Underground Nuclear Facility Found In Iraq?

[Rubia Warren]

Underground Nuclear Facility Found in Iraq
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83821,00.html

Thursday, April 10, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. officials are investigating a massive underground nuclear facility that was discovered below the Al Tuwaitha complex of the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in a suburban town south of Baghdad.

While they aren't prepared to say the discovery is the smoking gun proving Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction, Fox News confirmed that officials are very interested in the labyrinth of labs and warehouses unearthed by U.S. forces.

The discovery was unexpected and forces in the area are testing a variety of things to best determine the significance of the find.

Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have far found 14 buildings that have high levels of radiation, an embedded reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Thursday, noting that some of the tests have found nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.

The Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts" a few hundred meters outside the nuclear compound, where locals say "missile water" is stored in enormous caverns, the correspondent, Carl Prine, reported. Prine is embedded with the U.S. 1st Marine Division.

"It's amazing," Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist told the paper. "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."

This underground discovery could still test to be perfectly legitimate and offer no proof of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The CIA encouraged international inspectors in the fall of 2002 to probe Al Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction, and the inspectors came away empty handed.

"They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997, told the Tribune-Review.

"The Marines should be particularly careful because of those high readings," he told the paper. "Three hours at levels like that and people begin to vomit. That leads me to wonder, if the readings are accurate, whether radioactive material was deliberately left there to expose people to dangerous levels.

"You couldn't do scientific work in levels like that. You would die."

Capt. John Seegar, a combat engineer commander from Houston, is currently running the operation in Al Tuwaitha. "I've never seen anything like it, ever," he told the Tribune-Review. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"

Fox News' Carl Cameron contributed to this report.

[Alden]

Interesting, but I'm sure that all of it is propaganda:ahem:

[Pilgrim]

Here's one thing I don't unerstand...how can a gun be smoking if it was never fired?

[Rubia Warren]

Of course... what do you expect from FOX NEWS?!?!:duh: :teeth:

[Alden]

Today @ 01:54 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=62062#post62062)
Pilgrim:

Here's one thing I don't unerstand...how can a gun be smoking if it was never fired?


perhaps you are right. It does seem like the phrase doesn't always fit does it?

[Alden]

Today @ 01:55 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=62065#post62065)
La Rubia:

Of course... what do you expect from FOX NEWS?!?!:duh: :teeth:

:lol: Seriously, what a bunch of right-wing crazies huh?:teeth:

[Rubia Warren]

Today @ 03:59 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=62075#post62075)
Alden:



:lol: Seriously, what a bunch of right-wing crazies huh?:teeth:
I know! I mean, tomorrow they're just gonna hafta retract it, like they always do-- they're always jumping the gun, those..... those....... those.......WARMONGER propaganda people!!!!

[Ryokan]

we don't want it to be a smoking gun Pilgrim. Hence the war?

[Zakath]

This is what, the third or fourth "find". Let's wait and see if it turns out to be anything. Or merely nothing like the others... :zzz:

[Pilgrim]

Today @ 09:14 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=62864#post62864)
Ryokan:

we don't want it to be a smoking gun Pilgrim. Hence the war?


Righto then...let's hit the streets in a "Minority Report" sort of way. We'll kill everyone we suspect may comit a criminal act in the future that way we'll avoid all problems in the future. After all that's the American way isn't it....oh wait, actually it isn't the American way. In fact in America, even PRIOR bad acts are not admissable in court let alone speculative future one. But what the hey let's go for it.

[Zakath]

Pilgrim,

Have you read this piece (Mulling action, India equates Iraq, Pakistan) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5006-2003Apr10.html)?

India is now considering using the US invasion of Iraq as justification to invade Pakistan.

Asserting the same right of preemptive war that the United States used to justify its invasion of Iraq, Indian officials have accused Washington of failing to end Pakistan's support for guerrillas in Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir and warned that India may be forced to take limited military action against its nuclear-armed neighbor.
...
Now it starts... :argh:

[Ryokan]

Pilgim: This isn't a court, Pilgrim. There isn't really any international law. There are just state who occassionally agree to things. Our states primary function is to protect its citizens. If we have reasonable evidence to believe that a nation is going to attack us, our government has an obligation to deal with that threat, as does the government of India. Either we take out would be terrorist states, become a police state, or suffer wave after wave of 9/11s. If you ask me, the choice is clear.

Zakath: On the other hand, Zakath, if you were India, you have a highly unstable, nuclear armed dictatorship with a history of supporting terrorist against, wouldn't you want to take them out before they did something really crazy? Is India wrong, assuming has reason to believe they can manage it without getting themselves nuked in the process? I don't think so. And we HAVE failed to stop Pakistan from supporting terrorist states. We cut another deal with the devil for the political expendiency of not having to fight a war with Pakistan, who was one of the Taliban and Al Queda's primary supporters. War between nuclear armed opponents is unfortunate, but you can hardly blame India for being afraid of Pakistan.

[Pilgrim]

So Ryokan, you are saying the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by Iraq? False equivocation anyone?

And as of yet all of our assertions about what Iraq had and was capable of have been unfounded.

I know there is no international law. The point is that the United States has set up it's own laws because they are just. If they are just for us, they are just elsewhere. If we throw out our sense of justice simply because there are no courts to call us on it then we have lost all credablity. Who was it that said that "a persons integrity is defined by what they do when he or she is sure no one is watching?" It applies here.

[Socrates]

Pilgrim:actually it isn't the American way. In fact in America, even PRIOR bad acts are not admissable in court let alone speculative future one. But what the hey let's go for it.That's your problem if the justice system is absurdly weighted towards the scumbags, so a crafty lawyer can get a violent criminal off on a technicality.

But back to the war, it's amazing how so many people must be upset at the sight of Iraqis dancing in the streets -- far better to have kept starving them with appeasenik-supported sanctions while Saddam remained in his palace with gold-plated marble-inlaid bathrooms.

[Pilgrim]

Wait, I thought we went there because Saddam was not complying with UN resolutions?

What you are saying is that now it is the responsability of the US to attack every nation that mistreats its subjects?

[Ryokan]

No, I am not saying Iraq caused 9/11. What I meant is Iraq is a nation who likely supported the first world trade center attack, attempted to assassinate a US president, hates the US, supports multiple terrorist organizations, and is developing WMD, is just the sort of state to launch a 9/11 style on us. So, we are better of without Iraq. And our laws are just for people, not states.

[Captain Ochre]

Yesterday @ 09:54 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=62062#post62062)
Pilgrim:

Here's one thing I don't unerstand...how can a gun be smoking if it was never fired?

Exactly! If you don't use a weapon of mass destruction, then you don't have weapons of mass destruction.
Very poignant, Pilgrim!

[Pilgrim]

hmm...so why are we not in Iran then?

[Pilgrim]

And according to the US we are not talking about the state but the man Saddam Hussein and his regime. Bush et al. have been very clear about that.

But seriously, how can you execute someone on a maybe?

[Epoetker]

Because we are very fervently hoping that the pro-US, pro-democracy movement will take that place on its own. And they haven't started any regional conflicts recently. And an attack now would be TRULY unprovoked. And they were much more cooperative than Syria with keeping their crazies out for the duration of the war. And all the State Department Saudi apologists and stability-junkies would have a hissy fit. And if they ever DO get democracy, they'll need nukes to moderate their good neighbor Pakistan.

[Pilgrim]

But Iran has much stronger links to Al-Queda. So aren't the supporting terrorism and didn't Bush anounce that would not be tolerated?

Of course the irony that is lost on everyone is that had Iraq attacked the US it would have been justified by the "pre-emtive strike" logic which the US is using because the US is the one that proved that it was willing to attack a sovereign nation unprovoked.

[Epoetker]

Of course the irony that is lost on everyone is that had Iraq attacked the US it would have been justified by the "pre-emtive strike" logic which the US is using because the US is the one that proved that it was willing to attack a sovereign nation unprovoked.

The problem is, Iraq the nation wouldn't be attacking the US. Saddam Hussein would have been. Saddam quite obviously does not represent the will of the Iraqis. In fact, the whole liberation angle is about returning their soverignty to them.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 08:09 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=63204#post63204)
Pilgrim:

hmm...so why are we not in Iran then?

They haven't used WMD, therefore they do not have them.
We're using Pilgrim-logic on Iran.

[Zakath]

Today @ 11:06 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=62954#post62954)
Ryokan:

...War between nuclear armed opponents is unfortunate, but you can hardly blame India for being afraid of Pakistan. Two points:

First, one of my daughters-in-law is from Pakistan so what for you is an intellectual exercise is, for me, a potential family tragedy.

Second, I don't blame India for being concerened at all. I just was attempting to point out that we have now set an unfortunate precedent in world affairs. So if China jumps off on India after they nuke Pakistan, will you still feel that the whole thing is "unfortunate."

[Epoetker]

Second, I don't blame India for being concerened at all. I just was attempting to point out that we have now set an unfortunate precedent in world affairs.

Unfortunate, but ultimately inevitable. Evil would have found a way without using Iraq as an excuse.


So if China jumps off on India after they nuke Pakistan, will you still feel that the whole thing is "unfortunate."

Red-alert crisis level. Which is why I believe that we still need to be very, VERY certain that the people who have nukes are the people less likely to use them rashly. And why it's past time for South Korea and Japan to go nuclear.

[Valmoon]

Well I sure hope we do find evidence of WMD in Iraq or our "intelligence" will be suspect at best.

People talking about Iraqi's celebrating in the streets and how we had a moral obligation miss the obvious point: that being that we told the world why we were going into Iraq. And it was NOT to liberate Iraqi's.

If that was our reason then we should have stated it up front and then seen how many countries signed up as coalition members.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 09:16 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=63303#post63303)
Valmoon:

Well I sure hope we do find evidence of WMD in Iraq or our "intelligence" will be suspect at best.


Feel free to visit the smoking guns thread here at TWeb. It's increasingly active with news.



People talking about Iraqi's celebrating in the streets and how we had a moral obligation miss the obvious point: that being that we told the world why we were going into Iraq. And it was NOT to liberate Iraqi's.


I thought that I provided the solution to your puzzlement ages ago: The liberation of the Iraqis is being emphasized to quell complainst of US imperialism and the like. Foreign news agencies, especially in the Arab world, have been casting the US as a heartless aggressor. The emphasis on liberation is a necessary (and evidently true) counterbalance to that disinformation.



If that was our reason then we should have stated it up front and then seen how many countries signed up as coalition members.

It was always part of the reason, since a new government based on democratic principles should be less likely to develop and use WMD, which sends us right back to the actual reason for the war.

[Valmoon]

CO if no WMD are eventually found do you consider our reasons for war to have been largely negated? Or is that reason not very relevant?

Imo the US sending Colin P. to the UN for his presentation seemed to show that it was important to the US as well.

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 09:43 PM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=63327#post63327)
Valmoon:

CO if no WMD are eventually found do you consider our reasons for war to have been largely negated?


:huh:
You read what I wrote, right?



Or is that reason not very relevant?

Imo the US sending Colin P. to the UN for his presentation seemed to show that it was important to the US as well.

Agreed. That was the (good) rationale brought to bear on the UN to secure international cooperation, and it accords with the US desire to keep WMD out of the hands of terrorists and those nations who sponsor and aid terrorism.

Why are you still asking "what if we don't find them" when evidence is mounting by the day that the US at least had excellent reasons to be extremely suspicious (prohibitively likely circumstantial evidence, iow), if we haven't actually found ample proof already, merely lacking confirmation?
It's time to start asking "Why were the French (Germans, Russians, etc.) really dragging their feet with regard to a resolution with firm military teeth?", imo.

[SynchroKnight]

Getting back to the warehouse...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,934503,00.html

The good news is that the UN may have known about it (and sealed it).

The bad news is that we aren't sure who opened it.

A good idea now would be to get some inspectors in there pronto and make sure all are accounted for.

[Valmoon]

I think it remains to be seen if they had them. I have not heard one substantial confirmation on any major network so far. It's obvious that it's important to the administration to find these WMD from the news stories so far. IMO they are looking for vindication.

If they had them why didnt they use them? Were they trying to make us look silly by dying without using them?

I am not saying they didnt have them. But so far your smoking guns have not yielded any bullets. If the bullets are not found our credibility will be damaged imo.

[kiwimac]

Seems the IAEA knew about the "warehouse"


DJ. Experts:US "Discovery" Of Nuclear Materials Already Known



VIENNA, Apr 10, 2003 (ODJ Select via COMTEX) -- (AP)--U.S. 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 and illegally broken U.N. seals, officials said Thursday.
Leaders of a U.S. 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.

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.

Several tons of low-grade uranium has been stored at Tuwaitha, Iraq's principle nuclear research center and a site that has been under IAEA safeguards for years, the official said. The Iraqis were allowed to keep the material because it was unfit for weapons use without costly and time-consuming enrichment.

The uranium was inspected by the U.N. nuclear agency twice a year and was kept under IAEA seal - at least until early this week, when the Marines seized control of the site.

"It's hard to believe that the U.S. military would not be well aware of this site - it's the center of Iraq's nuclear research activities," the expert told AP. "Just as you wouldn't be surprised to find hamburgers at McDonald's, no one should be surprised to find nuclear materials at this site."

The U.N. nuclear agency's inspectors have visited Tuwaitha about two dozen times, including sending inspectors with special mountaineering training who went underground, according to IAEA documents.

"Inspectors have been in Tuwaitha since 1991, and they've inspected it 12 times in the last four months," the expert said. "It's the single most inspected, understood site that the IAEA has in Iraq. They've been up and down and in and out of Tuwaitha. No site is more well-known to us."

"At a minimum, the commanders apparently weren't provided with warnings that when you come to a certain site, you should expect X, Y and Z," the official added.

The Tuwaitha complex, on a bend in the Tigris River about 30 kilometers south of Baghdad, has been a consistent focus of U.N. inspection efforts that resumed in November after a nearly four-year break.

The IAEA, charged with the hunt for evidence of a nuclear program in Iraq, told the Security Council just before the war that it had uncovered no firm evidence that Saddam was renewing efforts to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, clearly wary of any coalition claims, said this week that any alleged discoveries of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would have to be verified by U.N. inspectors "to generate the required credibility."

ElBaradei said the inspectors should return as soon as possible, subject to Security Council guidance, to resume their search for banned arms.




(C) Copyright 2003 ODJ

hmmm

Kiwimac

[Epoetker]

Just pulled this off NR's Corner, Kiwi:



...the U.S. Marines responsible for uncovering Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are not a bunch of school boys. These are some of the most highly trained and sophisticated nuclear engineers this country has. They had maps, blueprints of the buildings, detailed sketches from IAEA inspections and precise locations of where old low-grade uranium had been sealed and stored in drums when the IAEA was last there.

In any event, the readings picked up by sophisticated radiation detectors at the Tuwaitha facility initially indicated presence of Plutonium-239 (PL-239). Why PL-239? Because when PL-239 decays naturally, it emits alpha particles almost exclusively. These are in the form of positively charged Helium nuclei. Uranium, on the other hand, emits beta particles (electrons) and gamma rays, as well as alpha particles.

Alpha particles normally cannot penetrate clothes or human skin, whereas beta and gamma radiation certainly can. Reports filed by our troops at Tuwaitha indicated very high levels of radiation, consistent with what plutonium would show. Yet there were thus far no reported casualties, or even serious signs of sickness or other health problems in our battalions.

All of which indicates that most of the radiation is probably not beta or gamma radiation, but alpha radiation -- the signature sign of PL-239. Since the nuclear engineers and physicists who discovered the abnormal radiation levels at Tuwaitha have reported no health problems, the plutonium is most likely a pure version and therefore deployable in a weapons form.

There are no known naturally occurring plutonium isotopes. Which implies either very sophisticated reprocessing facilities would have to be present (and one wonders where that technology could have come from) to make it inside Iraq from uranium fuel sources, or there would have to be some serious breach of international law in the sale and transfer of weapons-grade plutonium to Iraq (Russia, North Korea and China come immediately to mind).

Whatever the Marines found there, and none of us know for sure until CentCom confirms what it was, it was dangerous beyond the limits Iraq was compelled to remain within by the United Nations and the IAEA. Saddam's last acts have always been formulated by the "if I can't have it, you can't have it either..." thesis. Let us hope he didn't break the seals at Tuwaitha, and in a last ditch act of terror, decide to take enough uranium to make multiple dirty bombs, deploy them in Iraqi cities for later detonation once civilian life returns to normal.

As you can all see, this was an op-ed topic by itself, and therefore my reasoning for not including so much detail in the original piece. But since we have naysayers that never seem to get it, I thought it prudent to lay out the full argument.

[Rubia Warren]

From kiwi's article:
..."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.

Several tons of low-grade uranium has been stored at Tuwaitha, Iraq's principle nuclear research center and a site that has been under IAEA safeguards for years, the official said. The Iraqis were allowed to keep the material because it was unfit for weapons use without costly and time-consuming enrichment. "

Uhhh.... unfit for weapons use without enrichment, yet the UN has to put a seal on it and check it twice a year to make sure it doesn't get into the wrong hands or get diverted.....aha....er, can somebody tell me why this freak was even allowed to have it there in the first place?!?!?! Why did he have to "destroy" his WMD, but can keep all this junk as long as it's sealed? I am missing something, here.

[Rubia Warren]

And the UN knew about this, yet the inspectors were kicked out since 1998? Were there different inspectors for this stuff, or what? I am not getting it.

[kiwimac]

It was not illegal for Iraq to hold quantities of non-weapon's grade plutonium / uranium. They had no reactor and no access to one, where were they going to get it enriched then?

Kiwimac

[kiwimac]

From the UPI


Iraqi nuclear site tampered, says watchdog
By Anwar Iqbal
From the International Desk
Published 4/11/2003 4:39 PM
View printer-friendly version


WASHINGTON, April 11 (UPI) -- Seals at an Iraqi nuclear material research center have been broken, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog reported Friday.

The Tuwaitha research center was Iraq's primary civilian nuclear site prior to the 1991 Gulf War.

"Specialized seals have been broken on a stock of nuclear material stored at the Tuwaitha nuclear research center at a site called 'Location C,'" said the Institute for Science and International Security, which monitors nuclear proliferation around the world.

The seals are meant to ensure the detection of any tampering with the center's nuclear material.

"A key issue is what happened in the days between the abandonment of the site by the Iraqi guards and the arrival of U.S. troops and the imposition of adequate security," asks a report authored jointly by David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of ISIS.

Some of this material is highly radioactive and poses a health and safety risk to anyone mishandling it. All the material could be useful for terrorists or other nations intent on making nuclear weapons or radiological dispersal devices, the report said.

Tuwaitha was the location of numerous secret, nuclear weapons-related activities that International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors discovered when they conducted Security Council-mandated inspections in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

One result of those inspections was to remove Iraq's stock of weapons-usable material, such as highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium. Some material that could not be used directly for nuclear weapons, including natural uranium and low-enriched uranium, was left in Iraq but placed under IAEA seals and near-constant monitoring.

This material was still monitored by the IAEA during the absence of U.N. Security Council-mandated inspections in Iraq between 1998 and 2002. The IAEA used the legal authority of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to gain access to this material at least once a year.

The ISIS suggested an IAEA team should immediately go to Location C and ensure that all the nuclear material is accounted for and is properly safeguarded.

The report says that there is a precedent for the IAEA to conduct inspections during war. In June 1999, the IAEA conducted its first wartime inspections at the Vinca nuclear site in the former Yugoslavia.

"Just as in the Yugoslavia case, the IAEA has a responsibility to inspect the nuclear material under safeguards in Iraq. The United States and Britain, as the occupying parties of Iraq, should allow the IAEA immediate access to Tuwaitha," said ISIS director David Albright.

He urged the Bush administration to allow individuals with a firm technical understanding of weapons of mass destruction to visit Iraq to wok with the U.S. military.

"The military needs help in its efforts to (deal with the) WMD," he added.

The military, he said, has placed an appropriate priority on locating and containing any secret WMD activity in Iraq, but they are not prepared to conduct safeguards activities.

The IAEA, he said, has the experience and the responsibility to carry out the task of determining the status of the nuclear material at Tuwaitha, even during times of conflict.

Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International

Once again it seems to be non-weapons grade stuff

Kiwimac

[kiwimac]

Pittsburgh Herald-Tribune


Iraqi nuclear site secured



By Mark Houser
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, April 12, 2003

The head of U.N. nuclear weapons inspectors said Friday that American military forces have reassured him they are properly guarding nuclear material at an Iraqi complex near Baghdad.

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said he reminded the U.S. government on Thursday that it must maintain the security of tons of nuclear material stored under seal since 1991 at the sprawling Al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex.

His comments follow reports by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on activities at the Al-Tuwaitha site this week. A Marine officer at the site told a Trib reporter embedded with a unit there that Army specialists were at the site to determine, among other things, whether plutonium is present.

IAEA inspectors have searched Al-Tuwaitha, 18 miles south of suburban Baghdad, a dozen times since November. Nuclear and radioactive materials, including tons of unenriched uranium, or "yellowcake," are stored there in sealed buildings inspectors last visited in December.

A nuclear expert familiar with U.N. inspections, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a Trib report of soldiers inspecting the uranium storage area initially raised concerns they broke the seals. Marine combat engineers guarding the site said the seals were already broken.

"If somebody else broke the seals, it's even more worrying," the official said. "I think people would have a certain amount of confidence that the U.S. military isn't going to go into that building, grab a bunch of drums, load it on a truck and drive away with it. I wouldn't have the same confidence with looters."

While it would not be easy to convert the uranium into a nuclear weapon, other radiological materials at the site could be used to make a so-called "dirty bomb," he said.

Specialists from a Pentagon team inspecting the site Thursday told U.S. Marine combat engineers guarding the facility that they found materials they believed could be plutonium.

The facility has been known for decades as the headquarters of Iraq's nuclear program. Israel bombed a reactor there in 1981 because it believed Iraq was close to producing weapons-grade plutonium. U.S. forces bombed Al-Tuwaitha again in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War.

Physicist David Albright — president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank in Washington, D.C. — said U.N. teams would have more credibility searching for weapons materials than U.S. military teams, whose soldiers are probably "stressed out" from the war, he said. Reports of suspected chemical weapons discoveries, later proved false, have made the Americans look bad, he said.

"I think that job (the search for weapons) is not being done very well. The Pentagon, I think, is kind of messing up on this, and I think the only way to solve this is to send the (U.N.) inspectors back," Albright said.

Albright, who was with U.N. inspection teams in Iraq from 1992 to 1997, said he believes that Saddam Hussein was trying to create nuclear weapons but that the program was probably small.

To get plutonium, Iraq would either have to manufacture it in a reactor or centrifuge — which inspectors have not found — or buy it, he said.

U.S. military spokespersons would not confirm whether plutonium was found at Al-Tuwaitha or whether U.N. inspectors would be invited back to the site.

"We are far more concerned with being accurate about it than being fast," said Marine Lt. Josh Rushing, of U.S. Central Command in Qatar.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Thursday at a briefing that initial reports from the field are often disproved. "Sometimes things test positive then turn out to be negative," she said. "We're taking our time."

The former head of Saddam's nuclear weapons program, Khidhir Hamza, said that if Iraq had acquired plutonium, the regime would have been foolish to hide it at Al-Tuwaitha.

"Why keep it somewhere the inspectors were constantly visiting?" said Hamza, who defected in 1994. "The Iraqis would keep it in a residential area if they wanted to hide it."

Hamza said he had heard reports of attempts by Iraqi agents to buy various radioactive materials.

"Iraq was all over the place trying to purchase these things," Hamza said. "I wouldn't be surprised if Iraq was trying to acquire plutonium."

A key justification for the invasion was the fear of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction or giving them to terrorists. U.N. inspectors said they could find no evidence of efforts to make such weapons.

"Everyone's credibility is in the line, and that's why this is so tense in Washington," Albright said.

Mark Houser can be reached at mhouser@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7995.

Kiwimac

[Woman]

I'm glad the naive posters on this thread are not in a position to make decisions which affect national security.

The Arab Islamist fanatics have completely set the world on a road to oblivion if not halted. Of course Iraq wasn't the main target here. BUT, it was a justified one and that will eventially be apparant. Iran, who openly harbors Hesbalah (sp?) will be controlled by this action as will Syria. There is no nation safe on our planet who is neighbors to an Arab fundamentalist regime. Israel is no longer enough in the middle east. If we do not act now to bring some stability and moderation to the region, we'll all be "raptured" before we're ready!

The leaders of this country have never and will never tell you everything it knows, plans or does to protect your butt. It can't. There are too many idealists who would jump up to defend the likes of the Butcher Saddam.

Just my opinion.

:thumb: Soc!

[Rubia Warren]

Today @ 02:19 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=63811#post63811)
kiwimac:

It was not illegal for Iraq to hold quantities of non-weapon's grade plutonium / uranium. They had no reactor and no access to one, where were they going to get it enriched then?

Kiwimac
Well, I don't know, kiwi.. if there was nothing to worry about, then why put a seal on it so that it would not get enriched or passed along to someone else? And why check it twice a year, even?
How could this have been perfectly okay for Iraq to have?

[Vorkosigan]

[QUOTE]I'm glad the naive posters on this thread are not in a position to make decisions which affect national security.

Everyone sees different threat possibilities, and has different ways of responding to them. Intelligent and experienced individuals often disagree.

The Arab Islamist fanatics have completely set the world on a road to oblivion if not halted.

That's funny. The only objects capable of obliterating the world are the nuclear weapons owned by the major nuclear states. None of which are governed by Islamist fanatics.

Of course Iraq wasn't the main target here.

Good to see we agree.

BUT, it was a justified one and that will eventially be apparant.

Time will tell. Meanwhile, BBC reports Sunnis and Shi'ites are killing each other in Baghdad. After Tito falls, the ethnic cleansing begins.

Iran, who openly harbors Hesbalah (sp?) will be controlled by this action as will Syria.

That is doubtful. Iran will draw the same conclusions that everyone else has from our non-attack on North Korea: that actual possession of WMDs will deter aggression by the US. For Syria it may be too late.

There is no nation safe on our planet who is neighbors to an Arab fundamentalist regime. Israel is no longer enough in the middle east. If we do not act now to bring some stability and moderation to the region, we'll all be "raptured" before we're ready!

I thought Christians were supposed to be ready any time....

The leaders of this country have never and will never tell you everything it knows, plans or does to protect your butt. It can't. There are too many idealists who would jump up to defend the likes of the Butcher Saddam.

Not a single advocate of another policy has defended Hussein. It is rather strange that someone holding a position of such voidheaded irrationality could regard others as "naive."

Vorkosigan

[Vorkosigan]

ISIS, cited above, reports on their website that Iran (http://www.isis-online.org/) is already way ahead of where Iraq was, with a centrifuge capable of processing enriched fissile material for weapons.

Who will we bomb next? I feel so much more secure, now that we have given Hussein incentive to distribute any WMDs he might have to terrorist groups.

Vorkosigan

[Captain Ochre]

Today @ 11:35 AM post located here (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&postid=63909#post63909)
Vorkosigan:

ISIS, cited above, reports on their website that Iran (http://www.isis-online.org/) is already way ahead of where Iraq was, with a centrifuge capable of processing enriched fissile material for weapons.

Who will we bomb next? I feel so much more secure, now that we have given Hussein incentive to distribute any WMDs he might have to terrorist groups.

Vorkosigan

:rofl:

You mean that he didn't have that incentive prior to being ousted from power?
No hard feelings about Kuwait, eh? The anti-American rhetoric from Iraq over the past decade was just playful joshing. :smile:

[edit to add:]

Oh, I get it!
Now we've really made him mad!!!

[Woman]

Woman:

If we do not act now to bring some stability and moderation to the region, we'll all be "raptured" before we're ready!

Vork:

I thought Christians were supposed to be ready any time....

I wouldn't know, as I don't believe in the concept nor am I a Christian. That was a tongue-in-cheek remark.

Vork

It is rather strange that someone holding a position of such voidheaded irrationality could regard others as "naive."

Ouch! :cry: I thought "naive" was a rather moderate term as it merely infers lack of knowlege and not an empty-head (void-headed) or inability to think rationally.

As you said:


Everyone sees different threat possibilities, and has different ways of responding to them. Intelligent and experienced individuals often disagree.

[Ryokan]

I am sorry Zakath. It is far to easy to look at theses things coldly from thousands of miles away. :frown:

[Ryokan]

However, if we didn't act in Iraq, and Iraqi weapons had attacked the US, then there would be other tragedies. Same with Pakistani nukes in India, North Korean nukes, etc. Further reflection has led me to the conclusion that there are no good answers. :frown:

As far as the nuclear material goes, Kiwi is right that Saddam had his right to it, but that doesn't make me comfortable he did, either. Its not a justification for war, though.

[Ryokan]

on a non sequitor, doesn't it seem monstrously unfair that all over the world peoples lives are at risk because of people they'd never met and would probably get along with at a party, given a few beers were in them?

[Epoetker]

on a non sequitor, doesn't it seem monstrously unfair that all over the world peoples lives are at risk because of people they'd never met and would probably get along with at a party, given a few beers were in them?

I always thought this was how the Irish Republican Army raised funds so successfully...