GET YOUR FREE NUCLEAR MATERIAL HERE!!!

[JPhillips]

This is from a Newsweek article. How can we have left the known nuke sites unprotected? Shouldn't the known sites have been high on our list of places to control? I sure as hell hope that when I move to DC in August that I won't see a dirty bomb from Iraqi materials. Somebody needs to lose their job over this.


Some of the lapses are frightening. The well-known Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, had nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes, when International Atomic Energy Agency officials made their last visit in January. By the time U.S. troops arrived in early April, armed guards were holding off looters?but the Americans only disarmed the guards, Al Tuwaitha department heads told NEWSWEEK. ?We told them, ?This site is out of control. You have to take care of it?,? says Munther Ibrahim, Al Tuwaitha?s head of plasma physics. ?The soldiers said, ?We are a small group. We cannot take control of this site?.? As soon as the Americans left, looters broke in. The staff fled; when they returned, the containment vaults? seals had been broken, and radioactive material was everywhere.

U.S. officers say the center had already been ransacked before their troops arrived. They didn?t try to stop the looting, says Colonel Madere, because ?there was no directive that said do not allow anyone in and out of this place.? Last week American troops finally went back to secure the site. Al Tuwaitha?s scientists still can?t fully assess the damage; some areas are too badly contaminated to inspect. ?I saw empty uranium-oxide barrels lying around, and children playing with them,? says Fadil Mohsen Abed, head of the medical-isotopes department. Stainless-steel uranium canisters had been stolen. Some were later found in local markets and in villagers? homes. ?We saw people using them for milking cows and carrying drinking water,? says Ibrahim. The looted materials could not make a nuclear bomb, but IAEA officials worry that terrorists could build plenty of dirty bombs with some of the isotopes that may have gone missing. Last week NEWSWEEK visited a total of eight sites on U.N. weapons-inspection lists. Two were guarded by U.S. troops. Armed looters were swarming through two others. Another was evidently destroyed many years ago. American forces had not yet searched the remaining three.

[tucker342]

That is fucked up. we are not doing the best job right now over there...