Refute for me please the claims of "Tons of enriched uranium in Iraq"

[benburch]

I know there is more to this than the freeper who brought this up says that there is.

He is saying that Iraq had tons of bomb-grade material, and I know that simply couldn't be true or the Bush** Crime Syndicate would be crowing about it.

Sources would be good, too, as he'll ask for them.

[htuttle]

1. Any uranium that was in Iraq was at Tuwaitha under UN control

At least until the invasion, when the US forced UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq, leaving Tuwaitha unguarded. Much of the uranium at Tuwaitha was looted shortly thereafter.

[benburch]

2. Was it enriched bomb-grade?

Or just slightly enriched reactor fuel? And how much?

[htuttle]

4. Not sure

Part of it was left over from the programs Iraq was running prior to Gulf War I. Perhaps some of each grade. :shrug:

In any case, it was under 24 hour UN guard. Hussein could not get to it.

on edit:

I think LSK is correct below -- it was not enriched uranium. It was yellowcake. They never developed the means to enrich it.

[0rganism]

10. Well, he probably could have gotten to it if he'd wanted to

Not that it would have helped Saddam at all, since he'd only have a few hours with it before the rest of the UN brought the hammer down in unison. Clearly it wasn't even a consideration for his strategy.

[htuttle]

14. You can't do much with yellowcake in a few hours or days

Especially if you don't know what to do with it.

[benburch]

23. It would take at least several years.

Especially if you had to hide it!

[moc]

24. Pretty sure most of it was not enriched.

i.e., yellow cake. That's why the "Iraq is seeking yellow cake" claim made no sense.

There was a very long diary on this on DKos a month or so ago. Unfortunately, I don't have a link.

[Canuckistanian]

27. Not enriched, not even processed

It needed a lot of processing to get it back to a metallic state even before enriching it.

And Saddam had none of those facilities.

[Garbo 2004]

22. Re: Tuwaitha, from globalsecurity.org:

"Following the 1991 Gulf War, the International Atomic Energy Agency removed all known Iraqi stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, in accordance with the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 687. As of 2002 the only positively confirmed nuclear material left in Iraq is 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium and several tons of natural and depleted uranium. The material is in a locked storage site at the Tuwaitha nuclear research facility near Baghdad. Under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, this stock of material is checked once a year by an IAEA team. The most recent check was in January 2002, and none of the material had been tampered with at that time." Full article here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/tuwaitha.htm

May 2003 article on US failure to secure nuclear facilities, looting, locals suffering from radiation sickness and US not yet allowing the IAEA back into Iraq: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/05/11/wirq111.xml/

In July 2004 the US announced that in June 2004 it had removed the low grade uranium from Tuwaitha and brought it back to US. Not much of a "find" considering they always knew it was there and under IAEA watch until the 2003 invasion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32195-2004Jul6.html

[oneighty]

3. Your antagonist

makes the claim. It is his to prove not yours to disprove.

Ask about the weight of one piece/package/ of the offensive material and so on. Also where is it stored? Get details.

180

[BOSSHOG]

13. Hello 180

Wouldn't ya like to double team some of these bastards? Hey liberal, hussein has nuclear weapons, prove me wrong. Yo dumbass I got a nuclear weapon in its hangar right here. I think the kids are getting feisty; I think we can help.

[oneighty]

30. Hey at you too

BOSSHOG.

Whenever I hear talk about various countries having or going to have nuclear weapons I am reminded how years ago a college student claimed the ability be to build an atomic bomb with information gleaned from library books. Reader's Digest ran with the story and soon many believed it to be true and that one could indeed build their very own atomic bomb in their garage.

Certainly any country with plenty of time and money might be able to build a fission bomb from scratch. I stress might be able to. Not impossible as India, Pakistan, China and it is said Israel have done so and maybe too South Africa. And rumor has it those countries may have had technical assistance from countries already in possession of the technology and hands on know how.

180

We will see.

[LSK]

5. there was uranium in Iraq, not enriched

Unprocessed Uranium is called Yellowcake. When the UN Iraq in 98, there was tons of Yellowcake there that was locked up and sealed. When they returned in 2002, the same Yellowcake was there and was untouched. That means that Saddam had 4 years to do what he wished with the Yellowcake and did nothing with it. Do you know why??? Because he had NO TECHNOLOGY TO ENRICH URANIUM. This also proves that Saddam did not try and get Yellowcake from Niger.

This was posted on dailykos a few weeks ago.

[BrotherBuzz]

6. Spin...they were still miles from refining it to weapons grade.

No link, but the weapons inspectors were always aware of the stockpiled uranium. Inventoried, sealed, and all that. Half-truths, these freepers try to float.

[LSK]

8. not miles, light years

They had no technology to enrich it.

[BrotherBuzz]

11. LOL, but they ordered anodized aluminum tubes...

Why anodized, I haven't a clue.

:rofl:

[LSK]

17. cuz Walmart had a blowout sale!!!

:rofl:

[BrotherBuzz]

25. There you go...industrial grade Hoo Hoo tube Party Favors!

What is a Hoo Hoo tube, you ask? It's a cardboard tube that comes with paper towels, toilet paper, wrapping paper or what not. Why is it called Hoo Hoo tube? We run around like idiots yelling Hoo Hoo through the damn tubes - my son never tires of it (me, included).
:rofl:

[tridim]

18. And the tech to enrich it is measured in "Manhattan Project" scale

Oak Ridge National Lab is/was the largest manufacturing complex in the United States.

[LSK]

20. and inspectors spent most of the 90s destroying whatever he had

But lets not listen to Scott Ridder :sarcasm:

[BOSSHOG]

7. May I suggest that you allow

the lad to prove that hussein "had" tons of "bomb"-grade material. And allow him to explain in intricate detail what "bomb" grade means. Please ask him to tell you all about the efforts of Operations Southern and Northern Watch and their efforts in the 90's to neuter hussein and the great successes those operations had. And when doing so, look him in the eye, poke him in the chest and kick him in the ass. Its really quite easy. You are dealing with a coward who has been trained to think he is a bully. And as a little lagniappe (coon-ass for a little something extra) please ask him to share with you his military record. Betcha a beer such a record does not exist. If sources are good for you, why aren't they good for him?

[MrModerate]

9. Given that you need about 50 kg per nuke . . .

If we're talking plutonium, "tons" would equal hundreds and hundreds of potential warheads.

Anyone seen hundreds of Iraqi nukes? And the facilities the size of Hanford and Savannah River put together to process 'em?

Tons and tons of radioactive waste, maybe (with which -- to be fair -- you can make a pretty nasty "dirty bomb"), but weapons grade material in the tons? I think not.

[1620rock]

16. He must have been referring to..

...the tons and tons of "depleted" uranium from our warheads that is poisoning the population and causing still births and hideous birth defects. :eyes:

[MrModerate]

19. Ah, yes -- the gift that keeps on giving . . .

. . . for 25,000 years.

[Terran]

12. Your point that the Bushies would have been crowing about it

is possibly one of your best refutations, because you're certainly right. It's just common sense that if such a thing were remotely true, they would have pounded that into the public's mind a million times over. Ergo, since they did no such thing, it ain't true.

[TNOE]

15. Tell him to go read this article:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/24/182733/96

[LSK]

29. this is a very good read n/t

[tocqueville]

21. check the IAEA protocolls

I think that Saddam had at most 40 kgs (80 pounds) of enriched uranium (almost weapon-grade) efter perfectly LEGAL purchases in Brazil and Italy. 1 ton = 1000 kg.

Everything was stopped by the Gulf War and later removed 1994 and at that time all the major enrichment facilities were dismantled.

How Saddam managed between 1994-2003 (under embargo) to smuggle hundreds of tons of yellowcake into Iraq and enrich them in destroyed facilities remains a mystery.


http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iraq/Nuclear/2121_3292.html

[Boo Boo]

26. Sources? You must be joking.

Your Freeper friend is the one making the claims, so he is the one that needs to provide "sources." See how that works?

Tons of enriched uranium would be impossible to hide; if it was there, Dirty Dick and Dastardly Don would have provided irrefutable proof a long, long time ago.

Perhaps you should just tell this person that he's confusing depleted uranium with enriched uranium. There's undoubtedly "tons" of depleted uranium in Iraq.

[pocket]

28. links right here!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3872201.stm