Bush Pushes to Keep WMD From Terrorists

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - The single greatest danger facing humanity, President Bush (news - web sites) says, is the threat of nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands.


So in the next four years, Bush looks to work with other nations to prevent countries from developing nuclear weapons, to secure and dismantle weapons that already exist and stop black-market trafficking of nuclear materials.


This isn't exactly the arms control of past presidents — the lengthy negotiations and detailed agreements, mostly between the United States and the Soviet Union or Russia over nuclear stockpiles, missile defense and weapons testing.


Instead, this is arms control rooted in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=693&e=3&u=/ap/20041115/ap_on_go_pr_wh/second_term_arms_control

Yeah, now * wants to work with other nations. :eye:

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. HAHAHAHAHAHA

No, really, you're killing me here. Literally.

[natrat]

3. what a complete dick

60 minutes last night reveals bin laden has the ok to nuke us then this morning this. These people are so soulless and phony. They suck

[maddezmom]

4. keep reading...* says terryism is a Global Problem

Bush has said terrorism is a global problem and he's looking for a multinational solution. He has worked with other nations to stop North Korea (news - web sites) and Iran from developing nuclear programs. He has promoted new programs to encourage countries to intercept weapons components and to help nations secure or remove radioactive materials.

[elehhhhna]

2. How 'bout we secure our ports, for starters?

[Stephanie]

5. It's a little late now

______________________________________________

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 <2003>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.

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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.
______________________________________________

[Cocoa]

6. he'll get to that, after he does some more important things

like tax cuts for the rich, and getting re-elected.

[havocmom]

7. Outing NOC agent Plame, who ran a network keeping track of trafficking

in dangerous materials used to make WMD was probably the single most devastating action taken AGAINST American & world security.

Traitors need to be tried and punished for the dangers they put the world at for a bit of political punishment against Ambassador Wilson.

The greatest enablers of world terrorism are the criminals in the bush* malAdministration.

edit: typo

[natrat]

12. if *ushco is going to be a crime family

why cant they at least keep there turf clean. I bet the mafia would have handled this alot better.

[whosinpower]

8. Actions speak louder than words

The invasion of Iraq did NOT secure known nuclear sites - which were looted - and god only knows where all the nuclear material has gone to. I beleive it is this material that is quite suitable for a dirty bomb.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS MR. PRESIDENT!

[maddezmom]

9. U.S. credibility on identifying nuclear threats "is only slightly greater

Jack Mendelsohn, a U.S. arms control negotiator in the 1970s and '80s, said U.S. credibility on identifying nuclear threats "is only slightly greater than zero" because of Iraq.


When the United States describes dangers in Iran or North Korea's nuclear programs, "the other countries say, `Yeah, but you guys tend to go off the deep end and you exaggerate,'" he said.


But to the administration, the threats from both nations are real. They are the two remaining points on Bush's "axis of evil" now that Iraq's Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) has been toppled, and both are considered sponsors of terrorism.

[The Flaming Red Head]

10. Oh, are WE (the US) surrendering our stockpiles of weapons?

[ze_dscherman]

11. The single greatest danger facing humanity, President Bush

ROTFLMAO :evilgrin:

[DireStrike]

13. That's exactly how I read it.

[Triana]

14. Hey Drinky Dumbass...

...you gotta FIND the WMD first. Moron!

When was it that Mr. Dogma duJour urinated all over the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty? NOW he wants cooperation?

HA!

Shit-for-brains rides again. Oh *I* feel safer, don't YOU?

(NOT)

[htuttle]

15. Bush? Treaties? Hey, George, cluephone for you...

Nobody trusts the word of the United States anymore thanks to you, monkeyboy.

Maybe if you exposed more CIA agents trying to track illicit WMD trafficking, you would have more success...

Dumbass.

[GoBlue]

16. Well since everything Bush tries to do backfires....

and seems to cause just the opposite, must I say more?

[Massachusetts]

17. Complicity

A country without its czar is like a village without an idiot - Russian proverb

[Beetwasher]

18. Ohh, So That Explains Why The CIA Is Being PURGED RIGHT NOW

Because that's the best way to keep your eye on these things, create massive chaos in your intelligence agencies just when they are needed the most to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists! The danger of this happening is getting worse every second, so, of course, what does Bushco. do? He does the ABSOLUTE WORST POSSIBLE THING! HE SENDS THE INTEL COMMUNITY INTO A CHAOTIC PURGE!!!

Way to keep your eye on the ball Bushco!

If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were rooting for the terrorists....

[SlavesandBulldozers]

19. reach out to those who agree

blitzdiplomacy.