To all that though there were no WMD's in Iraq

Originally posted by TrickmastertricK

Calm down here, it does not mention it was "Stolen" and who would have stolen it?

If anyone would check the links I provided above, The US moved this material from Iraq to, only speculation right now -->, the Y-12 site in Tennesse. We have conflicting reports as to where this material "Actually" came from.

OK, sorry, didn't mean to get all excited, but the article does say:

But tons of nuclear materials remained there(by there they mean The Tuwaitha nuclear complex) under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, until last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when it was left unguarded and looted by Iraqi civilians.

Originally posted by nyarlathotep
OK, sorry, didn't mean to get all excited, but the article does say:

until last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when it was left unguarded and looted by Iraqi civilians.

OK Now I see it, this puts the US in a big Hole, IMO, if it was looted then why was it not protected? and will they protect themselves saying it was transfered from somewhere else? to kind of ease fear of some of it falling in the wrong hands. Intresting perdicament Batman.

Here we go again!

So, the US failed to secure this uranium initially and now we have tried to turn this around and look like hero's for locating it and securing it?

Hello, I'm Earth~ have we met?

Originally posted by TrickmastertricK
Saddam, in my opinion, was not as big a threat to the world as GW made him out to be. He did not threaten the US or anyone else in the last 10 yrs. Meanwhile NK is building nucleur weapons rather than feeding their people.

I agree Saddam was not a threat to the United States, but I'm pretty sure Israel considered him a threat, and well, what Israel wants, we give them. Plain and simple.

cheers,

StickyG

Here's a little compilation of some of the things directly related to this topic
here

I think this could be potentially big

Nyarl:

Let's here what all of the anti-war people are going to say about this now.

I say you should do some critical thinking before you make an arse out of yourself in public.

This is radioactive WASTE that was known about for YEARS. It's a byproduct of nuclear power, which Iraq used to have.

So as an anti-war person, I say this is garbage. It's nuclear WASTE it's not bombs.

It really can only be used for one thing: making a bomb.

Really? Are you in fact a nuclear scientist? Isn't most nuclear waste just disposed of? Please enlighten me, Doctor.

I think you are missing the point. They STOLE the enriched uranium to make a freaking bomb. Calling it slightly enriched doesn't keep it from being weapons grade uranium does it? It was stolen for one purpose: To make a weapon of mass destruction.

See, again you're blabbing on about things you apparently KNOW for certain, when in fact you don't know it, and can't. Please try to be more concise in the future.

The only way you could know that this uranium was to be used in a WMD is if YOU were the one who intended it. Do you?


When posting an article that backs up your assertions, read the ENTIRE article. This article has nothing concrete in it that can even LOOSELY be seen as a report on WMDs in Iraq.






[edit on 8-7-2004 by Jakomo]

It was 1.77 tons of uranium. Of which 2.5 (Roughly) % was U-235. Which leaves a total of about 45 kg of weapons grade uranium. If they have a centrifuge, this means they could create 5 nuclear bombs (of very low yields, it depends how efficient they can create a fission system)

Originally posted by nyarlathotep
You are correct, I was wrong. Not a very good excuse, I will admit that. As Roseanne, Roseanna Danna used to say: NEVERMIND!
[edit on 7-8-2004 by nyarlathotep]

Easy there Jakomo. Did you read the above post? It was on the first page. I admitted I was wrong OK. I don't need you to tell me that again. At least I was man enough to admit that I was wrong. So just take a deep breath and let it go!

nyarl: Hey, I thought my anger was a gift!

Originally posted by Jakomo
nyarl: Hey, I thought my anger was a gift!

It is a gift, except when it is directed at me

P.S. You are right, though. I did go off half cocked when I first posted this thread, and I would rip someone for doing the same thing. So....my bad!

This is radioactive WASTE that was known about for YEARS. It's a byproduct of nuclear power, which Iraq used to have.

So as an anti-war person, I say this is garbage. It's nuclear WASTE it's not bombs.

As much as I love to disagree with Jakomo...he's right on the money with this one...

And I was FOR the war... Now of course, I didn't really believe our goal was to find WMD...(indeed, I'm actually surprised we didn't find any yet, but I think there is a tiny bit still there...most, if anything indeed was there, was shipped out through Syria during the buildup prior to the invasion)...and yet I also don't agree with it being about oil... It WAS about economics...and more about the dollar versus the euro, and influence in the middle east. It also had the added benefit of removing a rather major funder of terrorism....whether you believe it or not. Of course, how one cannot believe this is beyond me, when Saddam was handing out $10,000 checks to suicide bombers' families after a successful mission....

Isn't that the way the US secured this uranium in the first place?

What would the average Iraqi know what the uranium was and what it's value was?

The report was that "Iraqi citizens looted" it.

Hmmmmmmmm.........

More like Iraqi "insurgents..."

Ok, so we all agree, it was waste, not WMD's. So Pro-Bush people, where are the WMD's? These weren't it, they were waste that the UN new about and didn't protect from looters. Damn, now I am scared. If They knew where it was, why didn't they protect it from said looters? Damn it.

Also, the Poles found canisters of Sarin gas with MADE IN USA stamps on them. Sorry, if Saddam was making WMD's he wouldn't put MADE IN USA on them.

This amounts to nothing more than a half-assed attempt by the DOJ to make radioactive items, used in medical and industrial facilities, out to be their smoking gun.

In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb, the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham described the previously undisclosed operation, which was concluded June 23, as �a major achievement� in an attempt to �keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists.�
The haul included a �huge range� of radioactive items used for medical and industrial purposes, said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department�s National Nuclear Security Administration.
Much of the material �was in powdered form, which is easily dispersed,� said Wilkes.
The statement provided only scant details about the material taken from Iraq, but said it included �roughly 1,000 highly radioactive sources� that �could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device,� or dirty bomb.

Wilkes said �a huge range of different isotopes� were secured in the joint Energy Department and Defense Department operation. They had been used in Iraq for a range of medical and industrial purposes, such as testing oil wells and pipelines.
Uranium is not suitable for making a dirty bomb. But some of the other radioactive material � including cesium-137, colbalt-60 and strontium � could have been valuable to a terrorist seeking to fashion a terror weapon.

Such a device would not trigger a nuclear explosion, but would use conventional explosives to spread radioactive debris. While few people would probably be killed or seriously affected by the radiation, such an explosion could cause panic, make a section of a city uninhabitable for some time and require cumbersome and expensive cleanup.

The low-enriched uranium taken from Iraq, if it is of the 3 percent to 5 percent level of enrichment common in fuel for commercial power reactors, could have been of value to a country developing enrichment technology.
�It speeds up the process,� Oelrich said, adding that 1.95 tons of low-enriched uranium could be used to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a single nuclear bomb. www.armytimes.com...

Also, as someone mentioned earlier, they were, likely, trying to show how "on the ball" they are, since they dropped it before, when they let looters get away with other radioactive materials.

as mentioned by JTL
Also, the Poles found canisters of Sarin gas with MADE IN USA stamps on them. Sorry, if Saddam was making WMD's he wouldn't put MADE IN USA on them.

James, got a link for the above statement/assertion? I don't recall ever hearing or reading anything to that degree. Do remember reading where the same Poles found missiles made in France though......



seekerof


[edit on 8-7-2004 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by James the LesserAlso, the Poles found canisters of Sarin gas with MADE IN USA stamps on them. Sorry, if Saddam was making WMD's he wouldn't put MADE IN USA on them.

Maybe he did, it would definatly be possible.

Originally posted by x_y_no
This enriched uranium isn't anything new. It isn't anything we didn't know about since well before Gulf War 1.

This material was under UN supervision and monitoring. It wasn't being hidden by Saddam by any stretch of the imagination.

It was only after we invaded, and then failed to secure this facility which we knew all about, that looters stole the stuff. So as justification for invasion, this seems like a piss-poor excuse to me.

exactly. i posted this article in another thread, and i'll post it here, since it seems relevant. i'm posting the following in fuill because i got it from a subscription service. however, it would seem that the enriched uranium was from Iraq's pre-gulf war nuclear operation, was already sealed and registered with the IAEA. way to go. the reason it's not being made more public is because it took them all this time to export known, registered, and sealed material, an unknown amount of which had already been looted! so... radioactive material is confirmed as being no longer in the hands of a secular, tightly regulated police state, monitored by the IAEA, but in the hands of fundamentalist-infested looters. rest peacefully.

The Washington Post
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, July 7, 2004

U.S. Removed Radioactive Materials From Iraq Facility

Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced yesterday that almost two tons of low-enriched uranium and about 1,000 radioactive samples used for research had been removed from Iraq's Tuwaitha Nuclear Center and brought to the United States for security reasons. The airlift of the radioactive materials was completed June 23, Abraham said in a statement, "to keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists." Less sensitive radiological materials -- used for medical, agricultural or industrial purposes -- were left in Iraq, according to a Department of Energy statement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which in the prewar period had kept the Tuwaitha uranium under seal, was told in advance of the U.S. removal, as were Iraqi officials.

Tuwaitha was once the center of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons effort, but its equipment was dismantled at the direction of U.N. inspectors in the early 1990s as part of the agreement following Iraq's surrender in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The U.N. inspectors removed highly enriched uranium that could be used for weapons and shipped it for storage in Russia. The low-enriched uranium was placed under seal in storage at Tuwaitha but under the control of the IAEA.

Before the U.S.-led coalition's invasion of Iraq, as the Bush administration alleged that Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear program, Tuwaitha was a target for U.S. intelligence.

In April 2003, just days after the statue of Hussein in Baghdad was pulled down, a U.S. Marine engineering company took a close look at Tuwaitha, which is 30 miles south of Baghdad. There they found guards had abandoned their posts and looters were roaming the giant facility. At one storage building, which later was found to hold radioactive samples used in research, the radiation levels were too high to enter safely, although the entrance door stood wide open.

A month later, the Pentagon rejected suggestions that U.N. inspectors be allowed to reenter Iraq but agreed the IAEA experts could return to secure the uranium that had been under its seal for years.

-koji K.

LOL.........The ink on the story isn't even dry and already the spin has started. The liberals and democrats are living in complete denial.
Bush planted them............Thats original, didnt see that one coming. The democrats and liberals have become truly pathetic, so predictable.

They find weapons, you say "its a setup".
Those weapons find there way into the wrong hands, you say "we told you he had them, but you couldn't find them".

Do you see the trend here?????
The liberals and democrats find a way to blame Bush for every outcome to every possible scenario. That is a truly spectacular feat!!

Bush was right, the dems and liberals were wrong, Plain and simple!!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesnt matter that it was only waste!!!!!!!!!!

Its radioactive!!!!!!!!!!!!DUH

Go cuddle up to a chunk and see what happens.

Any uranium or plutonium found in Iraq needs to be treated with great concern be it waste (a possible bi product of enrichment) or weapons grade, In the wrong hands either can have grave effects.





[edit on 8-7-2004 by sniper068]