gaiseric said:
Washington Post story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35404-2004Jul7.html

Also mentions that the unenriched uranium was in the ammount of 400 Tons.

mmm date on the story is 8 July. Interesting that nobody has really talked this up.

Edited to add the USA today Story

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-07-iraq-uranium_x.htm

[Edited on Jul 30, 2004 by gaiseric]

Er, did you read my post? No one in the Bush Administration, who has everything to gain by saying, "Hey! Look! WMDs!" has said anything even close to that. There are about a hundred articles about this on the internet, no one has claimed that the uranium was planned for use by Saddam to make WMDs. They could be used, by terrorists, to make dirty bombs.

If this was some sort of evidence of WMDs, you'd think the Bush adminstration might have said something, you know?

Edited for grammar and clarity.

[Edited on Jul 30, 2004 by Lemonnier]

reprobate

New Orleans, LA

December 2002

JUL 30, 2004 05:23 PM

gaiseric said:
Reprobate.

Acutally I heard on the radio that the UN just announced the completion of a US operation to remove 2 tons of enriched Uranium and and a large amount of unenriched Uranium from Iraq.

Btw, critical mass for U-235 is only a couple of pounds.

You must have a very special radio, since that was weeks ago, and discussed by your boy Stockula on these very boards. As others have pointed out here, its a bullshit assertion to come close to saying this was weapons grade or part of a weapons program, I won't belabor the issue except to say that if you're going to get all matter of fact on critical mass, you might want to read a book first so that you know what the fuck you're talking about. Low enriched uranium, which is what we're talking about has less than 5% U235. It is useless as a fissile weapon material. That two tons of LEU, might, if efficiently used in processes not available in Iraq might be convertible into enough weapons grade uranium for a single, low yield weapon. Iraq absolutely lacked such capability, and a year long investigation shows no indication that they were pursuing developing same.

MetaTag

United Kingdom

September 2002

JUL 30, 2004 06:46 PM

Before the war with Iraq, I was sceptical about the risk to West from Iraq.

Saddam Hussien's modus operandi is that of a psycopathic bully. He was a danger to the people of Iraq and to his near neighbours, but the policy of containment did keep him under control. His sense of survival was strong and I don't think that he would have taken on a massively superior force by attacking a major western democracy, such as America or England.

I also thought that anyone wanting to make a dirty bomb would be able to get the materials easilly enough from somewhere like Russia or even America.

The BBC series Hoizon made a good documentary about how terrorists could make a dirty bomb out of radioactive Caesium Chloride. Caesium chloride was widely used in Russian agricultural equipment, without sensible controls on its disposal. In 1998, in the US town of Greensoro a small amount of casium chloride was stollen from a hospital and that material has never been recovered.

Also in North Carolina, a small amount of caesium chloride was found in a scrap metal dump within an industrial gauge. Apparantly, thousands of similar equipment are missing in genral circulation.

If all risk that could come from Iraq was eliminated, the risk to the West from of a dirty bomb attack would be about the same as it is now. A terrorist would just need to look elsewhere for the materials.

On the critical mass of U-235, it is 50 Kg . that is about 110 lbs. With the best and most difficult bomb design, 12 - 15 Kg of HEU is enough to make a nuclear bomb.

TheFuckOffKid

NEWSWIRE

Australia

JUL 30, 2004 06:50 PM

Who's turn is it for stockula-watch today?

Someone wanna go find him and bring him back to explain how the main implication of all of this translates to "Bad news for Kerry"?

Meantime, I'm with Cash: I think stocula's hoping Coulter's joined this site and he can impress her enough by an endless series of hyperconservative rants to become her preferred fuckbuddy, for a while at least.

starkmadd

Clearfield, UT

July 2004

JUL 30, 2004 07:10 PM

As far as the yellow cake being used in a dirty bomb, it wouldn't be all that effective. There are much more attractive radio-active substances to be used. There are many the consistancy of talcum powder, very easily rendered aerosol. There was a fairly recent NOVA that explored some of these dirty bombs. They took a hypothetical event in Trafalgar(sorry, spelling bad I know) Square in London. By taking a film canister of some of this stuff, using a relatively small explosive, like an m-80 firework, to blow it up, the fallout would render much of London uninhabitable. Yellow cake would typicly just blow chunks that would be pretty easy to clean up.

As to the assertation that Al-Zarkawi's capture is bad for Kerry, only in the fact that it will be good for Bush. Other than that, I don't see any real downside for the Kerry campaign.

starkmadd

Clearfield, UT

July 2004

JUL 30, 2004 07:18 PM

oops, Meta beat me to the NOVA/Horizon program. In the same program they showed the danger of Caesium Chloride, (thanks, couldn't remember the substance) I think it was a small town in Colubia where a little girl found some of this light blue talc like powder. It turned out to be Caesium Chloride. In all about 5 people died, dozons treated for exposure, and tens of tons of rubble removed from the town after a multi-million dollar cleanup.