[NYTr] Nuclear Material Goes Missing in Iraq

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

The Oread Daily - Oct 14, 2004
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily/

Nuclear Material Goes Missing In Iraq

Well, the invasion that was to make the world "safer" has been proven once
more to have made the world more dangerous instead. It now seems that the
removal of nuclear materials from Iraq's mothballed nuclear facilities
continued long after the U.S.-led invasion and was carried out by people
with access to heavy machinery and demolition equipment. The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the Security Council this week that
equipment and materials that could be used to make atomic weapons had been
vanishing from Iraq without either Baghdad or Washington noticing. "This
process carried on at least through 2003 ... and probably into 2004, at
least in early 2004," said a Western diplomat close to the (IAEA), which
monitored Iraq's nuclear sites before last year's war. Several diplomats
close to the IAEA said the disappearance of the nuclear items was not the
result of haphazard looting. They said the removal of the dual-use equipment
-- which before the war was tagged and closely monitored by the IAEA to
ensure it was not being used in a weapons program -- was planned and
executed by people who knew what they were doing. "We're talking about
dozens of sites being dismantled," a diplomat said on condition of
anonymity. "Large numbers of buildings taken down, warehouses were emptied
and removed. This would require heavy machinery, demolition equipment. This
is not something that you'd do overnight."

Diplomats in Vienna say the IAEA is worried that these facilities, which
belonged to Saddam's pre-1991 covert nuclear weapons program, could have
been packed up and sold to a country or militants interested in nuclear
weapons. The diplomats said that among the sites that had been stripped were
a precision manufacturing site at Umm Al Marik, a site connected with Iraq's
nuclear weapons activities at Al Qa Qaa and an engineering facility at Badr.
One diplomat said there were "dozens of others" that gradually disappeared
from satellite photos analyzed by IAEA experts at its headquarters in
Vienna.

Independent expert Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest, said
Iraqi nuclear and weapons-related material that was monitored by the U.N.
before the invasion had since been found in Europe. Raw "yellowcake"
uranium, apparently from Iraq, was found in Rotterdam last December, he
said. "It seems extremely negligent for the authorities in Iraq to allow
this quantity of material to have been exported from the country," Standish
said.

In a letter to the Security Council on Monday, the head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said satellite photos and follow-up
investigations show "widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement" at
sites related to Iraq's nuclear program which had been subject to monitoring
by the United Nations nuclear watchdog. While some industrial material Iraq
has sent overseas has been located in other countries, Dr ElBaradei said no
high-precision items - including milling machines and electron beam welders
that can be used commercially and in nuclear weapons - have been found.

An IAEA spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said the agency's assumption is this
was looting by people trying "to make a buck" and sell equipment and
material to the highest bidder.

Following the revelations, the former UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix,
said the US had failed to control suspected nuclear sites in Iraq after last
year's invasion, allowing crucial equipment to disappear. Dr Blix said it
was scandalous for the US to lose control of the situation after the end of
the war. Dr Blix's comments were echoed by the former senior American
weapons inspector, David Kay. He said it was inexcusable that the US had
insufficient troops on the ground to prevent widespread looting after the
first phase of military operations ended.

Anne Patterson, the US's deputy ambassador to the UN, said the US mission
had not yet received Dr ElBaradei's letter. "We're anxious to see what he
has to say and we'll do a full investigation," she said, adding quickly: "I
mean, we'll work with the government of Iraq on a full investigation."

During the period of UN inspections, the IAEA kept tabs on these nuclear
facilities, but, in the wake of the U.S. invasion, it was not allowed any on
the ground inspections and consequently has little or no idea where the
nuclear materials have actually gone.

Now, the UN weapons inspectors are preparing to return to Iraq to
investigate the disappearnces. "We are ready, subject to Security Council
guidance and the prevailing security situation, to resume our Security
Council mandated verification activities in Iraq," IAEA spokesman Mark
Gwozdecky said.

The IAEA is also concerned about the health of Iraqi citizens living
anywhere near the atomic facilities. In that regard, Greenpeace charged that
the response of both the U.S. occupation authorities and the new interim
Iraqi government to the problem of looting and possible radiation exposure
has been inadequate. "Nothing has been done to date," the group said about
providing medical help to the surrounding communities.  Greenpeace says,
"When US troops rolled into Baghdad, they ensured that the oil ministry was
immediately under guard. In the south, oil pipelines and wells were
surrounded with armored vehicles. Yet in Tuwaitha, where Saddam Hussein's
nuclear research was conducted, a site previously sealed by the UN
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and containing nuclear equipment
and materials had not a single soldier outside its door. Local residents
took what they could, including barrels to use for cooking and water storage
that they simply emptied of their uranium yellowcake contents." Greenpeace's
mission to Tuwaitha 16 months ago was among the first by an independent
organization investigating Iraq's nuclear infrastructure. The mission
actually collected radioactive materials that had been looted from the site
and returned them to the nuclear facility there. In addition to the obvious
absence of certain kinds of equipment, Greenpeace found the site unguarded
by U.S. soldiers or local security forces and that local residents had taken
much of the materials, including barrels containing uranium yellowcake to
use for cooking and water storage in their homes. Among other things, the
Greenpeace mission took measurements in people's homes, finding in one case
radiation levels 10,000 times greater than the surrounding area. It also
secured the contaminated barrels by exchanging them with new ones it brought
to the area.

And that ain't all folks.

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission - responsible for
overseeing the elimination of any banned Iraqi missile, chemical and
biological weapons programs - said Iraqi authorities have shipped thousands
of tons of scrap metal out of the country during the past year. A commission
report said the export was handled by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, which was
under the direct supervision of US occupation authorities until June 28,
when the Americans handed power to Iraq's interim government. It said that
the shipments included at least 42 engines from banned missiles and other
equipment that could be used to produce banned weapons.

This all should be seen as a Bush Administration scandal of unprecedented
proportions.  It should be on the front page of every US newspaper and the
lead story on all the TV news shows.

Why isn't it?

Sources: Xinhua, RTE News, Sydney Morning Herald, Reuters, Anti-War.com,
Greenpeace International