SMOKING GUN URANIUM-GERMANY WHILE Ritter Stokes Islamic Hate

AP ^ | 9/29/02

[dark_lord]

Project Paperclip... we wouldn't have had our rockets without those guys giving us a kick start. But, I was under the impression that none were actually nazi's.

I don't know about Werner, but the best study I know of on this topic was done by Linda Hunt back in 1994.

Linda Hunt publications

Here is an extensive copy/paste from "Agent Orange" on the subject. This has been extensively reposted in various conspiracy, UFA, Illuminati, and other tin hat sites. However, while the conclusions may be specultative, the basic information vis-a-vis the Operation Paperclip material is apparently fairly accurate regarding the Nazi scientists. By posting the following, I am not asserting that I believe, recommend, or concur in all of the conclusions of "Agent Orange". I am merely posting this material related to Operation Paperclip and the Nazi scientists in the context of which it was presented. Read the Linda Hunt investigations to draw your own conclusions regarding Operation Paperclip

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Operation Paperclip casefile Date: Fri, 08 Aug 1997 Dossier: Documented Evidence Case File: 5X067 Compiled by Agent Orange
OPERATION PAPERCLIP After WWII ended in 1945, victorious Russian and American intelligence teams began a treasure hunt throughout occupied Germany for military and scientific booty. They were looking for things like new rocket and aircraft designs, medicines, and electronics. But they were also hunting down the most precious "spoils" of all: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machine.
The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. But when it realized the extent of the scientists knowledge and expertise, the War Department decided it would be a waste to send the scientists home. Following the discovery of flying discs (foo fighters), particle/laser beam weaponry in German military bases, the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology, and the Nazi engineers that had worked on this technology.
There was only one problem: it was illegal. U.S. law explicitly prohibited Nazi officials from immigrating to America--and as many as three-quarters of the scientists in question had been committed Nazis.
Data-Points:
* Convinced that German scientists could help America's postwar efforts, President Harry Truman agreed in September 1946 to authorize "Project Paperclip," a program to bring selected German scientists to work on America's behalf during the "Cold War"
However, Truman expressly excluded anyone found "to have been a member of the Nazi party and more than a nominal participant in its activities, or an active supporter of Naziism or militarism." The War Department's Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) conducted background investigations of the scientists. In February 1947, JIOA Director Bosquet Wev submitted the first set of scientists' dossiers to the State and Justice Departments for review.
The Dossiers were damning. Samauel Klaus, the State Departments representative on the JIOA board, claimed that all the scientists in this first batch were "ardent Nazis." Their visa requests were denied. Wev was furious. He wrote a memo warning that "the best intrests of the United States have been subjugated to the efforts expended in 'beating a dead Nazi horse.'" He also declared that the return of these scientists to Germany, where they could be exploited by America's enemies, presented a "far greater security threat to this country than any former Nazi affiliations which they may have had or even any Nazi sympathies that they may still have." When the JIOA formed to investigate the backgrounds and form dossiers on the Nazis, the Nazi Intelligence leader Reinhard Gehlen met with the CIA director Allen Dulles. Dulles and Gehlen hit it off immediatly. Gehlen was a master spy for the Nazis and had infilitrated Russia with his vast Nazi Intelligence network. Dulles promised Gehlen that his Intelligence unit was safe in the CIA. Apparently, Wev decided to sidestep the problem. Dulles had the scientists dossier's re-written to eliminate incriminating evidence. As promised, Allen Dulles delivered the Nazi Intelligence unit to the CIA, which later opened many umbrella projects stemming from Nazi mad research. (MK-ULTRA / ARTICHOKE, OPERATION MIDNIGHT CLIMAX)
Military Intelligence "cleansed" the files of Nazi refrences. By 1955, more than 760 German scientists had been granted citizenship in the U.S. and given prominent positions in the American scientific community. Many had been longtime members of the Nazi party and the Gestapo, had conducted experiments on humans at concentration camps, had used slave labor, and had comitted other war crimes.
In a 1985 expose in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Linda Hunt wrote that she had examined more than 130 reports on Project Paperclip subjects--and every one "had been changed to eliminate the security threat classification." President Truman, who had explicitly ordered no comitted Nazis to be admitted under Project Paperclip, was evidently never aware that his directive had been violated. State Department archives and the memoirs of officials from that era confirm this. In fact, according to Clare Lasby's book Operation Paperclip, project officials "covered their designs with such secrecy that it bedeviled their own President; at Potsdam he denied their activities and undoubtedly enhanced Russian suspicion and distrust," quite possibly fueling the Cold War even further. A good example of how these dossiers were changed is the case of Wernher von Braun. A September 18, 1947, report on the German rcoket scientist stated, "Subject is regarded as a potential security threat by the Military Governor."
The following February, a new security evaluation of Von Braun said, "No derogatory information is available on the subject...It is the opinion of the Military Governor that he may not constitute a security threat to the United States." Here are a few of the 700 suspicious characters who were allowed to immigrate through Project Paperclip.
ARTHUR RUDOLPH; During the war, Rudolph was operations director of the Mittelwerk factory at the Dora-Nordhausen concentration camps, where 20,000 workers died from beatings, hangings, and starvation. Rudolph had been a member of the Nazi party since 1931; a 1945 military file on him said simply: "100% Nazi, dangerous type, security threat..!! Suggest internment." But the JIOA's final dossier on him said there was "nothing in his records indicating that he was a war criminal or and ardent Nazi or otherwise objectionable." Rudolph became a US citizen and later designed the Saturn 5 rocket used in the Apollo moon landings. In 1984, when his war record was finally investigated, he fled to West Germany. WERNHER VON BRAUN; From 1937 to 1945, von Braun was the technical director of the Peenemunde rocket research center, where the V-2 rocket --which devasted England--was developed. As noted previously, his dossier was rewritten so he didn't appear to have been an enthusiastic Nazi.
Von Braun worked on guided missles for the U.S. Army and was later director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. He became a celebrity in the 1950s and early 1960s, as one of Walt Disney's experts on the "World of Tomorrow." In 1970, he became NASA's associate administrator. KURT BLOME; A high-ranking Nazi scientist, Blome told U.S. military interrogators in 1945 that he had been ordered 1943 to experiment with plague vaccines on concentration camp prisoners. He was tried at Nuremberg in 1947 on charges of practicing euthanasia (extermination of sick prisoners), and conducting experiments on humans. Although acquitted, his earlier admissions were well known, and it was generally accepted that he had indeed participated in the gruesome experiments.
Two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was interviewed at Camp David, Maryland, about biological warfare. In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps to work on chemical warfare. His file neglected to mention Nuremberg. MAJOR GENERAL WALTER SCHREIBER; According to Linda Hunt's article, the US military tribunal at Nuremberg heard evidence that "Schreiber had assigned doctors to experiment on concentration camp prisoners and had made funds available for such experimentation." The assistant prosecutor said the evidence would have convicted Schreiber if the Soviets, who held him from 1945 to 1948, had made him available for trial.
Again, Schreiber's Paperclip file made no mention of this evidence; the project found work for him at the Air Force School of Medicine at Randolph Field in Texas. When columnist Drew Pearson publicized the Nuremberg evidence in 1952, the negative publicity led the JIOA, says Hunt, to arrange "a visa and a job for Schreiber in Argentina, where his daughter was living." On May 22, 1952, he was flown to Buenos Aires.
HERMANN BECKER-FREYSING and SIEGFRIED RUFF; These two, along with Blome, were amoung the 23 defendants in the Nuremberg War Trials "Medical Case." Becker-Freysing was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for conducting experiments on Dachau inamtes, such as starving them, then force-feeding them seawater that had been chemically altered to make it drinkable. Ruff was acquitted (in a close decision) on charges that he had killed as many as 80 Dachau inmates in a low-pressure chamber designed to simulate altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet. Before their trial, Becker-Freysing and Ruff were paid by the Army Air Force to write reports about their grotesque experiments. GENERAL REINHARD GEHLEN; It was five years after the end of WW2 but one of Hitler's chief intelligence officers was still on the job. From a walled-in compound in Bavaria, General Reinhard Gehlen oversaw a vast network of intelligence agents spying on Russia. His top aides were Nazi zealots who had committed some of the most notorious crimes of the war. Gehlen and his SS united were hired, and swiftly became agents of the CIA when they revealed their massive records on the Soviet Union to the US. Gehlen derived much of his information from his role in one of the most terrible atrocities of the war: the torture, interrogation and murder by starvation of some four million Soviet prisoners. Prisoners who refused to cooperate were often tortured or summarily executed. May were executed even after they had given information, while others were simply left to starve to death. As a result, Gehlend and members of his organization maneuvered to make sure they were captured by advancing American troops rather than Russians, who would have executed them immediatly. Two months before Germany surrendered in 1945, the Gehlen organization made its move. "Gehlen and a small group of his most senior officers carefully microfilmed the vast holding on the USSR in the military section of the German army's general staff. They packed the film in watertight steel drums and secretly buried it in a remote mountain meadow scattered throughout the Austrian Alps.
General William Donovan and Allen Dulles of the CIA were tipped off about Gehlen's surrender and his offer of Russian intelligence in exchange for a job. The CIA was soon jockeyeing with military intelligence for authority over Gehlen's microfilmed records--and control of the German spymaster. Dulles arranged for a private intelligence facility in West Germany to be established, and named it the Geheln Organization. Gehlen promisd not to hire any former SS, SD, or Gestapo members; he hired them anyway, and the CIA did not stop him. Two of Gehlen's early recruits were Emil Augsburg and Dr. Franz Six, who had been part of mobile killing squads, which killed Jews, intellectuals, and Soviet partisans wherever they found them. Other early recruits included Willi Krichbaum, senior Gestapo leader for southeastern Europe, and the Gestapo chiefs of Paris and Kiel, Germany.
With the encourgement of the CIA, Gehlen Org (Licio Gelli) set up "rat lines" to get Nazi war criminals out of Europe so they wouldn't be prosecuted. By setting up transit camps and issuing phony passports, the Gehlen Org helped more than 5,000 Nazis leave Europe and relocate around the world, especially in South and Central America. There, mass murderers like Klaus Barbie (the butcher of Lyons) helped governments set up death squads in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and elsewhere.
KLAUS BARBIE; Known as the Nazi butcher of Lyons, France during World War 2, Barbie was part of the SS which was responsible for the and death of thousands of French people under the Germany occupation. HEINRICH RUPP; Some of Rupp's best work was done for the CIA, after he was imported in Operation Paperclip. Rupp has been convicted of bank fraud. He was an operative for the CIA and is deeply involved in the Savings and Loan scandals. A federal jury has indicated they believe testimony that Rupp, the late CIA Director William Casey - then Reagan's campaign manager, and Donald Gregg, now U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, flew with George Bush to Paris in 1980, during the election in which Bush was on the ticket with Ronald Reagan. The testimony states that three meetings were held on October 19 and 20 at the Hotel Florida and Hotel Crillion. The subject? According to the court testimony, the meetings were to sabotage President Jimmy Carter's reelection campaign by delaying the release of American hostages in Iran. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, right after Reagan and Bush were sworn into office. Iran was promised return of its frozen assets in the United States and the foundation for the Iran- Contra deal was set into motion. LICIO GELLI; Head of a 2400 member secret Masonic Lodge, P2, a neo-fascist organization, in Italy that catered to only the elite, Gelli had high connections in the Vatican, even though he was not a Catholic. P2's membership is totally secret and not even available to its Mother Lodge in England. Gelli was responsible for providing Argentina with the Exocet missile. He was a double agent for the CIA and the KGB. He assisted many former Nazi high officials in their escape from Europe to Central America. He had close ties with the Italian Mafia. Gelli was a close associate of Benito Mussolini. He was also closely affiliated with Roberto Calvi, head of the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank. Calvi was murdered. Gelli's secret lodge consisted of extremely important people, including armed forces commanders, secret service chiefs, head of Italy's financial police, 30 generals, eight admirals, newspaper editors, television and top business executives and key bankers - including Calvi. Licio Gelli and others in P2 were behind the assasination of Pope John Paul 1. The central figure in Europe and South America that linked the CIA, Masonic Lodge, Vatican, ex-Nazis and several South American governments, the Italian government and several international banks was Licio Gelli. He, with Klaus Barbie and Heinrich Rupp, met with Ronald R. Rewald in Uruguay to arrange for the Argentine purchase of the French-made Exocet missile, used in the Falkland Island attack to kill british soldiers. Who is Gelli and why was he so important? To understand Gelli, one must understand the complex post war years of Europe. The biggest threat to Europe in pre-war times was Communism - it was the great fear of Communism that gave birth to the Fascists and the Nazis. Though both sides were dreaded, the Fascists represented right-wing government, while the Communist represent left-wing government. It was the right-wing that the United States and the Catholic Church desired over Communism - because Communism would destroy the capitalistic system. This is why the CIA and the Vatican had go through with Operation Paperclip. The Nazis had massive amounts of Soviet intelligence, had infilitrated Communist partisans, and were in no way going to be given up to the Soviet Union.
Gelli worked both sides. He helped to found the Red Brigade, spied on Communist partisans and worked for the Nazis at the same time, a double agent. He helped establish the Rat Line, which assisted the flight of high ranking Nazi officials from Europe to South America, with passports supplied by the Vatican and with the full acknowledgment and blessing of the United States intelligence community. While on one hand, the U.S. participated in the war crime tribunals of key Nazi officials and maintained an alliance with the Communist Soviet Union, secretly, the U.S. was preparing for the cold war and needed the help of Nazis in the eventual struggle the U.S. would have with the Soviet Union. Gelli's agreement with U.S. intelligence to spy on the Communists after the war was instrumental in saving his life. He was responsible for the murder and torture of hundreds of Yugoslavian partisans. The Vatican provided support to Nazis and Fascists because the Communists were the real threat to the Church's survival. The Italian Communists would have taxed the Church's vast holdings and the Church has had a dismal experience with Communist governments throughout the world - where religious freedom was stamped out.
Gelli was well connected with the Vatican from the days of the Rat Line and he worked for American intelligence, as well. Gelli formed the P-2 Masonic Lodge-which did not follow the direction of any Grand Lodge-and it was supplied with a sum of $10 million a month by the CIA. Its membership was a Who's Who in the intelligence, military and Italian community. So prominent was Gelli's influence, that he was even a guest of honor at the 1981 inauguration of President Ronald Reagan.
Gelli used blackmail in order to gain prominent members of his P-2 lodge, its membership is estimated at 2400 members, including 300 of the most powerful men in the Western World.. He was a close friend of Pope Paul VI, Juan Peron of Argentina, Libyan Dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, and many high officials in the Italian and American governments - he is also reported to have had some financial dealings with the George Bush for President campaign.
Gelli and his P-2 lodge had staggering connections to banking, intelligence and diplomatic passports. The CIA poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Italy in the form of secret subsidies for political parties, labor unions and communications businesses. At the same time the Agency continued its relationship with far- right and violent elements as a back-up should a coup be needed to oust a possible Communist government. This covert financing was exposed by the Prime Minister of Italy in a speech to Parliament. He indicates that more than 600 people in Italy still remain on the payroll of the CIA. Licio Gelli was an ardent Nazi and a perfect asset of the CIA. As part of Reinhard Gehlen's intelligence team, he had excellent contacts. Licio was the go between for the CIA and the Vatican through his P2 Lodge.
Project Paperclip was stopped in 1957, when West Germany protested to the U.S. that these efforts had stripped it of "scientific skills." There was no comment about supporting Nazis. Paperclip may have ended in 1957, but as you can see from Licio Gelli and his international dealings with the CIA in Italy/P2, and Heinrich Rupp with his involvement in October Surprise, the ramifications of Paperclip are world-wide. The Nazis became employed CIA agents, engaging in clandestine work with the likes of George Bush, the CIA, Henry Kissenger, and the Masonic P2 lodge. This is but one of the results of Operation Paperclip. Another umbrella project that was spawned from Paperclip was MK-ULTRA.
A secret laboratory was established and funded by CIA director, Allen Dulles in Montreal, Canada at McGill University in the Allen Memorial Institute headed by psychiatrist Dr. Ewen Cameron. For the next several years Dr. Ewen Cameron waged his private war in Canada. What is ironic about Dr. Cameron is that he served as a member of the Nuremberg tribunal who heard the cases against the Nazi doctors.
When it was at its height in drug experiments, operation MK-ULTRA was formed. This was the brainchild of Richard Helms who later came to be a CIA director. It was designed to defeat the "enemy" in its brain-washing techniques. MK-ULTRA had another arm involved in Chemical and Biological Warfare (CBW) known as MK-DELTA. The "doctors" who participated in these experiments used some of the same techniques as the Nazi "doctors". Techniques used by Dr. Cameron and previous Nazi scientists include electro shock, sleep deprivation, memory implantation, memory erasure, sensory modification, psychoactive drug experiments, and many more cruel practices.
Project Paperclip brought us MK-ULTRA. Paperclip ultimately brought in key players involved in the Assassination of Pope 1, October Surprise (sabotage of Carter's peace talks), and a great many other things still classified to this day. The results of Project Paperclip were devastating, and very far reaching. I guess that is what you would expect from collaborating with Nazis.
This research shows that the OSS/CIA that was formed in the National Security Act, the same agency that employed hundreds of Nazis, has been in alliance with the Vatican through various Agency connections such as Licio Gelli. The CIA/Vatican alliance that Assassinated Pope John Paul 1, JFK, and hundreds of dictators of 3rd world countries is the Illuminati.
The Bavarian Illuminati has been around for centuries in one way or another. It's presence in the 20th century is the direct result of the Nazis. The Nazi connections to the occult and the Bavarian Thule Society were parallel to the American members of 33rd degree Freemasonry. When the Operation Paperclip was successfully executed, the Nazi element of the Bavarian Thule society was fused with the American members of Freemasonry to create the Illuminati.
Operation Paperclip, MK-ULTRA, October Surprise, and George Bush are all facets of the Illuminati, a group whose ideals are rooted in the occult, and dedicated to world domination.
Soon after the American Revolution, John Robinson, a professor of rural philosophy at Edinburgh University in Scotland and member of a Freemason lodge, said that he was asked to join the Illuminati. After studying the group, he concluded that the purposes of the Illuminati were not compatible with his beliefs.
In 1798, he published a book called "Proofs Of A Conspiracy," which states:
"An association has been formed for the express purpose of rooting out all the religious establishments and overturning all the existing governments.... The leaders would rule the World with uncontrollable power, while all the rest would be employed as tools of the ambition of their unknown superiors." The CIA and the Vatican have rooted out all the religious establishemntsin the world. The CIA has overthrown and set up dictators under their control all over the world. The CIA and the Vatican have fullfilled the purpose of the Illuminati. The CIA and the Vatican _are_ the Illuminati.
Dossier compiled by Agent Orange
bibliography:
* 1. It's a Conspiracy! Michael Litchfield, Earthworks Press * 2. Operation Paperclip, Clare Lasby, Athenaeum 1975 * 3. U.S. Coverup of Nazi Scientists, Linda Hunt, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists * 4. Acid Dreams, Martin Lee and Bruce Schlain, Grove Press * 5. Journey Into Madness, Gordon Thomas, Bantam Books * 6. Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, Merle Miller, New York * 7. Kiss the Boys Goodbye, by Monika Jensen-Stevenson and William Stevenson. * 8. Inside Job - The Looting of America's S&L, by Stephen Pizzo, Mary Fricker * 9. In God's Name, An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I, by David A.Yallop. * 10. The Crimes of Patriots - A True Tale of Dope. Dirty Money, and the CIA by Jonathan Kwitny. * 11. Mengele - The Complete Story, by Gerald L. Posner and John Ware. * 12. Blowback, America's Recruitment of Nazis and its Effects on the Cold War, by Christopher Simpson. * 13. Jury Says Story of Reagan-Bush Campaign Deal With Iran Is True, San Francisco Chronicle May 5, 1990. * 14. Hawaii Scheme Cost Napans $500.000, Napa Register October 3, 1983. * 15. The Vatican Connection by Richard Hammer * 16. The Great Heroin Coup, Drug's, Intelligence & International Fascism by Henrik Kruger * 17. The Nazi Legacy by Magnus Linklater, Isabel Hilton, Neal Ascherson * 18. The P-2 Time Bomb Goes Off, May 1984 The Economist
===

[JasonC]

It was not originally designed as one, but sure the fear was that that was what it was intended for. Almost certainly true. By destroying it, the Israelis prevented Saddam from enriching U-238 into plutonium easily, and so getting bomb material domestically.

Refining U-235 out of natural U-238 can be done directly instead of using a reactor, but it is quite hard. Those centrifuge stories you may see are about that other route - that is equipment needed to pick U-235 out of natural uranium.

It now appears the uranium was less than originally stated, hundreds of grams not kilograms. 15 kilograms is probably the weight of the whole thing they took out of the car, shielding and all.

On breeder reactors, North Korea and Iran have both tried to go that route. The NKs had a reactor built, and "promised" to shut it down in return for payoffs from us. The Russians are helping Iran build a reactor as we speak. Notice that these are the three countries that made the "axis of evil" speach - the three countries that support terrorism abroad and also have active nuclear research programs...

[bonesmccoy]

It's difficult to know the veracity of this story. The material on Von Braun sounds correct and has been published elsewhere. Von Braun's rocket designs formed the core of the liquid booster technology developed by McDonnell Douglas, Rocketdyne, North American, and Martin Marietta. These companies worked closely with Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville during the Apollo program. It is responsible for transfer of the technology to US corporations. Similarly, the work between Loral / Hughes and the Long March system transferred booster technology to outside powers (negating the lead created by Project Apollo).

I do take issue with an early statement in the document quoted. The author states, "the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology". That is patently false. NASA was created in 1957. NACA did not have authority over rocketry prior to that time. In fact, the reason the Soviet Union beat the United States to orbit with Sputnik and Gagarin was that the United States prior to 1957 was poorly organized to address the issue of rocketry. Von Braun's team was assigned to Huntsville because that is where the US Army's Redstone program was located. Von Braun ended up leading that program and it was translated from the US Army into NASA in 1957/58. That permitted US Army to loft Explorer 1 on 1-31-58 on a US ARMY Jupiter C rocket. The US Navy program was called Vanguard and ended in a diasterous launch failure (highly publicized). On March 17, 1958, the Navy successfully launched the replacement satellite (but it was only second to the Russians and to the US Army). Vanguard was transferred to NASA in 1958 also, and the program was concluded in 1959 with a third successful launch.

To see a great history and review, check this site out. http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/space/lectures/lec09.html

[cake_crumb]

Wow...I opened this thread over an hour ago...but was busy updating on the pro-capitalism, DC FReep...didn't know what I had here until I started reading it just now. You forgot the "You Gotta See This" prefix on the title.

Those pics are really disturbing...as is 33 pounds of weapons grade uranium, made in GERMANY (which is comparing President Bush to Hitler because of Saddam's actions) and seized in Turkey.

Can't wait to see how the German governemnt tries to worm it's way out of THIS.

[bonesmccoy]

Russian nuclear engineers are a problem. They're good enough to be dangerous, but not good enough to build decent containment.

The 15.7 kg of Ur never quite made sense anyway. That's alot of radioactivity to contain the transportation device would need alot of lead to protect the courier (making the package even more massive). I was more concerned with the story that this material could have come from the former Soviet Union and that it was consistent with material lost by FSU in the construction of low-yield weapons. I'm no expert in nuclear weapons, but the finding of Ur (any quantity) substantiates the stories published here about traffic in these materials in East Europe.

[texasbluebell]

On Drudge from Ha'aretz, though it doesn't make me feel a whole lot better, considering that there could be dozens of these kinds of incidents that are not stopped:

Refined uranium found in Turkey weighs grams, not kilograms

< snip >

The refined uranium caught by Turkish police Saturday weighed far less than originally thought, an official source in southwestern Turkey said Sunday.

It was originally believed that the Turkish paramilitary police had seized over 15 kg of weapons-grade uranium in the operation that also resulted in the detention of two men accused of smuggling the substance. The actual weight of the uranium turned out to be hundreds of grams, a fraction of the initial estimate.

< snip >

[windchime]

This is one of the most informative threads I've seen. You initiated a thread that prompted contributing posters to provide a wealth of information, most of which can be easily understood by readers that have no technological background. Some of the links are so disturbing that I chose only to peek, but I will return to them because I know ignorance is not bliss.

Most posts here illustrate the truth, this is a LIFE and DEATH matter.

[JasonC]

There are a few complications, to be sure. Each decay type sets off a series of subsequent decays, which contribute some additional radioactivity from much shorter half-life isotopes present in the sample in small amounts. U-238 reaches a stable form of lead only after 8 alpha and 6 beta decays, for instance. Which means for higher precision you need to include correction factors for a zoo of additional isotopes. But the basic idea is not difficult to understand. The "head" of each decay series is the "rate determining step" for the subsequent quicker ones, because they are so much longer half-lives.

It is also important to understand that U-238, while radioactive (meaning, it emits alpha particles etc, and thus some energy and heating) does not split ("fission") into two heavy nuclei and release large amounts of energy. It is "breaking down" to be sure, but only splitting off tiny helium nuclei (alpha particles). U-235 can split into heavy nuclei, if hit by neutrons moving the right speed, which is the process (if "fed" right to "feedback" onto itself, to set off a chain reaction) that drives atomic explosions. The ordinary radioactive decay of uranium into lead is *not* the process involved in nuclear explosions, just speeded up or something. No amount of U-238 explodes.

[finnman69]

What is more frightening that there was NO MENTION OF THIS SEIZURE AT ALL IN THE NY TIMES today! But they did manage to get on the front page that nancy Reagan is trying to get Bush to change his mind on stem cell research.

I can't believe they would not print this? Are they really that biased. This is an im pressive new level. Surely it at least should have gotten a mention in world news. NADDA ZIPPO NOTHING!

[JasonC]

Lead is needed to shield against the gamma radiation (high energy light, like hard x-rays). The heavy alpha particles (much more damaging if exposed) are readily stopped by even modest amounts of just about any solid material (as are the light betas particles, which are just fast moving electrons). U-238 is radioactive yes, but not that much, certainly not compared e.g. to plutonium. You wouldn't want to be exposed to a lot of it completely unshielded, certainly. But you block ~95% of the danger with even thin shielding.

15.7 kg of U-238 would have been 66 mols or 4x10^25 atoms. (238 grams per mol, 6x10^23 atoms in a mol). The half life of U-238 is 1.4x10^17 seconds (4.5 billion years), so you get roughly 3x10^8 Bq for the triggering top of the decay series (300 million atoms per second). That is less than the radioactivity from 1 gram of plutonium (2 billion atoms per second). Throw in the subsequent decays down the chain, and it would probably be comparably to a gram or so of plutonium. If enriched (some U-235, lower half-life, faster reaction), naturally the rate would be somewhat higher. The small amount of U-235 in natural uranium contributes around 10% more; purified U-235 would be an order of magnitude higher than U-238.

In short, uranium is not like plutonium, or like half or a quarter as much plutonium. It is thousands of times less radioactive, so kilos of it are like very small amounts of plutonium. Most nuclear weapons use plutonium triggers; it is much more efficient. They require some shielding of course, but are readily handled with such shielding, when building, transporting, or servicing the weapons.

So it was perfectly plausible that there might be 15.7 kg of uranium - though probably not truely weapons grade uranium (meaning 90% U-235). It would hardly be impossible to transport, it would not blow up or act like the fantasy cargo in a Repo Man car trunk. When I saw the report, I was skeptical they had 15.7 kg of 90% U-235, but considered it about equally likely they had 15.7 kg of uranium (just something like 3% U-235, 97% U-238) or that they had 700 grams of U-235 in 15 kg of package and shielding. It now appears from the corrected reports that something like the latter is the case.

[a_Turk]

The article says that the border patrol caught a car carrying the capsule under the driver's seat, and that the thing weighed 15 kilos. A later article explains that the police department refuted the claims saying the Uranium weighed only 140 grams. I suppose the lead capsule made up for the difference in weight..

[kinghorse]

This is not the uranium you are looking for.
"This-is-not- the-uranium-we-are-looking-for. Move along."

[Diogenesis]

Lead is needed to shield against the gamma radiation (high energy light, like hard x-rays).

Actually, lead is choice ONLY if the photon is very low energy
such as below ~100 keV (the photoelectric region)
where absorption goes as Z to 4th power.

If the gamma ray is in the range of 100 keV to 1 Mev
(the Compton region), the absorption is not even a function of
atomic number, so concrete works as well as lead.

Above ~1 MeV, the photoelectric region begins, absorption goes as Z.

And so it goes.

[kennyboy509]

These are crappy pictures with little detail.

I believe they are high speed krypton fuses which start the chain of events in nano-seconds before the blast.

Thats my guess.

[bonesmccoy]

Thanks for the interesting walk through the calculations. It felt a bit like inorganic chemistry with a touch of particle physics :)

The explanation regarding plutonium vs. uranium is well taken. Part of these explanations are also relevant to deep-space exploration vehicles which require plutonium sources for an energy source. The environmentalists were concerned the launch of such spacecraft would kill everyone on Earth if the spacecraft crashed. They were using no calculations of the sort you just did.

My understanding is that there are several different separation techniques to refine the radioisotopes of uranium and that the Manhattan Project spent a good deal of effort on that step in the process. Wasn't a centrifuge separation technique used?

[bonesmccoy]

Get a load of this story: http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke-weapons/nonproliferation/24964.html

 

US Official’s Claim of Russia Plutonium Theft has Authorities Scratching Their Heads

MOSCOW - An unnamed US nuclear official has said that highly radioactive materials — possibly including plutonium — have been stolen from Russia’s new Volgodonsk nuclear power plant by Chechen separatists.

Russian nuclear and law enforcement authorities, however, have strenuously denied the charge, calling the leak by the US Official to Britain’s Guardian newspaper a concoction planted in the press by the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, to discredit Russian nuclear security. US nuclear experts— though not ruling out the theft of less volatile radioactive metals — have also cast doubt on the plutonium theft detailed by the anonymous US official, citing the extreme danger to thieves that such a theft would involve.

Speaking anonymously with the Guardian, the US official attributed the theft from the plant, located near Rostov-on-Don, to Chechen rebel factions — who the Russian government says, and many US Administration officials believe, have ties to the al Qaeda terror network.

The US official said the alleged heist occurred sometime within the last 12 months and added that the United States fears that weapons-grade plutonium — which may have been stolen during the robbery — may have fallen into the hands of Iraq or Libya, the Guardian reported.

But other US experts familiar with the supposed theft say the particulars of the case, including how much material was stolen, are murky and the precise details of the security breach — if any occurred — remain unclear. The US official quoted by the Guardian said there was the “possibility that a significant amount of plutonium was removed,” together with other radioactive metals. These included caesium, strontium and low-enriched uranium, which pose a threat to human health if detonated with conventional explosives — a so-called “dirty bomb.”

“Chechen groups have relationships with countries we do not find exceptionally desirable. The possibility that these metals may have been given to another party is very troubling,” the unnamed US official said.

The Volgodonsk nuclear plant — one of the newest atomic facilities in Russia — went online last December, after a nine-month trial period. It uses a VVER-1000 reactor and is slated to get a second power bloc soon.

But thus far, there is no real agreement among experts who have studied the case as about what, if anything, was taken from the plant. Russian accounting practices for radioactive materials are widely acknowledged to be lacking.

Yegor Obukhov, head of the plant’s press service, touted security and accounting at the Volgodonsk station as “the best in Russia,” Obukhov told Bellona Web.

“Not a single gram of radioactive substances has ever gone missing in the plant’s 16-month operation," Obukhov said.

Obukhov also denied that the weapons-grade plutonium referred to in the Guardian report would ever have been stored at his plant, saying “we are not running a secret weapons construction facility.”

But assessing the information piling in from a variety of sources is not easy for those who track the theft of radioactive materials in Russia.

“It is a bit difficult to speculate not knowing exactly what kind of material was stolen. Reports vary from caesium, strontium and depleted uranium to low-enriched uranium and ‘weapons-grade plutonium,’” said Lyudmila Zaitseva, of Stanford University’s Institute of International Studies, which runs the world’s perhaps most comprehensive database on the theft and smuggling of radioactive materials.

She added that any weapons-grade plutonium that the US official suggested was stolen from the Volgodonsk facility was simply impossible.

“There is no weapons-grade plutonium at nuclear power plants,” she told Bellona Web in an interview.

“On the other hand, if it was spent nuclear fuel (SNF) that was stolen, that does contain plutonium — though not of weapons grade — as well as other, highly radioactive materials.”

But to make plutonium from SNF weapons-usable, Zaitseva said the plutonium would have to be separated from other substances in the SNF, which is a technologically demanding and costly procedure that only a few countries in the world can afford, like England, France and Russia.

“Besides,” said Zaitseva, “it would be extremely difficult to steal spent fuel from a nuclear power plant due to the large size and, most importantly, very high radioactivity of fuel assemblies, which makes them self-protective.”

A US nuclear physicist involved in non-proliferation efforts in Russia, speaking on conditions of anonymity with Bellona Web, agreed with Zaitseva’s assessment.

“This stuff is stored mostly in pools of highly radioactive wet storage facilities — the SNF assemblies themselves are seven meters long and weigh around 300 kilograms,” he said.

“And anybody trying to handle that and get it out of a plant clandestinely would get a very high dose of radiation on the spot — that’s what ‘self-protective’ means. It just doesn’t sound like a feasible theft at all if the plutonium the US official is referring to is plutonium contained in spent fuel,” he said. He echoed Zaitseva’s assertion that weapons-grade plutonium would not be found at a nuclear power plant.

“That would be nonsense,” said the US physicist.

What would not surprise US nuclear analysts would be the theft of low-enriched uranium (LEU) from the Volgodonsk facility.

“It would not be too surprising if nuclear fuel had been stolen from a power plant. This has happened before in the former Soviet Union,” said Matthew Bunn, senior research assistant at the Managing the Atom project at Harvard University.

“If it was fresh nuclear fuel — low-enriched uranium — I agree […] that it wouldn't be too surprising,” said Zaitseva. “For example, a whole fuel assembly, seven meters long and weighing 280 kilograms, was stolen from the Ignalina nuclear power plant in Lithuania in 1992 as a result of collusion between the facility employees and guards, who tied the assembly to the bottom of the personnel bus and thus carried it outside the facility. Parts of the material were later recovered on several occasions in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union.”

When offered a similar scenario for the Volgodonsk facility, Zaitseva nonetheless remained perplexed.

“[…] Because caesium and strontium are also mentioned, I am still puzzled as
to what exactly was stolen,” she said.

The US official said that the theft was reported by Russian officials to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which then informed the US Department of Energy (DOE) about the incident.

Russia has an estimated 125 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium considered by Western experts to be “at risk” for theft because of poor security. US government experts are negotiating with Russian officials to speed through urgently needed safety upgrades via programmes like Nunn-Lugar. Furthermore, the G8 group of nations last month pledged $10 billion over the next ten years to help Russia protect its ageing weapons arsenals.

A spokeswoman for the IAEA said her organization confirmed receiving reports of the theft from the Russian government. However, by Monday, the IAEA, the Volgodonsk nuclear power station, and even the secretive Russian Nuclear Ministry, or Minatom — all but the DOE, which would not comment — had reached a consensus that the theft never took place.

Aleksandr Turinsky, chief press relations officer for the Rostov Federal Security Service, or FSB, told Bellona Web that the Guardian report was “just part of the psychological and information war that Chechen rebels are waging against Russia.”

“I also don’t understand why this American official decided to share this information with a British paper as opposed to a representatives of Russia’s press, who are, after all, the supposed allies of the United States in the war on terror,” Turinsky said.

But the US official told the Guardian that: “[this] incident is tied to a broader issue. There are a couple of other occasions when the Chechens may have acquired nuclear or radioactive sources. Russia is rightly very concerned about that. We should not just blame Russia. The United States does not protect its materials better than anyone else.”

Southern Russia, bordering nations of Central Asia and the Caucasus — which are seen by the United Stated as posing a world security threat — is considered a flashpoint in non-proliferation. The US official said there have been a “number of occasions” in which Iranian agents tried to buy weapons-grade plutonium from facilities in Southern Russia.

“[These facilities] seem to have been scammed a few times,” he told the Guardian.

But the involvement of Chechen separatists in the alleged theft at the Volgodonsk facility seemed “illogical” to Zaitseva.

“I believe that if they seriously wanted to sell weapons-grade plutonium to Iraq or Libya, they wouldn't look for it at a nuclear power plant,” she said.

“On the other hand, if they needed radioactive material for a dirty bomb, they wouldn't have to go to such lengths [as stealing it from the Volgodonsk station] either, because they seem to have successfully used the Radon facility — a disposal site for used ionising radiation sources and other radioactive waste from the North Caucasus region of Russia, [situated] near the Chechen village of Tolstoy-Yurt — for this purpose.”

In that incident, Zaitseva’s data indicate, half of the 900 cubic meters of radioactive waste with radioactivity levels of 1,500 Curies stored at Radon was reportedly found missing from the depository after the first military campaign in the breakaway republic of Chechnya in 1996.

Many of these stolen radioactive containers and sources were found later on numerous occasions in the Chechen capital of Grozny, and other parts of the region, by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations during the second military campaign, which began in 2000.

Russian intelligence officials believed that this material might have been used by Chechen militants for making “powerful bombs,” as some of it was found in a workshop for the production of mortars and grenade cup discharges, which was set up before the second campaign and reportedly belonged to Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev.

However, there were only two incidents suggesting that such dirty bombs were actually made and meant to be used by Chechen militants. In 1998, a container full of radioactive substances was found next to a railway line near Argun in Chechnya with a mine attached to it. Russian intelligence officials touted the discovery as a foiled act of sabotage, Zaitseva said.

Earlier, in 1996, Chechen rebels left a substantial quantity of caesium-137 wrapped in conventional explosives in Izmailovo park in Moscow. They notified the local media and the device was safely removed by police.

[bert]

.....Are they right now attempting to find this same info on this "cylinder of death"? And if so how long will it take, and will we be told.....

If we are to believe the photo, it's made in W. Germany. This label destroys the credibility of the whole thing for me. Who labels nuclear device parts or uranium with the origin.

Sounds like "Baby Milk Factory" labeling to me. ..... But of course I don't have on my tinfoil protective hat today.

[bonesmccoy]

Hey Diogenesis, Get a load of this undoctored photograph from Yahoo News

TIME MAGAZINE: THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF AL-QAIDA

Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir looks at a copy of Time magazine during an interview with the Associated Press in Cianjur, Indonesia, Monday, Sept. 23, 2002. The arrest of an alleged al-Qaida linked operative, Omar al-Faruq, in Indonesia on June 5 has added to concerns about Ba'asyir. Al-Faruq was handed over to U.S. authorities and, according to a CIA document cited by Time magazine, told them that Ba'asyir participated in a plot to bomb U.S. embassies in Southeast Asia on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim)

I'd like to thank AOL-Time Warner for being the official sponsor of Al-Qaida news and information!

[2harddrive]

This is likely a hoax, or a significant error. 33 pounds of weapons-grade U-235 (95% enriched) would self-detonate if stored as a single lump. It is probably a MUCH smaller amount, or is only enriched to reactor-fuel levels (40-45%). So don't worry, be happy....

[Robert_Paulson2]

thanks for the email...