Posting to another thread about the Plame thing, consider this.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/912073.asp

WMDs for the Taking?
While U.S. troops pushed on to Baghdad, Iraqis were looting radioactive materials from once protected sites
By Rod Nordland
NEWSWEEK

May 19 issue — From the very start, one of the top U.S. priorities in Iraq has been the search for weapons of mass destruction. Weren’t WMDs supposed to be what the war was about? Even so, no one has yet produced conclusive evidence that Iraq was maintaining a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) arsenal.

<snip>

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.


http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-iraqnuke22may22001423,0,1600144.story

May 22, 2003
Dangerous Loot South of Baghdad
Iraqis close to a nuclear research site become ill after materials are pilfered. Doctor says symptoms point to acute radiation syndrome.
By John Hendren, Times Staff Writer

Since early April, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has repeatedly requested that the U.S. secure nuclear material at Tuwaitha. This week, the Bush administration agreed to make arrangements to allow the IAEA to return to Iraq to inspect the site.

American troops are now guarding the research center, but the looting has continued, and scientists are worried that missing nuclear material could result in a slew of safety and health problems.

"We're concerned about the health and safety of these people, and then we're also concerned about environmental contamination and we're also concerned that this material could be used for illicit use — a 'dirty bomb,' or even a nuclear bomb," said IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky in a telephone interview from Vienna.

<snip>

Inside a 10-foot-high chain-link fence, a platoon of U.S. troops guards the remains of the nuclear reactor destroyed by the Israelis.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Gasman says his job is to keep looters out, but with a platoon of just 40 men and a fence that runs as far as the eye can see, he admits it's a losing battle. Looters break through nightly; they are often released within a few hours of being caught.

"There's no way we can catch them all," said Gasman, from the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade. "For all I know, there are looters back there now."<more>


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/159/nation/For_neighbors_atom_plant_may_inflict_scars+.shtml

THE NUCLEAR FALLOUT
For neighbors, atom plant may inflict scars
By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff,
6/8/2003

<snip>As the US invasion approached, the security measures frayed. The Iraqi soldiers left their guardposts around March 10, and by March 20, the civilian guards were gone as well. On April 7, two days before Baghdad fell, US Marines arrived, a senior military official said in a background briefing last week.

Local youths described the looting as riotous. Malik Rumaydeh, who attended three years of school, tossed the spongy bricks back and forth playfully with his friends, and estimates that he spent six hours inside the warehouse. To people with little access to fresh water, the barrels were a useful find.

<snip>

A number of children displayed rashes, or feathery discolorations on their necks or legs. Inad, the shopkeeper, said people in the town were feeling ''sleepy and lazy'' and suffering from diarrhea. Rumayedh said he has stomachaches, discolorations on his skin, and trouble breathing.

Last month, Iraqi and US officials offered a $3 reward for each barrel returned to authorities, and some of the children were waving fresh bills.

A US Army spokesman, Colonel Richard Thomas, said yesterday that the looting of the warehouse ceased as soon as US Marines arrived on April 7. He warned against exaggerating the ill effects of the looting, and reported that in the case of the National Museum, losses were far less than initially thought.

In last week's background briefing, a senior military official said that the Americans had arrived to find the locks broken and the warehouse ''in the condition that it's in.''

But a group of local villagers argued yesterday that Americans had permitted the looting, even cutting the locks on the doors. Inad, the shopkeeper, said Americans had encouraged looters to take the material.

''They allowed children to go inside,'' Inad said. ''Then they said it might cause radiation, but that was one month later.''<more>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/02/wevian02.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/06/02/ixportaltop.html">UK Telegraph

Chirac defies Bush at G8 summit
By Benedict Brogan and Toby Harnden in Evian
(Filed: 02/06/2003)

France poured cold water last night on an American and British proposal to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction as Tony Blair and George W Bush sought to outflank Jacques Chirac at the opening of the G8 summit.

While M Chirac, the host, sought to emphasise his vision of a multipolar world, Mr Blair and Mr Bush joined forces with other members of the Iraq coalition to try to force him to make combating terrorism a central agenda item of the gathering of industrialised nations.

Downing Street and White House aides said the "action plan" would help to stop terrorists detonating a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a western capital.<more>



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

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.