Excellent question. How many? I would guess that this assignment may be high risk. I would not want to be there trying to uncover the truth.
“…The actual weight of the uranium turned out to be hundreds of grams, a fraction of the initial estimate…”
Funny thing. Its 10:30 am central and FoxNews is still broadcasting the news about 35 kg of refined uranium.
Bit slow on the uptake, no?
Actually Elucidator, weapons grade uranium isn’t that radioactive, with a half life of 704 million years for the U235 that is its predominant isotope. It isn’t the radioactivity that makes it good for atomic/nuclear reactions, it is the fact that under neutron bombardment it breaks up very easily. Just using a Geiger counter to examine the uranium wouldn’t do much, the differences are very miniscule here, even though they look huge ( The predominant type of uranum (aka depleted*) has a half life of about 8 billion years, what makes weapons grade uranium is that the proportion to U235 to U238 is very high in the mixture, power plant enriched has a lower proportion, but is still fairly high. Weapons grade plutonium by comparison has a half life of 24,000 years. ) To determine the difference by just geiger counter would take a long time and would require a lot of effort and precision. However, a mass spectrographer would be easier, more accurate, and require less material. Such equipment however is in a lab. Add to this that both types of uranium are alpha emitters, and you get a material that isn’t all that radioactive, and whose emmisions can be stopped by a piece of aluminum foil. Also, any such material, be it weapons or normal grade will be mixed with an inhibitor to keep it even more stable ( Note, not less radioactive, just less likely to be hit by a neutron and thus breaking up. ) A lab is the way you determine these things.
As for the fact that the container that is labeled West Germany, it most likely was used to ship power plant refined uranium to Russia (The west did trade that type of enriched uranium with them.) and was reused for this purpose. Unless of course you believe that somehow Bush got the Turkish government to agree to this conspiracy even though it is not in their best interests at this time.
An aside, Mining for uranium is easy, its not that uncommon, U235 however is rare something like .7% of the uranium. The refinement process is the most difficult part of a nuclear program because of this.
*Depeleted uranium means that it is depleted of U235 and other isotopes as much as possible.
Henry:
*Well, Henry, you got me. Ashamed as I am to admit it, the truth is that I’ve never been involved in the uranium smuggling business.
But I thank you for the links you provide in that other thread. And just to put things into perspective a little:
Warning that “public reports” are often misleading, the cite goes on to state, however, that “The possibility that proliferation-relevant nuclear materials may be smuggled via Turkey continues to merit international attention.”
Does anyone have the lowdown on how much material one needs to make a bomb?
11:05 Central CNN Wolf Blitzer lobs one to Sen. McCain (paraphrase)
“So what about this 35 kgs of enriched uranium which might have been on its way to Iraq”
McCain answers the question with the assumption that yes, indeed, it was headed straight to Saddam, no question about that, and that proves the Bushies case beyond a shadow of a doubt.
And this is the level of debate.
Depends on the type of bomb. A gun-type Uranium bomb requires about 15kg at a minimum, I believe. An implosion-type plutonium bomb requires about 8kg.
There are exotic ways of reducing the amount of critical mass required, using materials like beryllium. But we’ll assume that Saddam would be building a ‘crude’ bomb, in which case I think the 15kg and 8kg values are about right.
Sam Stone
Nope. Jumped right on this, didn’t you, Sam. Ooopsy!
december
Not just yet, december. Not just yet.
Ooops 
Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines
I sure am glad I didn’t jump to any conclusions before getting the facts straight. Next we’ll probably learn that the container actually held stinky limberger cheese. What a thing to start a war over.
I wonder what Sam Stone and December would have said after Gulf of Tonkin incident. :rolleyes:
Let’s face it, certain elements in our government wouldn’t feel any shame about faking evidence to get involved.
UnuMondo
1:15 EDT on Late Edition, Wolf said it was 35 oz (roughly 1 kg). So, where’d the other 34 kg (about 70 lbs) go?
That’s the last time I hail a taxi on holiday in Turkey without first checking under the seat for uranium
Okay, this is from the recently starting to make sense again Scott Ritter last week – bozo or not, it’s perhaps worth recalling he was head of the UNSCOM Ballistics programme in Iraq for seven years.:
"Ritter: When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection programme ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There’s no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated.
Even this, however, is not simple, because Iraq still had thousands of scientists who had been dedicated to this nuclear weaponisation effort. The scientists were organised in a very specific manner, with different sub-elements focused on different technologies of interest. Even though the physical infrastructure had been eliminated, the Iraqis chose to retain the organisational structure of the scientists. This means that Iraq has thousands of nuclear scientists - along with their knowledge and expertise - still organised in the same manner as when Iraq had a nuclear weapons programme and its infrastructure. Those scientists are today involved in legitimate tasks. These jobs aren’t illegal per se, but they do allow these scientists to work in fields similar to those in which they had work where they were, in fact, carrying out a nuclear weapons programme.
**There is concern, then, that the Iraqis might intend in the long run to re-establish or reconstitute a nuclear weapons programme. But this concern must be tempered by reality. **That is not something that could happen overnight. For Iraq to reacquire nuclear weapons capability, they would have to build enrichment and weaponisation capabilities that would cost tens of billions of dollars. **Nuclear weapons cannot be created in a basement or cave. **They require modern industrial infrastructures that in turn require massive amounts of electricity and highly controlled technologies not readily available on the open market.
P: Like neutron reflectors, tampers…
Ritter: Iraq could design and build these itself. I’m talking more about flash cameras and the centrifuges needed to enrich uranium. There are also specific chemicals required. None of this can be done on the cheap. It’s very expensive, and readily detectable.
The vice-president has been saying that Iraq might be two years away from building a nuclear bomb. Unless he knows something we don’t, that’s nonsense. And it doesn’t appear that he does, because whenever you press the vice-president or other Bush administration officials on these claims, they fall back on testimony by Richard Butler, my former boss, an Australian diplomat, and Khidir Hamza, an Iraqi defector who claims to be Saddam’s bomb-maker. And of course, that’s not good enough, especially when we have the UN record of Iraqi disarmament from 1991 to 1998. **That record is without dispute. It is well documented. We eliminated the nuclear programme, and for Iraq to have reconstituted it would require undertaking activities eminently detectable by intelligence services. **
P: Are you saying that Iraq could not hide, for example, gas centrifuge facilities, because of the energy the facilities would require and the heat they would emit?
Ritter: It is not just heat. Centrifuge facilities emit gamma radiation, as well as many other frequencies. It is detectable. Iraq could not get around this. "
Oh okay. Taxi !!!
True, but we also lack any evidence that this is more than a cock-up, caused by the poor observation and communication skills of unsophisticated cops and journalists on the ass end of Turkey.
Question: Granted, a nuclear facility probably couldn’t be moved around in trucks, or built in a cave.
How about in an industrial area the size of Paris? Would that fit the bill?
That is the size of the Saddam ‘presidential palace’. It has over 1000 buildings on it. It has never been inspected. We know nothing about its interior, since the architect who designed it was killed by Saddam after construction was finished, to avoid having him leak details of its construction. For all we know, there are 20 stories of underground complexes beneath the 1000 surface buildings. Because of its high concentration of soldiers, armor, missiles, and other defensive equipment, there is a huge amount of heavy industry going on inside that complex. Trucks come and go in huge numbers.
And Saddam is now flatly refusing to let anyone inspect this area.
Question: How comfortable would you be with a new inspection regime that did NOT include the palaces?
As for the Uranium… There have been literally dozens of seizures of Uranium in and around Turkey in the last decade, much of it weapons-grade. See these cites:
2001 - 1.5 kg of Weapons-grade Uranium
According to this cite, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported 175 nuclear smuggling incidents since 1993, 18 of which involved highly enriched uranium.
A detailed listing of 18 nuclear material smuggling incidents in Turkey since 1993.
Now… Think about the actual effective seizure rate of drugs in the U.S. compared to how much actually gets through to end users. And this in a civilized country with a strong police force and billions being spent every year on interdiction.
Now think about the largely lawless border regions in the ex USSR countries, the porous borders in the Middle East, and the huge amounts of money various governments are willing to pay for nuclear materials.
According to the Institute of Strategic Studies at Stanford, over 40 kg of weapons-grade nuclear material have been stolen from the former Soviet Union in the last decade. That’s enough to make anywhere from 3 to 5 nuclear bombs. And that’s just from the Soviet Union.
The Stanford Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft and Orphan Radiation Sources (DSTO) has documented 643 known nuclear smuggling incidents. The document with the details is only available to people with the right clearance.
Hands up, all those who think that the seizures have gotten every ounce of nuclear materials that Saddam has tried to purchase.
Oh, and given the huge numbers of incidents above, is there anyone who still thinks that this must be some evil U.S. conspiracy to force a Gulf of Tonkin type of situation?
As for Scott Ritter, several points: The first is that he has lost all credibility and no one is listening to him any more. The second is that his statements today (that we got ALL of Saddam’s WMD facilities) directly contradicts what he was saying in 1998, when he was screaming just as loudly as he is today, except then he was screaming that his hands were being dangerously tied and that Saddam had substantial WMD capability left. And finally, I’m not sure that a centrifuge suitably shielded would be detectable by assets the U.S. has available today, but that presupposes that he would have to refine his own weapons-grade material.
The fact is, Saddam has been trying to buy or enrich weapons-grade material for DECADES. We have little or no idea how much he may have purchased. We hope that it’s not enough to build a bomb, but we don’t really know.
Oh, and just in case you thought you could still get some sleep tonight, there’s this quote from the head of the Stanford Institute of Strategic Studies:
Sam it hardly matters whether Scott Ritter is an asshole or not. Even an asshole is capable of telling the truth. In order to make your point, you must undermine and contradict his statements and premises. He has stated an entirely plausible case, IMO. You have merely stated that he has no credibility, as if that were sufficient. It isn’t.
That’s NOT all I said. Jeez, read what I wrote, okay? I made several points about Ritter, only one of which went to his credibility. The most important point was that his whole argument centers around Saddam being required to refine and enrich his own Uranium ore. I’m not qualified to say whether or not he’s right about a centrifuge being detectable.
BUT, that whole argument is completely invalid if Hussein simply buys the enriched material he needs. And I just spent an hour of my Sunday morning writing long messaages replete with many cites that show the possibility exists for Saddam to have simply purchased the material. There is a HUGE traffic in stolen nuclear materials. 175 seizures in Turkey alone since 1993. What about supply channels going through countries that aren’t as rigorous or friendly to the U.S.?
You simply ignored everything I wrote, and focused on one of four points I made about Ritter. Pretty shoddy debating tactics, elucidator.
Sam
Point one: Ritter’s credibility. Point two: Ritters credibility. And finally, about centrifuges, which you begged off due to a lack of expertise. That’s three, by my count.
My debating skills may be shoddy in comparison to your own lofty accomplishments. Least I can count.
Absolutely wrong. He has become the poster-child for the ‘lets hide our heads in the sand’ left wing.
Sam
Almost certainly not. But please note the certainty with which the original news was greeted.
Now I dont mean this as a slam.Sam. Merely pointing out our shared human tendency to place great credence in news that underlines our convictions.
The Tonkin Resolution suceeded not because of duplicity on the part of the Administration (though not for lack of trying) but because we already believed that N. Viet Nam was hostile. We also had to believe they were stupid/crazy enough to start a war with somebody a gazillion times more powerful. Well, they’re commies, aren’t they?
The most important threat of “Tonkin II” comes not from a duplicitous administration, but from an administration firmly convinced of its virtue. If an enemy of Saddam with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus (oh, I don’t know, lets grab one at random…say, Mossad) were to cook up something that got the Pubbies where they wanted to go… Do you imagine for a moment that the response would be “Well, we gotta look into this real careful, mustn’t jump to conclusions”
Of course not. It isnt necessary that the Admin be nefarious and dastardly. Only that they be willing to accept evidence at face value if that evidence enhances their standing convictions. Human, all too human.
But what about direct disinformation? Is that out of the question, beyond the pale. Would that it were.
I am quite sure there are sincere Pubbies who believe that the Iraq situation is a desperately important crisis. They believe that they are protecting thier country, that they are hard-headed and realistic, and liberals are misguided wussies. They also manage to believe that the political manna from heaven this issue grants them is not the motivating factor. They are willing to accept and exploit this basket of goodies dropped from on high, of course. But that’s not the motive. Nosiree, Bob.
Would I tell a lie if I were convinced, convinced, that such a lie would prevent a nuking of New York? Of course I would. I rather imagine you would as well. It is sincerity that is to be feared, not duplicity.
The road to war is paved with good intentions as well.
My god. Did you actually READ point three? I didn’t beg off due to my lack of knowledge: I specifically said that his point was invalidated in the condition that Saddam buys the material rather than refining his own.
The next TWO messages I wrote were in support of that single point.
But since you appear to be reading-challenged today, let me reiterate the argument:
[ul]
[li]Most people agree that if Saddam actually had fissile material, he could build a bomb in 6 months to a year. Assuming he hasn’t already built the bomb and is just waiting for the material to put in it.[/li][li]While Scott Ritter may be correct that the large infrastructure required for manufacturing enriched uranium may be detectable (and I don’t know if that’s correct or not), it is completely irrelevant in the case of Hussein buying the material instead of making it.[/li][li]The area around Iraq is a freaking hotbed of illegal nuclear material smuggling. 175 seizures of smuggled nuclear materials in the last decade in Turkey alone. 643 known smuggling incidents of just material from the ex Soviet Union alone.[/li][li]The authorities most likely to know (the ISS, IAEA, etc) are in agreement that there has been at least 40kg of weapons-grade nuclear material stolen out of the ex Soviet Union. However, the same authorities say that there may be as much as TEN TIMES that amount in circulation. That means enough material to make anywhere from 3 to 30 nuclear weapons.[/li][li]No one knows where much of this material is, but most of the interdiction to date has been in countries around Iraq.[/li][li]Saddam’s palaces are large industrial centers. The total area is larger than the area of Paris, and there are 1000 buildings on the surface, and an unknown number of complexes underground. Saddam went to the trouble of killing anyone who knows the entire layout, and has flatly refused to allow inspectors into that area. These areas have NEVER been inspected. They are certainly large enough to cover an attempt to manufacture the hardware of the bomb itself.[/li][/ul]
There you go. All this, to me, adds up to significant danger. If you disagree, let’s hear your reasons.