Posted on 07/21/2004 5:52:33 AM PDT by NY Catholic
BAGHDAD, July 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi security reportedly discovered three missiles carrying nuclear heads concealed in a concrete trench northwest of Baghdad, official sources said Wednesday. The official daily al-Sabah quoted the sources as saying the missiles were discovered in trenches near the city of Tikrit, the hometown of ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "The three missiles were discovered by chance when the Iraqi security forces captured former Baath party official Khoder al-Douri who revealed during interrogation the location of the missiles saying they carried nuclear heads," the sources said. They pointed out that the missiles were actually discovered in the trenches lying under six meters of concrete and designed in a way to unable sophisticated sensors from discovering nuclear radiation. The sources said al-Douri, who is related to former Vice Chairman of the Iraq Revolution Council and Saddam's right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was captured after Iraqi police intercepted an e-mail message in which he set a meeting with another former Baath official. The report could not be authenticated by the interior ministry or the national security department, but the paper noted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiar Zibari made a surprise request recently to Mohammed el-Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to resume inspections for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"If there is even 1 confirmed Nuclear warhead, the election is over."
--Bingo.
"I thought we overflew that area and did many sweeps with radiologic detection"
-- I'm sort of in that line of work, and I can tell you that this overhead radiological thing is BS. While there is a capability, it is very limited and if the nuke is shielded, you'll nothin'. Most people got this crap from the movie "Broken Arrow", where terrorists hid a loose nuke in a hospital, so that radiological x-ray machines will cloak the signature.
"If it is that easy to miss these things......what other little nasties do they also have....in hiding...? or shuttled to Iran..."
-- How long do you think it would take to search every house in California, which is the same size as Iraq? On top of that, how long would it take to crack open the foundation of each home to make sure WMD isn't sealed up???
The president knew the UN inspectors would NEVER find anything in this enviornment; the bulk of WMDs were smuggled out of the country, and most of the rest are buried. If I were Saddam and wanted to hide WMDs until after the war, I think I'd bury 'em under six feet of concrete. When I want them back, I go get a jackhammer. You could dig up the floor and get out your WMDs with a crew of four in a day. It doesn't sound too hard, does it?
Waiting for an official announcement from someone in a United States Military uniform.
Even weapons-grade material would be a smoking gun. The hardest part of making nukes is making the material; it takes a large infrastructure, like Iran currently has. The easy part is putting it together.
"What is a "nuclear head" by the way."
-- a "nuclear warhead" after a poor Reuters translation from Arabic to English.
Not too farfetched;
1. security forces raid a house
2. When they find the suspect, he seems highly suspicious and defenseive about a particular patch of newly poured concrete.
3. crack the concrete and find them.
If true, they're probably partially complete. Saddam's program was a bit haphazard like that. In the mid-90s UN inspectors found a Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge hidden in the bushes.
"the timing is suspicious" </sarcasm >
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.