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Experts: Saddam's Uranium Enough for One Nuke
NewsMax.com ^ | Nov. 12, 2005 | Carl Limbacher

Posted on 11/12/2005 7:48:27 AM PST by Carl/NewsMax

Though President Bush didn't mention it in his speech yesterday rebutting critics of his administration's use of intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, experts say that Saddam Hussein had stockpiled enough partially enriched uranium to produce at least one full-fledged nuclear bomb.

Commenting on Saddam's enriched uranium stash after the U.S. Energy Department removed it to Oak Ridge, Tenn., in June 2004, top physicist Ivan Oelrich told the Associated Press:

"[Saddam's] 1.95 tons of low-enriched uranium could be used to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a single nuclear bomb."

Oelrich, a leading member of the Federation of American Scientists, is not alone in that assessment.

Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, told the New York Times that Saddam's partially enriched uranium "could have been further enriched to make it useful in a weapon."

After the U.S. removed Saddam's nuke fuel stockpile, interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi confirmed that it posed a great danger to the region's security interests.

"These materials, which are potential weapons of mass murder, are not welcome in our country and their production is unacceptable," Allawi told Agence France Press.

Even Saddam's 500-ton un-enriched uranium stockpile, which he stored at the same nuclear weapons research facility where inspectors found his partially enriched stash, posed a potential threat.

In a March 2003 op-ed piece for London's Evening Standard, Norman Dombey, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex, calculated that Saddam's yellowcake could have yielded a staggering nuclear arsenal.

"You have a warehouse containing 500 tons of natural uranium," Dombey wrote. "You need 25 kilograms of U235 to build one weapon. How many nuclear weapons can you build?

"The answer is 142 [nuclear bombs]," he said.


TOPICS: Front Page News
KEYWORDS: enriched; iraq; iraqinukes; nukes; uranium; wmd
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To: sageb1
"An American city annihilated?" Yes.

It will, of course be Bush's fault.

61 posted on 11/12/2005 1:51:58 PM PST by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: Canard

Did this cataloging include precise weight measurements of each canister?


62 posted on 11/12/2005 1:53:41 PM PST by jonrick46
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To: Carl/NewsMax
One has to wonder what exactly is known in the "classified" bowels of this government where Saddam's WMD's actually ended up.

Now if he never had them then these liberals got some explaining to do about their fear mongering got take Saddam out in 1998.
63 posted on 11/12/2005 1:59:39 PM PST by Just mythoughts
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To: Carl/NewsMax

One too many if he were left in power.


64 posted on 11/12/2005 2:01:41 PM PST by Paul_Denton (The U.S. should adopt the policy of Oom Shmoom: Israeli policy where no one gives a sh*t about U.N.)
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To: Boundless

Exactly. Enriching uranium is the only hard part. Making a gun-type bomb is very simple.


65 posted on 11/12/2005 2:04:49 PM PST by Paul_Denton (The U.S. should adopt the policy of Oom Shmoom: Israeli policy where no one gives a sh*t about U.N.)
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To: Boundless

Holy Toledo! No, I do not have cable. This would put a whole new slant on things, nicht wahr?


66 posted on 11/12/2005 2:42:52 PM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: UCANSEE2
Thank you for your very good insight. Yes, the Joe Wilson episode is being used to confuse the issue by the DemonRATS. Yes, Saddam was playing a good shell game. However, President Bush is a better gamer. He knows where the pea is now. However, think about what kind of trouble he would be in if he told the nation what he knew. There would be a frog marching like you never saw before. In fact, I would not put it past the DemonRATS to be tempting President Bush to reveal that which cannot be revealed; just to get him trapped into impeachment proceedings.
67 posted on 11/12/2005 5:52:43 PM PST by jonrick46
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To: Strategerist
Everyone had known about the 2 tons of LEU and the Yellowcake for a decade, it was monitored, it wasn't a UN resolution violation, thus it wasn't cited as a justification for Gulf War II before the war.

It was only allowed as long as there were inspectors. When Saddam bounced the inspectors in 1998, how the heck was anyone supposed to know what he was doing, or going to do withe stuff?

68 posted on 11/13/2005 12:39:31 AM PST by Go Gordon
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To: justa-hairyape
"Imagine were we would be now if we had not gotten rid of Saddam."

Of course you are thinking after the post 1991 ceasefire. Imagine if there was never a Gulf War? Saddam by all accounts had nuclear long range missile capabilities to target Europe by now.

69 posted on 11/13/2005 12:43:42 AM PST by endthematrix (Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse)
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To: justa-hairyape
"Provide a quote where someone, obviously besides newsmax and 'former CIA experts', stated that Saddam had a functional nuclear weapon."

I CAN! Back in 1989 there was a huge explosion, and seismographs pointed to Iraq. It was no quake. Personally I think it was a test of the explosive HMX used for the bomb.

Saddam's bomb


70 posted on 11/13/2005 1:00:42 AM PST by endthematrix (Those who despise freedom and progress have condemned themselves to isolation, decline, and collapse)
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To: Gondring

Saddam was funding terrorism outside his country in Israel, he had a laundry list in addition to all the WMD issues.


71 posted on 11/15/2005 1:01:46 AM PST by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: endthematrix

Wow. I stand corrected. Thanks for the link.


72 posted on 11/16/2005 3:39:23 AM PST by justa-hairyape
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