Suddenly missing Iraqi nuke facilities ... negligence or collusion?

[toadspittle]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&e=10&u=/nm/20041014/wl_nm/nuclear_iraq_dc

Iraq N-Sites Were Stripped Methodically-Diplomats

By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The mysterious removal of Iraq (news - web sites)'s mothballed nuclear facilities continued long after the U.S.-led invasion and was carried out by people with access to heavy machinery and demolition equipment, diplomats said on Thursday.

The United Nations (news - web sites) nuclear watchdog told the Security Council this week that equipment and materials that could be used to make atomic weapons had been vanishing from Iraq without either Baghdad or Washington noticing.

“This process carried on at least through 2003 … and probably into 2004, at least in early 2004,” said a Western diplomat close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitored Iraq’s nuclear sites before last year’s war.

. . .

Several diplomats close to the IAEA said the disappearance of the nuclear items was not the result of haphazard looting.

. . .

“We’re talking about dozens of sites being dismantled,” a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “Large numbers of buildings taken down, warehouses were emptied and removed. This would require heavy machinery, demolition equipment. This is not something that you’d do overnight.”

So, I know U.S. intelligence (the military kind) isn’t so hot–witness the WMD justification for the invasion–but I have a hard time believing we didn’t notice dozens of high-priority sites being systematically dismantled with heavy machinery over months and months. Is our best-on-the-planet all-seeing-surveillance really so crappy?

Of course, I also can’t think of a single reason why we’d want any other nation to get such materials. Israel already has nukes, and I’m guessing we don’t want anyone else to get them. Unless it’s some ass-backward way of finding extra money to secretly fund (or bribe) allies somewhere (a la Iran-Contra), or the US contractors on the ground are just looting the country and selling that stuff on the black market.

So … massive conspiracy, or massive incompetence?

[BrainGlutton]

Either way, :eek: !

[Squink]

There’s nothing mysterious here:
Valuable building blocks are leaving Iraq as scrap

May 28, 2004
As the United States spends billions of dollars to rebuild Iraq’s civil and military infrastructure, there is increasing evidence that parts of sensitive military equipment, seemingly brand-new components for oil rigs and water plants and whole complexes of older buildings are leaving the country on the backs of flatbed trucks.
.In what some experts call a massive looting operation, at least 100 semi-trailers loaded with what is billed as Iraqi scrap metal are streaming each day into Jordan, just one of six countries that share a border with Iraq.
…
The United States contends that the prodigious Middle Eastern trade in Iraqi scrap metal is closely monitored by Iraqi government ministries to ensure that nothing crossing the border poses a security risk or siphons material from new projects. In April, L. Paul Bremer 3rd, the occupation’s senior official in Iraq, and the Iraqi Ministry of Trade established rules for licensing the export of scrap metal from the country.

Here’s a description of the licensing rules:
Iraq Announces Procedure for Exporting Scrap Metal

2004 May 2
Iraq Ministry of Trade has recently announced procedure for exporting s Iraq Ministry of Trade has recently announced procedure for exporting scrap metal. The Ministry has implemented General License regulation to export scrap metal to be valid as of April 30, 2004 till December 31, 2004. However, the regulation does not require acquisition of a physical license. It rather requires payment of license fee for each shipment. The fee of license is determined as ID 50’000 per metric ton. According to export procedures, any Iraqi or foreign company in Iraq is allowed to export scrap metal at any quantity following the payment of license fee to certain banks specified by the Ministry. Shipments are allowed to be materialized five days after the receipt is presented to Iraq Customs Service. Each shipment individually requires payment of fee. Any receipt, on the condition that it is not used before, is valid due

IMHO, the rules seem a trifle looser than perhaps they should be.
Here’s a fairly typical story on the resulting ‘scrap’ boom:
Indian scrap traders vie for remains of Iraq war

As Iraq burns, Indian scrap traders are busy scouring for metal scrap. Numerous steel mills in north India are devouring scrapped remnants of what once were part of Iraq’s infrastructure. Hungry for steel products, India, the world’s largest scrap importer today, is gobbling up all that Iraq can supply.

Huge consignments of looted machinery, shattered Iraqi tanks, mangled parts of building materials, chopped-up railroad boxcars, machinery components and raw materials, piles of copper and aluminium ingots and bars, large stacks of steel rods and water pipes are finding their way to India in containers.

If the terrorists, or whomever, want to go to the trouble of collecting unguarded and surplus nuclear program related materials, and exporting it, they can remain within the letter of the law by paying the fee of D 50’000 per metric ton. What’s the problem?
If exporters get a little overzealous and strip Iraq of anything that is actually needed for reconstruction, it’s no skin off the backs of Iraqi bureaucrats. Hell, they’re probably making money on the deals anyway. Besides, US taxpayers will happily pony up whatever cash is needed to get the country back on its feet and gleaming in the sun as beacon of freedom and hope for downtrodden middleastern masses.