To: DPB101; Miss Marple
An item of interest from the timeline, no doubt the Italian smugglers were using "forged documents" to snooker IRaq that time, too. A scam or not, it still proves that Iraq was very actively seeking to get around international restrictions even back then :
1982 : (IRAQI AGENTS PAID $60 MILLION TO ITALIAN SMUGGLERS TO TRY TO OBTAIN SMUGGLE ENRICHED URANIUM, GETS SNOOKERED; THEN SUCCEED IN OBTAINING YELLOWCAKE TO ENRICH ON ITS OWN FROM CHINA, BRAZIL AND NIGER) In 1982 Iraqi agents paid $60 million to a team of Italian-based smugglers who claimed to have access to stores of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. According to U.S. officials, the smugglers' offer was a fraud, and the Iraqis walked away from it empty- handed. Stung by those setbacks, Baghdad turned to a third means of joining the nuclear club: the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade level in gas centrifuges. The centrifuges take uranium-bearing ore or a mixture called yellowcake and separate out the 3% of uranium 235, which is fissionable, from the 97% of uranium 238, which is not. Iraq is known to possess 250 tons of yellowcake, most of it purchased in the 1970s from Brazil, China and Niger. In recent years the country has also begun producing its own yellowcake from mines in northern Iraq. - "When Will Saddam Get the Bomb? Not nearly so soon as the Bush Administration claims, "By William R. Doerner, December 10, 1990 via TIME Capsule, The Evolution of the Iraqi Threat, Monday, May. 13, 2002 of http://www.time.com/time/classroom/article/0,12422,235482,00.html.
78 posted on
07/13/2003 7:06:30 PM PDT by
piasa
(Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
To: piasa
Supportive for your 1982 reference:
Iraqi Entity: Al Qaim
Entity Name: Al Qaim
Activity Memo: One of three phosphate plants slated for rehabilitation under the oil-for-food program in the first half of 2000.
Historical Role in Iraqi WMD Programs. Site with a yellow cake production facility and very large superphosphate fertilizer plant; begun in 1982 and designed for 103 tonnes/year, with second cycle and refinery sections built with a 100% overcapacity; commissioned in early 1984; operational until damaged by air attack in 1991.
Also Known As:
Program: Nuclear
Physical Location: 300 km NW of Baghdad
Date Entered: 10/3/2000 5:47:00 PM
http://www.iraqwatch.org/search/view_record.asp?sc=endusers&id=126 Supplier: Natron Consulting and Designing Company
Exporting Country: Brazil
Company/Individual: Natron Consulting and Designing Company
Also Known As:
Program: Nuclear
Date Occurred: 1980s
Activity Memo: Designed, for $5-6 million, a plant for the production of uranium dioxide, known as yellow cake; sent at least 15 technicians on four different visits to Iraq, despite knowing that "the real objective of the Iraqi nuclear program was to construct an atomic bomb."
Date Entered: 4/14/2000 4:37:00 PM
Date Last Modified:
Address 1:
Address 2:
Address 3:
Address 4:
City:
State/Region:
Zip/Postal Code:
Exporting Country: Brazil
http://www.iraqwatch.org/search/view_record.asp?sc=suppliers&id=33
112 posted on
07/13/2003 8:49:42 PM PDT by
Calpernia
(Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; Responsibility for all your actions.)
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