US flies 1.8 tonnes of enriched uranium out of Iraq

[He219]

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham disclosed the secret airlift from Iraq on Tuesday as “a major achievement” in an attempt to “keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists.” The material was taken to an undisclosed U.S. Energy Department laboratory for further analysis.

The airlift ended on June 23, five days before the United States transferred sovereignty to Iraq’s new interim government.

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20040711/amdf487217.jpg
Iraq Says Zarqawi Likely Seeking WMD Materials (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=716&e=12&u=/nm/20040711/ts_nm/iraq_weapons_dc)

BAGHDAD (*******) - Iraq's national security adviser said Sunday unconventional weapons material might well have gone to neighboring states in the war and Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is probably trying to get some.

Mowaffaq al-Rubaie also said the Iraqi interim government had approved the transfer of all radioactive material in its possession to the United States, but said he could not be sure more material was not hidden inside Iraq by Saddam Hussein.

Rubaie did not provide any evidence that unconventional weapons materials had crossed the border, or of attempts by militants to acquire them in Iraq.

U.S. and U.N. officials said Wednesday Washington had transported about 1.8 tonnes of enriched uranium out of Iraq for safekeeping more than a year after looters stole it from a U.N.-sealed facility left unguarded by U.S. troops.

Artillery shells found by Polish troops in Iraq in June contained the deadly nerve agent cyclosarin, the Polish army said last week.

"Just imagine if these weapons of mass destruction or any of these capabilities of making a dirty bomb or a chemical weapon or anything like this, if it falls in the hands of Zarqawi's gangsters and Zarqawi's people and these global terrorists or Saddam's former regime, what will happen?" he said.

"I have no shadow of doubt that..., with his evil mind, he (Zarqawi) will try to acquire these unconventional weapons," he told a news conference.

Zarqawi is Washington's top militant target in Iraq and has offered a $25 million reward for his capture. Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for bombings in Iraq and the beheadings of an American and South Korean.

Rubaie said the transfer of about 1.8 tonnes of low enriched uranium and almost 1,000 radioactive sources to the United States involved everything collected in Iraq. But he said he could not be certain Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction.

"Whether he (Saddam Hussein) has smuggled these through the borders during the conflict of last year, whether he has hidden these weapons of mass destruction... we don't know," he said.

The United States and Britain have failed to uncover stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even though the possession of such weapons was one of the reasons cited for launching the March 2003 invasion.

Rubaie said there were indications that some unconventional materials had crossed borders into neighboring states, and said Iraq would seek to have it returned if so.

"There are some indications that these (unconventional materials) have gone that way during the conflict and immediately after the conflict," he said but gave no details.

[mattnwnc03]

im no nuclear scientist but seems like alot of uranium.

[American Patriot]

Yep, no WMD in Iraq.

[He219]

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20040707/capt.sge.kzh91.060704232021.photo00.default-380x271.jpg
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said The United States has secretly removed enriched uranium and other radioactive materials from Iraq that could potentially be used to manufacture a 'dirty' radiological bomb or support a nuclear weapons program

Iraq already had some 500 tons of enriched Uranium (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040709/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_uranium_1)


A Friday report from the Senate Intelligence Committee offers new details supporting the claim that Saddam Hussein's government tried to buy uranium.

French and British intelligence separately told the United States about possible Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger, the report said. The report from France is significant not only because Paris opposed the Iraq war but also because Niger is a former French colony and French companies control uranium production there.

Joseph Wilson, a retired U.S. diplomat the CIA sent to investigate the Niger story, also found evidence of Iraqi contacts with Nigerien officials, the report said.

Wilson told the committee that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki reported meeting with Iraqi officials in 1999. Mayaki said a businessman helped set up the meeting, saying the Iraqis were interested in "expanding commercial relations" with Niger — which Mayaki interpreted as an overture to buy uranium, Wilson said.

Mayaki told Wilson he met with the Iraqis but steered the discussion away from commercial activity because he did not want to deal with a country under United Nations sanctions.

All of that information came to Washington long before an Italian journalist gave U.S. officials copies of documents purporting to show an agreement from Niger to sell uranium to Baghdad. Those documents have been determined to be forgeries.

Even before the forged documents surfaced, U.S. analysts cast doubt on the Niger story, the Senate report said. State Department analysts thought the uranium story was farfetched because such a deal would be detected easily and Iraq already had some 500 tons of lightly processed uranium "yellowcake."

Some CIA analysts shared that view, the report said.

The CIA also made only "halfhearted" attempts to investigate a West African businessman's claim that Nigerien uranium bound for Iraq was being stored in a warehouse in the nearby African nation of Benin, the report said. The CIA never contacted the businessman, even though the U.S. Navy gave the CIA his phone number, the report said.

Senate report backs uranium claim (http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=14982)

Associated Press
July 10, 2004

WASHINGTON – A Senate report criticizing false CIA claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the same time provides support for an assertion the White House repudiated: that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa.

White House officials said last year it was a mistake for President Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union message, to refer to British reports that Saddam Hussein's government tried to buy uranium. The White House said the evidence for that claim was too shaky to have been included in such an important speech, and CIA Director George Tenet took the blame for failing to have the reference removed.

A Friday report from the Senate Intelligence Committee offers new details supporting the claim.

French and British intelligence separately told the United States about possible Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger, the report said. The report from France is significant not only because Paris opposed the Iraq war but also because Niger is a former French colony and French companies control uranium production there.

Joseph Wilson, a retired U.S. diplomat the CIA sent to investigate the Niger story, also found evidence of Iraqi contacts with Nigerian officials, the report said.

Wilson told the committee that former Nigerian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki reported meeting with Iraqi officials in 1999. Mayaki said a businessman helped set up the meeting, saying the Iraqis were interested in "expanding commercial relations" with Niger – which Mayaki interpreted as an overture to buy uranium, Wilson said.

Mayaki told Wilson he met with the Iraqis but steered the discussion away from commercial activity because he did not want to deal with a country under United Nations sanctions.

All of that information came to Washington long before an Italian journalist gave U.S. officials copies of documents purporting to show an agreement from Niger to sell uranium to Baghdad. Those documents have been determined to be forgeries.

Even before the forged documents surfaced, U.S. analysts cast doubt on the Niger story, the Senate report said. State Department analysts thought the uranium story was farfetched because such a deal would be detected easily and Iraq already had some 500 tons of lightly processed uranium "yellowcake."

Some CIA analysts shared that view, the report said.

The CIA also made only "halfhearted" attempts to investigate a West African businessman's claim that Nigerian uranium bound for Iraq was being stored in a warehouse in the nearby African nation of Benin, the report said. The CIA never contacted the businessman, even though the U.S. Navy gave the CIA his phone number, the report said.




:lol:

[Kitsune]

For those who have asked themselves the question "Why is this bomb of a message not all over the world wide media? Have the secret masters of the zionist world conspiracy switched sides and are supressing this? (j.k. ;) )

Because of one insignificant detail.
The uranium both articles arew referring to is "low enriched". In other words, not suitable for building an nuclear bomb.

And by the way, the chemical weapons of mass distraction ;) found so far are a few shells, leftovers from the 80ties, that were forgotten or misplaced, not giant stockpiles that Saddam prepared for an attack.

Conclusion: To say that Bushs assessment of the threat Iraqs WMD posed was correct would be utter poppycock. And that is why almost nobody says so.

:lol:

[He219]

on the contrary, kitsune.

the conclusion to be made is that Iraq indeed made moves to procure additional Uranium from Niger as French and British Intelligence gave us.

Now if Saddam already had 500 tonnes of lightly enriched Uranium, why would he seek more? 1.8 tonnes has been removed to prevent it from beign used as a 'dirty' bomb.

:lol:



Oh, and you won't hear Europeans and other Bush haters advertising the fact that these claims were indeed TRUE!

Why tell everybody that you have Egg over your Face, so to speak?

[Pooga]

Oh psh! C'mon guys, it's only uranium! I mean it's not Saddam was going to actually do anything with it. It just looks kinda pretty!

[budanski]

And by the way, the chemical weapons of mass distraction ;) found so far are a few shells, leftovers from the 80ties, that were forgotten or misplaced, not giant stockpiles that Saddam prepared for an attack.

1 shell, a few... Saddam wasnt suppose to have ANY, they were prohibited from even having programmes related to these banned weapons.

[cut]

what was it again 30 minutes threat? out of uranium?

[chauncy republicans]

And by the way, the chemical weapons of mass distraction ;) found so far are a few shells, leftovers from the 80ties, that were forgotten or misplaced, not giant stockpiles that Saddam prepared for an attack.

1 shell, a few... Saddam wasnt suppose to have ANY, they were prohibited from even having programmes related to these banned weapons.
I see you over looked the "leftovers from the 80ties" piece...how surprising. :roll:

If Saddam was'nt supposed to have any WMDs I think Rummy has a little explaining to do, would'nt you agree?

[Secret Squirrel]

And by the way, the chemical weapons of mass distraction ;) found so far are a few shells, leftovers from the 80ties, that were forgotten or misplaced, not giant stockpiles that Saddam prepared for an attack.

1 shell, a few... Saddam wasnt suppose to have ANY, they were prohibited from even having programmes related to these banned weapons.

ever lose your keys? Or anything for that matter? But you expect Saddam to know where every shell in his desert is from a war that happened well over a decade ago? I guess Saddam allowed allowed them to rust and he kept them out in the desert for safe keeping? rofl

[scm77]

Yep, no WMD in Iraq.

Nope, none at all. ;) ;)

[Pooga]

ever lose your keys?

Aww shucks! Where did I leave my sarin artillery shells this time?

[Kilgor]

ever lose your keys?

Aww shucks! Where did I leave my sarin artillery shells this time?

You know the army accidently left a old m113 in my backyard, I sold it for a fortune on ebay !

[Pooga]

You know the army accidently left a old m113 in my backyard, I sold it for a fortune on ebay !

YOU SOLD IT?!?

[Secret Squirrel]

ever lose your keys?

Aww shucks! Where did I leave my sarin artillery shells this time?

aww shucks, if i knew where they were and i wanted to keep them why would i leave them to rust in the desert?

[mocking_loudly_died]

If this war wasn't a cluster f*ck some one please tell the coalition that are on my TV set every night apologizing for it and already assigning blame. I mean if it's a great anti-WMD success why are we bothering with all these committees.

Where is my f*cking beach party with a Journey soundtrack. Let's face it we are only fooling ourselves if we follow a straight and narrow path of a delusion based on a false success.

I can understand Americans feeling ****ty with people that get a thrill in every mistake made with this affair and wanting to defend said actions, even I still argue (rather less passionately) for the American intervention at times. But it's over hombres.

I’ll be riding my horse into the sunset now.

[Pooga]

aww shucks, if i knew where they were and i wanted to keep them why would i leave them to rust in the desert?

You're fault, hunny buns. Mustard gas is not mustard in the form of a gas for easy applying on a hotdog. Ok fine, sarin. ;)

[Kilgor]

You know the army accidently left a old m113 in my backyard, I sold it for a fortune on ebay !

YOU SOLD IT?!?

No room mate, see.. I already had a leopard tank in the garage that I also found one day bushwalking !

Professional armies are so careless these days. :P

They just seem to leave valueable bits around everywhere ! :P

[Pooga]

Wait, I'm kinda slow so you have to spell it out to me. Are you serious? :P

[A Soldier]

Well the F-16 in the hanger in my backyard is my daily driver, and the
B-2 over here is more for the weekends. ;)

[A Soldier]

You know the army accidently left a old m113 in my backyard, I sold it for a fortune on ebay !

YOU SOLD IT?!?

No room mate, see.. I already had a leopard tank in the garage that I also found one day bushwalking !

Professional armies are so careless these days. :P

They just seem to leave valueable bits around everywhere ! :P
Selling this piece of machinery is a crime and you should be arrested ;)

[Kilgor]

also got a couple of A bombs that the british forgot about when there were testing here in the 50's

going cheap ! :P

[Pooga]

also got a couple of A bombs that the british forgot about when there were testing here in the 50's

going cheap ! :P

http://engrish.com/image/engrish/fack.jpg

:P

[He219]

http://cache.*****images.com/comp/51051924.jpg?x=x&dasite=MS_GINS&ef=2&ev=1&dareq=538EA340DCCBB2AD7EF28953CED79868A9C30E9B9B114CE8

U.S. President George W. Bush inspects Aluminum Tubing components for the enrichment of Uranium collected in Libya with the Manager of National Security Advanced Technologies, Jon Kreykes (R), in the Fusion Building of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, July 12, 2004. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) previously concluded that similar Ultra-High Grade Aluminum components procured by Iraq were probably intended for unguided rockets in lieu of charges that low enriched Uranium in the form of approximately 1.8 tons of 2.6 per cent Uranium-235 'yellowcake' were to be reprocessed to weapons grade materials.

[2Sheds_Jackson]

If this war wasn't a cluster f*ck some one please tell the coalition that are on my TV set every night apologizing for it and already assigning blame. I mean if it's a great anti-WMD success why are we bothering with all these committees.

Where is my f*cking beach party with a Journey soundtrack. Let's face it we are only fooling ourselves if we follow a straight and narrow path of a delusion based on a false success.

I can understand Americans feeling ****ty with people that get a thrill in every mistake made with this affair and wanting to defend said actions, even I still argue (rather less passionately) for the American intervention at times. But it's over hombres.

I’ll be riding my horse into the sunset now.

Hey, all wars are a cluster - it's the nature of war. The differences here are that we have 24/7 live news of every jagoff with a hangnail in Baghdad & old Europe is totally pissed because we shut off the Saddam gravy train. We would have pulled out of WWII if we had the same circumstances then. What's the number of French civilians who died during the Normandy invasion...12,000? Can you imagine? We've just now hit 1000 coalition combatant deaths..after two years...and it's a "cluster".

Iraq is a huge, borderless sandbox. They buried their freakin' air force in the sand. They're finding WMD canisters in scrapyards in Jordan. It's a big, messy, unregulated, chaotic mess. I for one am glad that the coalition at least put some teeth into the UN. Left on it's own, the Security Council would still be pocketing all the oil for food money & looking the other way.

As it was, Saddam had ten years to hide his salami...then we gave him another six months of "this is your last chance". Any maniacal dictator worth his bejeweled sword could have hidden/destroyed/sold it by then. Shoot, he was illegally selling oil & buying weapons systems right under the UNs nose, who's to say he didn't do the same with much smaller & easier to handle WMD?

So what was this "low grade" uranium for? Can it not be enriched into uranium suitable for atomic weapons? Isn't that what centrifuges are for? Didn't they dig up centrifuge parts in some Iraqi scientist's backyard last year? How many singular instances are people willing to ignore in order to prop up the "no WMD" mantra? Do they have to find a large factory, with a big sign on it?

>rides of on motorcycle with Eye of the Tiger playing<

[Pooga]

Eye of the Tiger rocks!

[Herrmannek]

If you ask me they find those things to easily...

[Vance]

If you ask me they find those things to easily...
Who are reffering to? The dicators or us?

[Herrmannek]

If you ask me they find those things to easily...
Who are reffering to? The dicators or us?

WMD leftovers\materials found by coalition. My reasonig is: how they could be forgoten if they are so easily found? Simple extrapolation there is much more of such things not found yet, and those hidden are proly last to find...

[mocking_loudly_died]

If this war wasn't a cluster f*ck some one please tell the coalition that are on my TV set every night apologizing for it and already assigning blame. I mean if it's a great anti-WMD success why are we bothering with all these committees.

Where is my f*cking beach party with a Journey soundtrack. Let's face it we are only fooling ourselves if we follow a straight and narrow path of a delusion based on a false success.

I can understand Americans feeling ****ty with people that get a thrill in every mistake made with this affair and wanting to defend said actions, even I still argue (rather less passionately) for the American intervention at times. But it's over hombres.

I’ll be riding my horse into the sunset now.

Hey, all wars are a cluster - it's the nature of war. The differences here are that we have 24/7 live news of every jagoff with a hangnail in Baghdad & old Europe is totally pissed because we shut off the Saddam gravy train. We would have pulled out of WWII if we had the same circumstances then. What's the number of French civilians who died during the Normandy invasion...12,000? Can you imagine? We've just now hit 1000 coalition combatant deaths..after two years...and it's a "cluster".

Iraq is a huge, borderless sandbox. They buried their freakin' air force in the sand. They're finding WMD canisters in scrapyards in Jordan. It's a big, messy, unregulated, chaotic mess. I for one am glad that the coalition at least put some teeth into the UN. Left on it's own, the Security Council would still be pocketing all the oil for food money & looking the other way.

As it was, Saddam had ten years to hide his salami...then we gave him another six months of "this is your last chance". Any maniacal dictator worth his bejeweled sword could have hidden/destroyed/sold it by then. Shoot, he was illegally selling oil & buying weapons systems right under the UNs nose, who's to say he didn't do the same with much smaller & easier to handle WMD?

So what was this "low grade" uranium for? Can it not be enriched into uranium suitable for atomic weapons? Isn't that what centrifuges are for? Didn't they dig up centrifuge parts in some Iraqi scientist's backyard last year? How many singular instances are people willing to ignore in order to prop up the "no WMD" mantra? Do they have to find a large factory, with a big sign on it?

>rides of on motorcycle with Eye of the Tiger playing<

Man, you make totally valid points, we do live in an age of instant media that skew events and totally distort the reality. I'm saying this has been a systematic failure on part of intelligence analysts (with undue political pressure perhaps?). I'm not pulling these words from my anal cavity these were the comments from (former) key CIA / Defense officials on PBS two nights ago.

I personally don't think we should be blasé about the human cost of this war; history tells a pretty definitive tale of soldiers being eaten up and spat out by their political masters. The (alleged) immediate threat wasn't worth the sacrifice of these lives, the financial burden or the decline in American international standing (yes I fully accept the rise of anti-American nonsense that is running around the far left for no plausible reason other than to give some boring people a hard-on).

Both sides of the American congress are lining up to throw blame on somebody (other than them selves) this does not look like people that feel justified in their actions.

[usa320]

Come on guys, this **** is just the tip of the iceberg.

We are still digging up Mustard rounds in France and China and ****.

And i expect we will be digging up VX and cyclosarin in Iraq for a decade or so...