At Tuwaitha the Looting was Nuclear; Troops Had "No Directive" to Guard It

[Stephanie]

Remember Tuwaitha the next time Cheney goes spouting off about the nuclear threat to American cities.

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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.

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[Stephanie]

1. The story of Tuwaitha directly contradicts BUSH's LIES

This story supports Kerry's criticisms.

[milkyway]

2. Great find, Stephanie! You should e-mail this to Josh Marshall.

This is what happens during the chaos of war. Repugs will say there was nothing that could be done during the few weeks between when the IAEA left and when we took control of Iraq. But that's why it was always much better to work through the UN, so that weapons could either be systematically destoyed, or at least there could be a smooth handover from IAEA to the U.S.

[Stephanie]

3. I think I sent it to JMM at the time -

I was posting this everywhere in spring/summer 2003. I'm sure I sent it to him then. You're welcome to send it again.

[Stephanie]

4. Boston Globe Op-Ed re Tuwaitha - TODAY!

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/27/eyewitness_to_a_failure_in_iraq/
Eyewitness to a failure in Iraq
By Peter W. Galbraith | October 27, 2004

<snip>

.... About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq's sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad's outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere.

"There was nothing secret about the Disease Center or the Tuwaitha warehouses. Inspectors had repeatedly visited the center looking for evidence of a biological weapons program. The Tuwaitha warehouses included materials from Iraq's nuclear program, which had been dismantled after the 1991 Gulf War. The United Nations had sealed the materials, and they remained untouched until the US troops arrived."

<snip>

"Some of the looting continued for many months -- possibly into 2004. Using heavy machinery, organized gangs took apart, according to IAEA , 'entire buildings that housed high-precision equipment.' This equipment could be anywhere. But one good bet is Iran, which has had allies and agents in Iraq since shortly after the US-led forces arrived.

"This was a preventable disaster. Iraq's nuclear weapons-related materials were stored in only a few locations, and these were known before the war began. As even L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator in Iraq, now admits, the United States had far too few troops to secure the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein. But even with the troops we had, the United States could have protected the known nuclear sites. It appears that troops did not receive relevant intelligence about Iraq's WMD facilities, nor was there any plan to secure them. Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites."

[Tansy_Gold]

6. "This was a preventable disaster."

Someday, a historian is going to write a book with that title.


If the human race suvives the booshies long enough, that is.

[Stephanie]

13. See, we haven't heard the half of what's missing

Or where it went. It's truly frightening and it all goes to Bush's incompetence.

[Stephanie]

5. just one

:kick:

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Tuwaitha and al QaQaa prove that this war

had nothing to do with WMD's.

Tuwaitha and al QaQaa were the two main facilities in Saddam that could have possibly housed Saddam's supposed WMD programs. These were large complexes out in the desert that we were able to monitor by satellite 24/7. It is beyond absurd that the military wouldn't have descended on these places like stink on shit as soon as we got into Iraq. Unless of course this whole war wasn't able WMD's? Unless we realize everything they told us was a lie.




Tuwaitha



al QaQaa

[Stephanie]

8. Wow! Thanks for those pix!

And yeah, that's the whole point. If they believed their own lies they would have locked those sites down. But as usual, they did nothing.

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. Just found an even better pic of al QaQaa

The first one I posted turns out to be just the storage area.

[Stephanie]

9. Hello, this is the next part of the story

They looted plastic explosives at Al Qaqaa.

They looted radioactive isotopes at al Tuwaitha.

[aquart]

10. I don't get MSNBC. I get MicroSoft.

[Stephanie]

11. Thanks - here is the fixed link:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3068560/