# El Baradei: US letting dirty bomb materials out of Iraq **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474 "2004-04-17T02:58:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/1 "2004-04-17T02:58:43Z")
[Link](http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/16/iraq.nuclear.ap/): > [@](#): > > UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Some Iraqi nuclear facilities appear to be unguarded, and radioactive materials are being taken out of the country, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency reported after reviewing satellite images and equipment that has turned up in European scrapyards. > … > The United States has virtually cut off information-sharing with the IAEA since invading Iraq in March 2003 on the premise that the country was hiding weapons of mass destruction. > … > According to ElBaradei’s letter, satellite imagery shows “extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings,” in Iraq. > > In addition, “large quantities of scrap, some of it contaminated, have been transferred out of Iraq from sites” previously monitored by the IAEA. > … > A small number of Iraqi missile engines have also turned up in European ports, IAEA officials said > … > The IAEA has been unable to investigate, monitor or protect Iraqi nuclear materials since the U.S. invaded the country in March 2003. The United States has refused to allow the IAEA or other U.N. weapons inspectors into the country, claiming that the coalition has taken over responsibility for illicit weapons searches. Woah. A quick check of GD and the Pit didn’t reveal any thread from the past 24 hours on the IAEA’s report, so scuse any duplicate threads. Anyway, I’m generally the sort who prefers partisan bloodletting to reasoned debate, but this is the first story on Iraq that I’ve actually found truly disturbing, on a personal level, since the invasion. I don’t know what to make of the story. Part of me feels a kind of sick glee at the prospect of the Administration dropping the ball so badly; I mean, this kinda blows the whole allowing looters to run off with priceless relics thing completely outta the water. On the other hand, _Jesus_… what the hell are they doing over there, if they can’t take the most basic precautions to ensure that whatever phony premise they had for _starting_ the damn war in the first place doesn’t become reality? Dunno what I’m looking for here. Sorry if this is better suited for the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/2 "2004-04-17T03:31:58Z")
First the Administration was wrong when they claimed that Iraq had yellowcake. But now, according to your link, the Administration is at fault for letting Iraq’s yellowcake get out of the country. Somethin’ ain’t makin’ any sense here. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/3 "2004-04-17T03:38:18Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > First the Administration was wrong when they claimed that Iraq had yellowcake. > > But now, according to your link, the Administration is at fault for letting Iraq’s yellowcake get out of the country. > Somethin’ ain’t makin’ any sense here. Perhaps you missed this paragraph: > [@](#): > > The yellowcake in the shipment was natural uranium ore which probably came from a known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War. Which is a little bit different from “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/4 "2004-04-17T03:58:54Z")
Why no thread? Because we can’t keep up. Usually, bad news of administration fuck-up at least have the silver lining, that people become more aware. Like most humans, I am an odd admixture of the tender and the callous, I sneer with partisan pleasure when mine political enemy is shown to be chucklewitted, and recoil in horror from the certainty that this is going to cost, this is going to hurt. When Bozo slips on the banana peel, its funny. When GeeDubya fucks up, people die. My partisan pleasure is over-stuffed, sated to nausea, like six gross ice cream sundaes in a row. No, no, give me time, let me have a few days to recover my composure, a little time to get my shields back up. So I fall back to this: it can’t be true, it’s simply not possible for anyone…_anyone_…to be so grossly incompetent as to not keep such materials under guard. _Serious_ guard. Hard-eyed, hard trained Marines who snack on thumb tacks and ball bearings, not some loading dock supervisor in the Reserves. So lets just hope it’s bullshit, total partisan bullshit made up to embarass The Leader. Let the Tighty Righties crow in righteous gloatany, I’ll read every post, I swear. We’ve got plenty of real ammo anyway, we can easily afford it. It ain’t true because it just _can’t_ be true. Nobody is that stupid. Nobody. And the shade of Barbara Tuchman glides into the room, and the air chills, and her ethereal voice queries “You read my books? How many times? And you _still_ don’t get it? Putz.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/5 "2004-04-17T04:07:56Z")
> [@black455](#): > > Perhaps you missed this paragraph: “The yellowcake in the shipment was natural uranium ore which probably came from a known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War.” > > Which is a little bit different from “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Gee, I thought yellowcake was yellowcake. The origin of the yellowcake that Saddam conveniently did/didn’t have (insert desired situation as needed) makes a difference? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/6 "2004-04-17T04:41:33Z")
Aw, c’mon, **John**. We already knew Saddam had “yellowcake” because we knew he had uranium mines. We knew how much he had, we knew where it was because the IAEA inspectors told us. We also knew he didn’t have _enough_ yellowcake, which is why the bullshit about buying more had some significance. It takes a hell of a lot of raw uranium to make weapons grade shit. And the process is a _huge_ undertaking (see Oak Ridge, Tennessee) about as easy to hide as a project to make the Euphrates run east-west rather than north-south. But at the very, very least Iraq would have required _tons_ of uranium to even _begin_ such a project. Tons of uranium they wouldn’t have to account for. Now, there is some comfort in that. If its just plain old yellowcake, its nasty shit, but not _really_ nasty shit. Wouldn’t be worth the trouble, probably, with our loyal Pakistani allies conducting nuclear Amway parties. For sure, its some serious stuff, and shouldn’t be left lying around without some guys with guns scattered around the perimeter. I don’t have the facts/figures on this, but I’d make a rough guess that a pound of ground-zero Chernobyl dirt is more dangerous than a pound of plain yellowcake. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/7 "2004-04-17T12:25:56Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > Gee, I thought yellowcake was yellowcake. The origin of the yellowcake that Saddam conveniently did/didn’t have (insert desired situation as needed) makes a difference? Number 10 thought there was a difference. The [September dossier](http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page271.asp) distinguished between the uranium that Iraq admitted to and the notorious African stuff. From [Chaper 3, section 20](http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page275.asp): > [@](#): > > Following the departure of weapons inspectors in 1998 there has been an accumulation of intelligence indicating that Iraq is making concerted covert efforts to acquire dual-use technology and materials with nuclear applications. Iraq’s known holdings of processed uranium are under IAEA supervision. But there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants, and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/el-baradei-us-letting-dirty-bomb-materials-out-of-iraq/240474/8 "2004-04-17T13:23:45Z")
This is basically old news. There was a GQ thread in January 2004, [Yellow Cake Uranium In Iraq?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=235221), and a Pit thread in August 2003, [IAEA in Iraq again. US blew nuclear containment. Serious shit.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=189290) For those coming late to the story: In the 70s, Iraq built a light water reactor ostensibly for power generation at Tuwaitha. Neighbours feared that it was really for weapons development. At the start of the Iraq-Iran war in, Iran bombed the place (September 20, 1980), but didn’t destroy it. Israel finished the job on June 7, 1981. The facilities at Tuwaitha were sealed and were under a regular inspection regime since Gulf War I. US WMD search teams found the place, smashed into it and for a very short time it was talked about as proof of Saddam’s nuclear ambitions. The IAEA pointed out that the facility was not actually secret, and that they would like to survey the damage to the place. Bush of course refused, but then later changed his mind. Meanwhile, the US had walked away, leaving it unprotected. When the IAEA got there, they found that the locals had looted the place, had dumped the yellowcake out of the barrels it was stored in, and were using the barrels for water storage. No one really knows where all of the yellowcake went.