Did the Times just wake up from a coma? Nuclear Danger editorial TOO LATE.

NOW they want to talk about loose nukes? Too late, but welcome to the party anyway.

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A Real Nuclear Danger
Published: May 28, 2004

While the Bush administration has been distracted by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it has neglected the far more urgent threat to American security from dangerous nuclear materials that must be safeguarded before they can fall into the hands of terrorists. That is the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from a new report that documents the slow pace of protecting potential nuclear bomb material at loosely guarded sites around the world.

The report — prepared by researchers at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard — does not directly blame the invasion of Iraq for undermining that effort. It simply notes that less nuclear material was secured in the two years immediately after the 9/11 attacks than in the two years before. That is a sad turnabout, given that President Bush has spoken vigorously of the need for greater nuclear security and that the United States had done more than any other government to address the threat.

<more>

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/opinion/28FRI1.html

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Looting of Iraqi nuclear facility indicts U.S. goals
If we feared the loss of radioactive materials, why not guard them?
TRUDY RUBIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003

TUWAITHA, Iraq - On a dusty road, just outside of Baghdad, lies one of the great mysteries of the Iraq war.

<snip>

The administration knew full well what was stored at Tuwaitha. So how is it possible that the U.S. military failed to secure the nuclear facility until weeks after the war started? This left looters free to ransack the barrels, dump their contents, and sell them to villagers for storage.

How is it possible that, according to Iraqi nuclear scientists, looters are still stealing radioactive isotopes? The Tuwaitha story makes a mockery of the administration's vaunted concern with weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military hastened to secure the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad from looters. But Iraq's main nuclear facility was apparently not important enough to get similar protection.

<snip>

And why, in facilities other than Location C, is the looting apparently continuing? Hisham Abdel Malik, a Iraqi nuclear scientist who lives near Tuwaitha and has been inside the complex, told me that in buildings "where there are radioactive isotopes, there is looting every day." He says the isotopes, which are in bright silver containers, "are sold in the black market or kept in homes." According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, such radioactive sources can kill on contact or pollute whole neighborhoods.

How could an administration that had hyped the danger of Saddam handing off nuclear materials to terrorists let Tuwaitha be looted? Maybe the hype was just hype ... or maybe the Pentagon didn't send enough troops to Iraq to do the job right.

Either answer is damning.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6068775.htm

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THey are grade A whores. Best to just ignore this rag.

It's the hometown rag, and the "paper of record." For now.

Now that we have recycling again, it's too much bother for me to bring that garbage in and then repackage it again for the garbage.

I don't miss it at all.

It would seem that the Times has been a day late and a dollar short on just about every subject of substance these days. I often get the feeling that they just don't give a good goddamn about much of anything except selling as many newspapers as possible.

I'm mostly shocked that they're even reporting this at all.

The Times has to do better than this.

The most plausible explanation is that the administration has focused so intensely on Iraq, which posed no nuclear threat, that it had little energy left for the real dangers.

Couldn't they at least have focussed on the real dangers IN IRAQ? The nuclear materials there were well known and had been catalogued and sealed by the IAEA. But the Bush war machine made no effort to secure the site, and most of the materials went missing. How do they explain that? Why does the Times give them a pass?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030716_192.html
U.N. in Dark About Looted Iraq Dirty Bomb Material
July 16, 2003
By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it had accounted for most of the low-grade uranium lost during looting at Iraq's main nuclear facility, but had no information about more dangerous radioactive material.

<snip>

But an IAEA spokeswoman said the agency had not been permitted by U.S. occupation authorities to check the status of Tuwaitha's stocks of highly-radioactive cesium-137, cobalt-160 and other materials which could be used in dirty bombs.

"There were around 400 of these radioactive sources stored at Tuwaitha," IAEA's Melissa Fleming said.

Witnesses have said that villagers near Tuwaitha, especially children, have shown symptoms of radiation sickness.

"Any case of radiation sickness would probably be from these highly-radioactive sources, not from the low-grade natural uranium at Location C," Fleming said.<more>

nt

They've always been a mouthpiece, but their utter prostitution to the warmongers has pretty much destroyed whatever credibility they used to claim.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was working to stop nuclear proliferation. The Bush White House put the nation's security at risk for political reasons. No surprise to DU, but the nation might've appreciated the heads-up. Here's what a rival New York publication had to say:

She's the perfect spy

Outed CIA agent had glamour job & looks to match


By JAMES GORDON MEEK and KENNETH R. BAZINET
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU


WASHINGTON - The spy allegedly outed by a White House leaker is an attractive blond with Bond-girl looks who ran overseas operations and recruited agents for the CIA, sources told the Daily News yesterday.

Two former senior intelligence officials confirmed that Valerie Plame, 40, is an operations officer in the spy agency's directorate of operations - the clandestine service.

SNIP...

Her specialty in the agency's nonproliferation center was biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and "recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction," Cannistraro said.

The Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into whether a White House staffer leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak in violation of federal law.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/122875p-110377c.html

Including Helen Thomas. It's an odd duck - a blue collar tabloid with a RW editorial page but some honest reporting about the regime and some good columnists.

The Plame outting has serious implications for anti-terrorism efforts. Someone has to go to prison over this. How high will it go? Dick?

Thanks Octafish!