UN finds enriched uranium on Libyan centrifuges [Nuke Grade]

[Kellanved]

VIENNA, May 28 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a confidential report on Friday it had found traces of high and low enriched uranium on Libyan nuclear centrifuges, as it found in Iran last year.

The agency said that among the issues that still need to be resolved about Libya's nuclear weapons programme, abandoned in December 2003, were "the sources of low enriched and high enriched uranium contamination found on gas centrifuge equipment in Libya".

Centrifuges can be used to produce uranium useable in an atom bomb.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also said in the report, obtained by Reuters, that a university in Tripoli had "a research laboratory and associated equipment that would be of some use for supporting nuclear weapon related research and development".
...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28173127.htm

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Boy, it's good to know they're on OUR side!

<sarcasm off>

[Elbowroom]

2. am i wrong here

isn't this the country that gave up WMD because of the Iraq war?

[PeaceProgProsp]

3. They gave it up because the Blair government negotiatied with them

Blair used diplomacy.

[daleo]

4. This probably doesn't mean much

I understand that it takes thousands of centrifuges working for a year or more to get another material for a bomb. Then, you still have to build the H.E. implosion device, complex electonic trigger, etc. Some traces on a centrifuge proves nothing more than a small research program, which you could probably find in plenty of places around the world. It seems to be a long way from bomb potential.

[dArKeR]

5. UN group says Libya had wide nuclear network - TT

AP , VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Sunday, May 30, 2004,Page 6

Suppliers for Libya's nuclear weapons program were stretched over three continents, the UN nuclear watchdog agency said in an internal report. Diplomats identified the former Soviet Union and South Africa as among them.

The internal report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made available on Friday also said that traces of highly enriched uranium were found in Libya but suggested the traces were imported on the equipment purchased abroad.

A diplomat suggested that finding could bolster arguments by Iran -- now the main focus of an IAEA probe for suspicious nuclear activities -- that it is not involved in trying to make weapons. Iran, too has asserted that traces of highly enriched uranium found on its centrifuges were not domestic but came with the centrifuges it bought into the country.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/30/2003157532