WAR: Nuclear Assets "Vanish" in Iraq

The United Nations has warned that nuclear equipment and materials, including entire buildings, have been "vanishing" in Iraq since the US led invasion last year. The US has not reported the state of nuclear sites in Iraq despite its obligation to do so and some technology has already turned up for sale abroad.



The demolition of the buildings and the removal of most of the material was no doubt carried out by the US, but why has there been no reports? And where has the rest of the material gone?

The issue of looting of nuclear sites in Iraq has been brought up with the US since last March. Despite US claims that the proliferation of WMD’S, especially amongst terrorists is a main priority Iraq’s nuclear sites were and apparently still are poorly guarded if at all, while the Oil Ministry was heavily guarded from day one.


Related News Links:
BBC - UN Voices Looting Concerns, May 2003.


[edit on 13-10-2004 by Banshee]

I bet it was those damn terrorists, and Bin Laden.. haha I just know it is.. damn those terrorists.

I didnt think iraq HAD any nuclear sites. didnt isreal blow up there reactors?

no, Israel blew up an Iranian nuclear facility, back in the '80s if I'm not mistaken.

Originally posted by Zion Mainframe
no, Israel blew up an Iranian nuclear facility, back in the '80s if I'm not mistaken.

Nope Zion it was the Osirak reactor site in Iraq

www.fas.org...

Hey you're right... I really thought it was an Iranian facility...

sorry folks!

I too thought that we didn't find any nuclear material aside from the "top secret laboratory" that looked more like a homemade brick stove...
I remember the story very well...
we FINALLY FOUND THE WMD"S and they turned out to be, what looked like a college students science project... it wasn't impressive and they stated that they hoped to find the "other" labs, but never did...
so who says there were nukes? we never did, although BUSH would have liked to...
is written history being altered as we speak?
will history show that there WERE all kinds of wmd's found, and went mysteriously missing after the war?
som'tin don sound quite right here, mon

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
will history show that there WERE all kinds of wmd's found, and went mysteriously missing after the war?
som'tin don sound quite right here, mon

There was some dual use equipment that was already tagged and being monitored by the UN before they were kicked out by the coalition prior to the invasion.

UNMOVIC has reports on their website where they have a couple of before and after photographs.

Security Council 28 May 2004 report (PDF)

Security Council 27 August 2004 (PDF)
The following two examples illustrate the types of site that have been razed or cleaned up and the dual-use equipment and material known to have been there, the
fate of which remains unknown (only the most important and tagged equipment is
mentioned):

(a) Al Samoud Factory. The Al Samoud Factory was one of Iraq�s dedicated
missile facilities, involved primarily in the manufacture of missile airframes and the
production or modification of SA-2 engines for use in the Al Samoud missile. The
factory has now been completely razed. Dual-use equipment subject to monitoring
remaining at the site included SA-2 missile engines (18), three-axis computer
numerical control (CNC) milling machines (7), balancing machines (used in the
production of turbopumps) (4), specialized welding equipment (7), vacuum furnaces
(3), precision turning equipment (5), a three-dimensional (3D)-measuring machine
(1), a hydrostatic test equipment for engine combustion chambers, valves and
turbopumps (4), cleaning tanks (5), a flow forming machine (1), a vacuum brazing
furnace (1), a vacuum diffusion pump (1) and a spark erosion machine (1);

(b) Fallujah 2 and 3. Two sites operated by the Tariq State Company and
subject to monitoring in the chemical area, known as Fallujah 2 and Fallujah 3, have
been completely emptied and destroyed. The equipment at the site included
polyvinyl difluoride-coated tanks (53), graphite or hastalloy heat exchangers (11),
glass-lined or rubber-coated tanks and vessels (54), hastalloy or graphite columns
(18) and glass-lined reactors

Whoa, who cares? Anything that Saddam had prior to his ouster could not possibly have been dangerous to the world. What's the big deal. There were no WMD's in Iraq, everybody KNOWS that, so why would there be need for an ALARM at this point???

sarcasm over

This is a bit odd.

So is it possible that the U.S. snagged the material they were interested in and didn't make it widely known... for the purposes of further research into the origins of the equipment? I'm sure we would like to know exactly where any of this stuff came from.

I dunno, I'm confused about this whole thing.

The point is the equipment and sites in question were known about and being controlled by the UN before the invasion. The US invaded on the pretext of WMD's and the threat of Saddam supplying WMD equipment or capabilities to terrorists. The US failed to protect these sites which were subsequently largely looted, giving terrorists a better chance of getting hold of nuclear materials and equipment for their own use or foreign sale than they ever had under Saddam. Now the UN is warning that because of the US not keeping records of what they have dismantled/destroyed it is impossible to tell what has actually happened to the equipment and materials, and how much and what is unaccounted for. They do know that some has entered the wrong hands, as they've found examples such as sensitive rocket technology being put up for sale.

U.S. denies anything missing, invites IAEA in to inspect.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

man, if the worm hasn't turned on this whole thing...lol.

Originally posted by Zion Mainframe
no, Israel blew up an Iranian nuclear facility, back in the '80s if I'm not mistaken.

Hey you're right... I really thought it was an Iranian facility...

sorry folks!

Maybe your psychic. There is a possibility that Israel will blow up the Iranian facilities too.

The equipment and facilities disappearing is not that scary to me. What is scary is the nuclear materials going missing!

It appears that Al Quada suspects have also been disappearing recently.

A U.S.-based human rights group says at least 11 al-Qaida suspects have "disappeared" in U.S. custody, and that some may have been tortured.

I found the Article from the front page of google news, and it seemed odd.

[edit on 12-10-2004 by AlienS]

nuclear equipment and materials, including entire buildings, have been "vanishing" in Iraq ....

Maybe because of this? dunno! lol

Some of the least important stuff turned up on the black market for sale In Amsterdam and other places I heard about. But the most sensitive equipment has either gone unnoticed and sold on before this report let us know what�s this is what you should be worrying about.

Actually right after the invasion military personnel found some waste that had levels of radiation but the containers had the seal of the UN inspector�s approval.

Now if they left all this stuff around, I guess we will know soon enough when people start glowing in the dark.

Probably, most of the stuff is just low-level radioactive material. It probably is just stuff used for X-Rays, or other stuff. Although, considering all the stuff which was looted, somebody is probably making a bundle off all the looting. I wonder how much of a cut American soldiers and officers are getting.

Presumably, whoever organized the first militias after the war, could capitolize the most, but government employees who knew where stuff was would also have advantage. I wonder what the breakdown in looting earnings has been. From what I understand, a lot of those clerics have been pretty successful in organizing their own militias. If that is the case, the chances for a secular government in the near future could be severly reduced.

Although, there probably isn't all that much left to loot, except possibly from American contracters. It seems nearly all of the loot there is going to Bush's friends in Washington. However, the US military can probably use its discretion on the ground, to determine who can gets the reconstruction from Uncle Sam. Although, if it is true that not much construction is taking place, local cleric mafiosa probably don't have a very thriving market for them to pray upon (no pun intended :smile.

I saw some news on tv what happened to some of the nuclear material looted shortly after the coalition took over Iraq. Apparently at least some of the looters (which aren't always the brightest group of people) took radioactive canisters and dumped the nuclear material out onto the ground and were (maybe still are) using the canisters for gathering drinking water or other supplies. If you are a stupid looter can you say "uh honey, you notice some hair falling out after we got our new drinking canister?" I believe there may be a thread on here somewhere about hundreds or maybe thousands of Iraqis now have been contaminated with nuclear material. Unless I read that somewhere else.

Sadam had nuclear material, smallpox, anthrax, new gas masks and suits. I wonder what he was planning. I'm also wondering just want were in all those trucks we kept seeing on the news that were quickly leaving the inspection sites before the UN inspectors arrived. The contents of those trucks haven't been revealed yet either or have they? WMD only in trucks and shipped away.? I guess there isn't much left if all the trucks were blown up.

No doubt there isn't much left to loot seeing as the sites have been being looted for more than a year.


Again, from May 2003:

news.bbc.co.uk...

The UN nuclear watchdog agency has urged Washington to allow it to investigate nuclear sites in Iraq that have reportedly been looted.

Mohamed ElBaradei - head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - wrote to Washington last Wednesday to request that an investigative team be allowed into Iraq, but has not yet received a response, according to a spokeswoman.

The agency is concerned that radioactive material known to be stored at several Iraqi sites could pose health and environmental risks, and there are also fears they could be used to create a so-called "dirty bomb".

"We have been assured by the US that they would secure these facilities, but the agency finds these reports [of looting] disturbing," said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming.

She told BBC News Online that the alleged looting at the Tuwaitha site - a large, sprawling facility about 75 kilometres south of Baghdad - was of particular concern.

Radioactive hazard

Two reports over the weekend gave rise to concern:

* On Saturday, a Washington Post reporter travelling with a special US defence department team visited the Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility. US soldiers at the site told him Iraqis had been "coming in by the score" for two weeks. The team found radioactive material scattered around the site.

* Also on Saturday, a New York Times reporter with the same team visited the nearby Tuwaitha site, again finding radioactive material stored haphazardly around the site and indications that, even by Saturday, little or nothing had been done to prevent looting.