Tuwaitha in mid-March, yet the U.S.
Marines didn't arrive until April 7.

What's worse, the radioactivity at the site took the Marines by surprise; it
is obvious they had not been briefed. News stories from April 9 and 10
reveal that the Marines believed they had discovered nuclear weapons
materials. In one of its finest moments, Fox News reported
U.S. Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive
underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex,
Fox News confirmed Friday. ... U.S. defense officials on Friday confirmed
that preliminary field tests did in fact indicate the material could be
plutonium. [Fox News, "Weapons-Grade Plutonium Possibly Found at Iraqi Nuke
Complex," April 11, 2003]
(I love that quote. How many viewers heard "confirmed" and "plutonium" and
assumed Saddam's nuclear arsenal had been found?)

Anyway: In the three weeks or so between the time the guards skedaddled and
the Marines arrived, the people of Tuwaitha (who didn't know about the
radioactive waste, either) entered the facility and looted it. They emptied
barrels and jerrycans of uranium oxide and used them for hauling water for
drinking and bathing. Even after the Marines arrived, there were not enough
of them to guard the entire 23,000 acres of the nuclear site, and looting
continued.

A Boston Globe reporter, in a story published June 8, said that even then --
two months after the arrival of the Marines -- there were objects from the
nuclear site for sale in the local markets. [Ellen Barry, "For Neighbors,
Atom Plant May Inflict Scars," The Boston Globe, June 8, 2003]

Now there are two big problems to deal with. One, the people of Tuwaitha are
showing signs of radiation sickness. The Pentagon denies that this is a
problem.

The sprawling site, left unguarded by U.S. troops who passed by during the
war, was ransacked by nearby residents who dumped uranium out of IAEA
barrels, then used the potentially radioactive containers to store drinking
water.

The U.S. military has conducted an initial radiation survey in the
villages, and a health study is to begin soon.

"There is no health risk to the population or the soldiers guarding the
site," said Mickey Freeland, part of the U.S. nuclear team involved in the
weapons hunt. [Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, "UN Nuclear Agency Has
Returned to Iraq," June 7, 2003]

The people of Tuwaitha are complaining of rashes and nosebleeds, but there
are no health problems, and soon the Pengaton will begin a health study to
prove it.

But here's the other problem: How many dirty bombs might be made from the
nuclear material "liberated" at Tuwaitha?

The Iraq war was supposed to be about disarming Saddam Hussein, not about
oil. Yet U.S. troops quickly secured oil fields. They also quickly tore down
statues of Saddam. And the same week the Marines got to Tuwaitha, U.S.
soldiers entered the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad to do some decorating. They
tore up the mosaic floor tile picture of George H.W. Bush and replaced it
with a picture of Saddam Hussein.

Someone further up in the hierarchy remembered the Al-Rashid floor, but
forgot Tuwaitha. They remembered the oil fields and arranged the photo-op of
Saddam's statue being toppled, but forgot Tuwaitha.

What does this tell us about priorities?

Although the U.S.-coalition clearly lacked the resources to properly secure
the nuclear material and deal with potential health problems, for two months
the Bush Administration rebuffed IAEA petitions for access to Tuwaitha. Last
week there was a reversal; the IAEA is being given two weeks to re-inventory
Tuwaitha, but the inspectors are limited to the nuclear facility itself and
will be accompanied by military guard at all times. The Pentagon will keep
closer watch on the IAEA team than on the barrels of uranium oxide.

However, military commanders in Iraq say they are "unequipped to handle the
nuclear site. 'I know that the Tuwaitha facility is larger than the assets
we have now in country to deal with it,' said Lt. Gen. David McKiernan,
commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq." [Associated Press, June 7, 2003]

So, radioactive material may even yet be "liberated" from Tuwaitha. There
are not enough personnel in Iraq to hunt it all down and secure it. But the
White House refuses to allow the United Nations and the IAEA to provide any
meaningful help.

On the surface, this is colossal hubris mixed with incompetence. But is the
Bush Administration trying to hide the full extend of the foul-up? Is
covering their political behinds more important than keeping nuclear
material out of terrorist hands?

And why aren't the Democrats speaking up about this?



From the June 13, 2003, Mahablog

Friday the 13th Edition

This is an update on the two previous blogs. Be sure to read Nicolas
Kristof's column in the New York Times today.
To help out Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney, let me offer some more detail about
the uranium saga. Piecing the story together from two people directly
involved and three others who were briefed on it, the tale begins at the end
of 2001, when third-rate forged documents turned up in West Africa
purporting to show the sale by Niger to Iraq of tons of "yellowcake"
uranium. [Kristof, "White House in Denial," The New York Times, June 12,
2003]

The documents were a howling lie; the government of Niger didn't have any
yellowcake (uranium oxide) to sell. The CIA knew good and well the documents
were forged. It appears everybody in Washington knew the documents were
forged. Even so, the Niger story turned up in the State of the Union address
as a reason to go to war with Iraq.

And, anyway, Iraq already had more than two tons of yellowcake in barrels in
Tuwaitha, just 15 or so miles from Baghdad. These same two tons of
yellowcake may be scattered all over Iraq by now. Yet the White House and
Pentagon are strangely unconcerned about it.

Another Update

According to Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Inquirer

The [IAEA] inspectors are kept isolated in the Rashid Hotel and are not
allowed to speak to the press. Nor did U.S. officials permit them to bring a
press officer from their Vienna headquarters. When I try to drive toward
Location C, where the IAEA team is working on a limited two-week assignment,
I am stopped by Sgt. Steven Collier. Standing in front of a tank, he tells
me his superiors "don't want nobody here right now. They don't tell us why."
[Rubin, "Looting of Iraqi Nuclear Facility Indicts U.S. Goals,"
Knight-Ridder/Charlotte Observer, June 12, 2003]

Further, an Iraqi scientist who lives near the complex told Rubin that
radioactive isotopes -- which are a lot more dangerous than uranium oxide --
are being looted every day. Right now, perhaps.

He says the isotopes, which are in bright silver containers, "are sold in
the black market or kept in homes." According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa
Fleming, such radioactive sources can kill on contact or pollute whole
neighborhoods. [Ibid.]

I don't know about you, but ... I'm angry. Really angry.



From the June 14, 2003, Mahablog

In what may be a classic "I did not mess around with that woman" moment,
George W. Bush is sticking by the "Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa"
story. He says there is other evidence beside the forged documents.

If Saddam had wanted uranium, there were more than two tons of the same
stuff he allegedly tried to buy in Niger just a short hike from Baghdad (see
recent blogs, below). It was in barrels sealed by the IAEA in 1991. He
hadn't done a thing with any of that. And he was trying to buy more, because
.....?

The uranium purchase story first appeared in this paragraph in the 2003
State of the Union speech:
The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam
Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design
for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching
uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our
intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength
aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has
not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

This entire paragraph is a lie from beginning to end. To begin with, the
IAEA never said Saddam had an advanced nuclear weapons development program.
The IAEA said just the opposite; that Saddam's nuclear weapons program had
been "uncovered, mapped, and neutralized." You can read one of their reports
here.

Next we have the famous "out of Africa" story, based on documents that are
known to be clumsy forgeries.

And then there were the evil aluminum tubes. See the January 30, 2003
Mahablog, "Tales of the Tubes" (scroll down). Better yet, to save you the
trouble, here are the relevant passages:
Bush said that intelligence sources say that Saddam attempted to purchase
high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. But
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), quoted favorably by the
president elsewhere, reports that the tubes are for rockets, not nuclear
production, and that there is no evidence of Saddam trying to buy uranium.
[Jonathan Alter, "Scoring the Speech," MSNBC, January 29, 3003]
(Note: the Alter link is broken; story no longer on the web. This is why I
go to the trouble of keyboarding in sources of quotes and information along
with links; I still know where the quote came from.)
"Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase
high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production," Bush
said again, repeating the charge that he first made at the U.N. last
September.

As everyone knows who listened to (or read) Mohammed ElBaradei's report to
the U.N. Security Council on nuclear research and development in Iraq, he
found that the emphasis on those tubes by Bush and Condoleezza Rice was
misplaced if not misleading. Today's Washington Post carries yet another
story -- buried for some inexplicable reason on page A13 -- that sums up the
International Atomic Energy Agency findings in Iraq so far. According to
ElBaradei, who heads the IAEA, the tubes "can not be used" for the purpose
of enriching uranium. He also inspected the eight buildings formerly used in
Saddam's nuclear program, which U.S. intelligence -- and Bush -- have
suggested were being refurbished for the same purposes. There was "no
evidence" to support the president's allegations, he said. [Joe Conason,
Salon, January 29, 2003]

Last Sunday, Condi Rice hit the television news show circuit to say that the
Niger story was not central to the President's case that Iraq was hiding
weapons of mass destruction. They might want to figure out what is central
to the argument, and let the President know.


From the June 21, 2003, Mahablog


Tuwaitha Update

Several U.S. newspapers today are running a story under the headline "Iraq's
looted uranium found." This will mystify readers, since most of them had not
been told uranium had been lost.
From the Associated Press:

Experts from the U.N. atomic agency have accounted for tons of uranium
feared looted from Iraq's largest nuclear research facility, diplomats said
Friday.

Not said: tons might still be unaccounted for.

...The mission -- whose scope was restricted by the U.S.-led interim
administration of Iraq -- was not allowed to give medical exams to Iraqis
reported to have been sickened by contact with the materials, said the
diplomats.

They also said that the IAEA team was unable to determine whether hundreds
of radioactive materials used in research and medicine across the country
were secure. Officials fear such material could be used to make crude
radioactive devices known as "dirty bombs." ...

The diplomats did not detail how much uranium had been looted and where it
was found, but it appeared much of it was on or near the site. [link]

It is probable that most of the uranium stored in barrels was dumped out
within the site, since the looters were interested in the barrels and not
the uranium. However, the source of the information in the Associated Press
story, the "diplomats," is murky.

According to Reuters, the IAEA itself is not saying anything.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency declined to comment on
Saturday on a U.S. magazine report that inspectors had found most of the
uranium missing from a looted storage facility at Iraq's main nuclear site.
....

But at the Vienna-based IAEA, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said the agency
would not comment until the inspectors finished their job of assessing the
damage from wartime looting at the storage site for radioactive materials.

"We are not commenting on any findings while the team is still working,"
Fleming told Reuters.[Link]

The IAEA has no deadline for issuing its report, so the facts of what was
found may not come out for weeks. But, somehow, word is getting out that the
uranium was 'found.' Hmm.


--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com

In article ,
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

They didn't clean up anything Richard.
The mess, and what is truly dangerous, remains and will have to be dealt
with.

No problem. Just seal off the site and put a label on it: Do not open
before Christmas, Christmas 3008.

John R. Carroll wrote:

Here you go Richard. The guy that put this together is a little whacky but I
looked it over carefully and his sources are verifiable and he mostly got it
right.
http://www.mahablog.com/oldsite/id13.html


John,
I'm having a very hard time holding on to that site.

Every minute or so I get a dialog box that wants to reconnect - via modem.

I don't HAVE a modem in this box!!!
It's fiber optic service.

So I checked a bunch of OTHER web sites - no problems at all.
But going back there I'm getting these dialog boxes again...

Very strange stuff going on here!


I do appreciate anyone who fully annotates his sources.
Some of this I recall hearing about - some I'll need to read through.

But from what I've read so far, it looks like you are probably right.
While tons of it were removed, there is still a lot of uranium there -
and a highly radioactive mess.

And - no way to tell what or how much is missing.

And - no sources avaliable for the AP story (?)

And - no idea who is telling the truth and who is not (nor why).


Oh bloody well, at least Hawkie it consistant...

Richard