Traitorgate + Tuwaitha = Total WH Meltdown

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39500-2003Aug9?language=printer

In an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 6, Card did not mention the WHIG but hinted at its mission. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

<snip>The day after publication of Card's marketing remark, Bush and nearly all his top advisers began to talk about the dangers of an Iraqi nuclear bomb.

Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair conferred at Camp David that Saturday, Sept. 7, and they each described alarming new evidence. Blair said proof that the threat is real came in "the report from the International Atomic Energy Agency this morning, showing what has been going on at the former nuclear weapon sites." Bush said "a report came out of the . . . IAEA, that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need."

http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/

Rice acknowledged that "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but said, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. - G. Bush, 10/7/02


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.<more>

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

http://www.counterpunch.org/schwarz07172003.html
July 17, 2003
Bush's Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine
The Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs
By MARTIN SCHWARZ

<snip>Bush's use of the specter of nuclear threat to legitimate his intimidation policy can also been seen as just another excuse if reports from occupied post-war Iraq are taken into account. When the reports about massive looting in Iraq's biggest nuclear facility Al-Tuwaitha emerged after the war, the U.S. administration rejected the IAEA's request to send inspectors to that facility for more than a month. El-Baradei didn't even get an answer to his letters to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Meanwhile, strange things must have happened in Al-Tuwaitha: The IAEA in Vienna received several phone calls from U.S. soldiers based at the facility to secure it, who didn't know what to do with nuclear material they had found.<more>


http://www.sierrasun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030718/OPINION/307180301
July 18, 2003
Bush's actions don't match the rhetoric
Guest Column by Kirk Caraway

<snip>Turn back the clock to the before the war. You "know" your enemy has 100-500 tons of chemical weapons, and you know where he is likely hiding them. Wouldn't you try to secure those sites as quickly as possible? After all, these chemical weapons posed a major threat to our advancing troops, and the big danger, they said, was if these fall into the hands of terrorists.

So why wasn't this done? Special Forces teams were flown into Iraq to secure the oil fields, but not the weapons. That speaks volumes about what the real reason for the war is.

And those weapons are still missing. Rumsfeld claims they are doing their best to search all those sites, but this is disconcerting. How many days have his 150,000 soldiers had to search the sites they already know about?

And what about the nukes? If Bush and his people really thought that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, why did the military wait for more than a week after taking over the region to even visit the country's main nuclear research facilities at Tuwaitha?

Why did they wait even longer to visit the neighboring Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility? Both sites were heavily looted, so if there were plans for a nuclear bomb or even some weapons-grade material, it would be long gone by now.<more>


http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1056483,00.html
Saddam's nuclear arsenal? A scattering of yellow powder
Villagers sell deadly uranium to the US army at $3 a barrel
Patrick Graham in Al Mansia
Sunday October 5, 2003
The Observer

Dhia Ali makes a throwing motion as he tells how he dumped out the blue barrels of powder. The nine-year-old and his brother, Hussein, weren't looking for weapons of mass destruction when they went into the low brown buildings, known to UN weapons inspectors as Location C, near his home last April. They just wanted the blue barrels.

The yellow cake powder they poured out and breathed into their lungs - a form of natural uranium - was part of the nuclear programme which, the Iraq Survey Group's recent report claims, somewhat vaguely, was being restarted before the last war. The report won't do much for Dhia or Hussein - they haven't even been examined by a doctor yet.

<snip>The report's claim that Iraq was revamping its nuclear programme in such a way that it could constitute any serious threat was described as 'ridiculous' by the scientist. By 1991, when the he left the programme, Iraq had succeeded in producing no more than one kilogram of enriched uranium - 6 to 14 kgs short of a bomb. By 1997, the programme had been exposed and most of its capabilities destroyed. <more>

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
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.
May 22, 2003, L.A. Times
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">Boston Globe
THE NUCLEAR FALLOUT
For neighbors, atom plant may inflict scars
By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff,
6/8/2003, Boston Globe

<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.

<snip>

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) UK Telegraph

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.commondreams.org/headlines03/0624-09.htm
Published on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 by Agence France Presse
Greenpeace Says "Frightening" Radioactivity in Iraqi Villages


TUWAITHA, Iraq - Environmental group Greenpeace called on the US-led coalition governing Iraq to clean up villages surrounding a nuclear site outside Baghdad that have been contaminated by "frightening levels" of radioactive material.

Carrying Arabic and English banners that read "Al-Tuwaitha - nuclear disaster. Act now!", Greenpeace activists returned a large uranium "yellowcake" mixing canister to US troops stationed inside the nuclear plant, 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of the capital.

The canister -- the size of a small car -- contained significant quantities of radioactive yellowcake and had been left open and unattended for more than 20 days on a busy section of open ground near the Tuwaitha plant, Greenpeace said Tuesday.

"No one cares about us. We are dying slowly. Our whole neighborhood is contaminated. Although Greenpeace came, it is too late," said Tareq al-Obeidi, a 41-year-old Tuwaitha city council member. <more>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&e=1&u=/usatoday/11886764

What happened to looted Iraqi nuclear material?
Mon Oct 6, 6:04 AM ET Add Op/Ed - USATODAY.com to My Yahoo!

By Brett Wagner

<snip>

A great irony, however, seems to have gotten lost in that debate: As a direct result of President Bush (news - web sites)'s decision to invade Iraq without sufficient forces to secure and protect its nuclear research and storage facilities from rampant looting, enough radioactive material to build scores of dirty bombs now is missing and may be on its way to the international black market.

<snip>

The White House knew all along, for example, that enormous quantities of dangerous nuclear materials were at the Tuwaitha nuclear storage facility near Baghdad, sealed and accounted for by the United Nations (news - web sites)' International Atomic Energy Agency. Soon after the war began, the IAEA warned the White House that it should strive to secure the facility quickly. When word of looting at the site began to leak out through the international media, the IAEA again warned the White House.

The looting, however, went on for more than two weeks before the U.S. took any action. When the site was finally secured and U.S. authorities permitted a brief inspection by IAEA officials, the inspectors were inexplicably forbidden to check the status of highly radioactive materials that could be used in dirty bombs. Many of these materials are now unaccounted for. What the inspectors were allowed to verify is how much uranium is now missing: at least 22 pounds.

Other looted nuclear sites include the Baghdad Nuclear Research Center, where significant quantities of partially enriched uranium, cesium, strontium and cobalt were stored. U.S. survey teams have not been able to determine how many of those materials are missing.

<snip>

It takes only a small amount of such materials to arm a dirty bomb. The 22 pounds of missing uranium, for example, could arm a device that could shut down Capitol Hill or the New York Stock Exchange (news - web sites) for weeks, if not months. <more>

Brett Wagner is president of the California Center for Strategic Studies and a professor at the U.S. Naval War College.