Posted on 07/14/2003 9:57:21 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War
Iraqis grapple with post-war radioactivity
Iraq's ministry of health launched a survey Thursday to look for radiation sickness.By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
TUWAITHA, IRAQ - Salaam Kadhim had no idea what he would find last April, when he and three thieving friends breached the walls of Iraq's nuclear facility at Tuwaitha, as the regime of Saddam Hussein collapsed.
What they found were countless barrels full of radioactive uranium powder, known as "yellowcake." They emptied the barrels to use them as water cisterns at home - and then had a taste.
"I thought it was milk powder," Mr. Kadhim recalls in his village on the edge of Tuwaitha, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. "But when we poured it out, it made us dizzy. It tasted very bitter." ...
In an effort to bring back some of the 500 or so yellowcake barrels that disappeared, the US military began a "buy back" program, which paid Iraqis $3 for each barrel handed over. But activists from Greenpeace found that the market price to replace such a barrel is $15, and so estimated that 150 barrels remained in circulation, held by people unwilling to part with their "new" water cistern.
Imagine.
It inspired me to start googling and I added two more links to the thread that say that is what was believed to be going on back then:
JUNE 10, 2003 : (INTERIM UNMOVIC CHIEF NAMED, WAS THE LEADER OF THE IAEA TEAM WHICH CERTIFIED SOUTH AFRICA'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM DISSOLUTION) U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has appointed UNMOVIC Deputy Executive Chairman Demetrius Perricos to take over as acting head of the commission July 1, when Blix retires. Perricos was the commission's director of planning and operations for three years prior to his appointment in January to the body's number two post. The Greek native joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1972 as a safeguards inspector and led the team that certified the dissolution of South Africa's nuclear weapons program.He also worked in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War -"Interim UNMOVIC Chief Named ," U.N. release, June 10
(snip) The 1993-1994 attempted uranium purchase in Sudan During the third day of the trial, February 7, 2001, Al-Fadl testified that he was directly involved in an attempt to purchase uranium for Usama Bin Laden at the end of 1993 or the beginning of 1994. According to his testimony, Al-Fadl was telephoned by a senior Al-Qa’ida official, Abu Fadhl [most probably Fadl or Fazl] al-Makkee, and was instructed to meet with a contact in Khartoum, Sudan, who allegedly possessed uranium. The witness met first with Abu Abd Allah al-Yemeni (aka Abu Dijana) and was given the name of another contact, Moqadem Salah Abd al-Mobruk, a lieutenant colonel in the Sudanese Army who, according to the testimony, had been a former minister during the Numeiri presidency (1969-83).(5)Al-Fadl was charged with evaluating the situation, and after conferring with other associates, including his cousin, he met with al-Mobruk. Al-Mobruk referred Al-Fadl to a man named Basheer, and the two met at an office on Jambouria Street in Khartoum, Sudan. When questioned by Basheer as to whether Al-Qa’ida was serious about acuiring uranium, Al-Fadl claimed, “I know people, they [are] very serious, and they want to buy it.” He noted that l-Qa’ida was concerned primarily with the quality of the material and the country of origin, and secondarily with the cost. The arranged price was $1.5 million, plus additional commissions for Basheer and al-Mobruk. At this point, the main issue concerned the method of testing the uranium.
After reporting back to al-Makkee, Al-Fadl was sent to speak with a new contact, Abu Rida al-Suri. This meeting took place at the Ikhlak Company in the Baraka building in Khartoum. Al-Suri instructed Al-Fadl to return to Basheer and report that the organization had an “electric machine” capable of testing uranium. Again through an intermediary, Al-Fadl arranged a meeting with Basheer and, in a small house in the town of Bait al-Mal, north of Khartoum, Al-Fadl and al-Suri were shown a cylinder approximately 2-3 feet tall with a lot of words engraved on it. The men were given a note that Al-Fadl was told to deliver to another contact, Abu Hajer, and then await further instructions. Al-Fadl did not recollect exactly what was written on the paper, only that it was written in English, said “South Africa” on it, and contained a serial number.
The source is worth a good read : - "WMD TERRORISM AND USAMA BIN LADEN," by Kimberly McCloud and Matthew Osborne , CNS Reports, http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm.
http://216.239.39.104/search?q=cache:pK36v57kAxAJ:cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm+%22WMD+TERRORISM+AND+USAMA+BIN+LADEN%22+%22+by+Kimberly+McCloud+and+Matthew+Osborne+,+CNS+Reports%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/reports/binladen.htm
The story that seems to have kicked off the firestorm here was one fed to Capitol Hill Blue. (Seymour's article didn't get much traction, evidently.)
The CapHill Blue article was quickly picked up by truthout.org, a web site with connections to the usual suspects seen hanging around rat sites. The truthout.org site in turn sold the story under its name to JapanToday, and the next day it was all over the news, though some sources conveniently deleted the name of the alleged source, T J Wilkinson, supposedly a CIA guy. Now, the same story may have been fed to others but Cap Hill Blue is the one some noticed .
The curious thing about Truthout.org was that it was registered on September 10, 2001 by a "Marc Ash."
Which reminds me, maybe the talking points are all coming from ANSWER's Ramsey Clark.
FEBRUARY 14, 2003 : (SOUTH AFRICA WILL SEND ITS EXPERTS TO IRAQ; IRAQ ACCEPTS) South Africa will send experts in dismantling weapons of mass destruction to Iraq as part of Pretoria's bid to avert war, President Thabo Mbeki said in his state of the nation address today.
The intervention follows a visit to Baghdad by Aziz Pahad, the Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, and comes ahead of today's crucial report-back by United Nations weapons inspectors to the Security Council in New York.
Addressing a special joint sitting of Parliament, Mbeki said it was hoped the UN report-back "will not serve as a signal to some that the time has come to unleash the fury of war".
"As we speak, a number of our citizens are preparing to travel to Iraq. These are the experts who led our country's programme to destroy our nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, as well as the missiles for the delivery of these weapons in conditions of combat." The work they had done had resulted in South Africa becoming an international example of best practice in disarmament, he said.
South Africa voluntarily disarmed its weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s. Pretoria had proposed to Iraq and to Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General that these experts share South Africa's experience with Baghdad, Mbeki said.
"I am pleased to inform the Honourable Members that Iraq has accepted our offer, which we have already discussed with the leadership of the weapons inspectors. "We trust that this intervention will help to ensure the necessary proper co-operation between the United Nations' inspectors and Iraq, so that the issue of weapons of mass destruction is addressed satisfactorily, without resort to war."
Mbeki thanked the Iraqi government for its positive response, as well as its recent decisions to allow U2 and other aerial surveillance flights, to encourage its citizens to co-operate with inspectors without the presence of officials, and to adopt legislation prohibiting the production of weapons of mass destruction. - "SA to send its nuclear experts to Iraq: Mbeki," http://www.sabcnews.com/politics/government/0,1009,52970,00.html., February 14, 2003, 11:15
FEBRUARY 24 +/- , 2003 : (SOUTH AFRICAN "DISARMAMENT EXPERTS" ARRIVE IN IRAQ) A group of South African disarmament experts has arrived in Baghdad to help Iraq destroy any weapons of mass destruction it may have. The team of seven includes nuclear and chemical-biological weapons specialists who helped destroy South African weapons during the 1990s. Both President Thabo Mbeki and his predecessor Nelson Mandela have criticised United States-led plans to attack Iraq. Correspondents say that South Africa is the only country to voluntarily dismantle its programme of weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, was involved in South Africa's disarmament. He has praised it as a model of co-operation, and has urged Iraq to adopt it. Iraq's General Hosam Mohamad Amin, head of the National Monitoring Directorate which liaises with the UN inspectors, said he would start his meetings with the South African experts on Monday. "We will exchange technical viewpoints... and they will share with us their expertise in their declarations about their programmes of weapons of mass destruction," he said.
The South Africans are led by Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad. South Africa's nuclear, chemical and biological arsenal was established during the apartheid regime. South Africa's nuclear programme began in the 1970s as a deterrent against neighbouring states opposed to apartheid and against the Cold War instability that was fuelling the war in nearby Angola. Mr Mbeki announced that the team would leave for Iraq in his state of the nation address earlier this month. "Hopefully, what they will do, freely to share their invaluable knowledge and experience, to facilitate the work both of the UN weapons inspectors and the government of Iraq, will bring us back from the brink of war, while helping to ensure that Iraq is truly free of weapons of mass destruction," he said.
Mr Mandela's former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has offered to go to Iraq as a human shield.
- "SA experts start work in Iraq," BBC News, Monday, February 24, 2003
The AP does the heavy lifting for Jacques Baute. Jacques Baute, for those unfamiliar with the name, is France's representative to the IAEA, and he is also, coincidentally, the official who determined that the Niger documents were forgeries. He's now saying that this claim in the SOTU was false:
"'Our intelligence sources tell us that (President Saddam Hussein) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production,' Bush said. "
Why is it false? Spinning cylinders made of aluminum can be used for inferior models of enrichment centrifuges, which separate out bomb uranium. But the Iraqis by 1990 had advanced to a much more productive design using carbon fiber tubes.
Oh I see. We said they are trying to reconstitute their nuclear weapons program, we offer one piece of evidence, and the refutation is that the Iraqis were using a more advanced version. Why do I not see the refutation there? And never mind that gas centrifuge that was dug up in the scientist's backyard, under a rose bush.
Posted by: William McKinley
(a Freeper)
From William McKinley's blog:
The AP does the heavy lifting for Jacques Baute.
Jacques Baute, for those unfamiliar with the name, is France's representative to the IAEA, and he is also, coincidentally, the official who determined that the Niger documents were forgeries. He's now saying that this claim in the SOTU was false:
"'Our intelligence sources tell us that (President Saddam Hussein) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production,' Bush said. "
Why is it false?
Spinning cylinders made of aluminum can be used for inferior models of enrichment centrifuges, which separate out bomb uranium. But the Iraqis by 1990 had advanced to a much more productive design using carbon fiber tubes.
Oh I see. We said they are trying to reconstitute their nuclear weapons program, we offer one piece of evidence, and the refutation is that the Iraqis were using a more advanced version. Why do I not see the refutation there? And never mind that gas centrifuge that was dug up in the scientist's backyard, under a rose bush.
Posted by: William McKinley
(a Freeper)
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