Troops Had "No Directive" to Guard Iraqi Nuclear Site

[Stephanie]

This story refutes Bush's LIES about Al Qaqaa.

Bush must tell us WHEN exactly they gave the order to secure these known weapons sites.

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http://www.msnbc.com/news/912073.asp
WMDs for the Taking?
While U.S. troops pushed on to Baghdad, Iraqis were looting radioactive materials from once protected sites
By Rod Nordland
NEWSWEEK

May 19 <2003>issue — From the very start, one of the top U.S. priorities in Iraq has been the search for weapons of mass destruction. Weren’t WMDs supposed to be what the war was about? Even so, no one has yet produced conclusive evidence that Iraq was maintaining a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) arsenal.

<snip>

Some of the lapses are frightening. The well-known Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, had nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes, when International Atomic Energy Agency officials made their last visit in January. By the time U.S. troops arrived in early April, armed guards were holding off looters—but the Americans only disarmed the guards, Al Tuwaitha department heads told NEWSWEEK. “We told them, ‘This site is out of control. You have to take care of it’,” says Munther Ibrahim, Al Tuwaitha’s head of plasma physics. “The soldiers said, ‘We are a small group. We cannot take control of this site’.” As soon as the Americans left, looters broke in. The staff fled; when they returned, the containment vaults’ seals had been broken, and radioactive material was everywhere.

U.S. officers say the center had already been ransacked before their troops arrived. They didn’t try to stop the looting, says Colonel Madere, because “there was no directive that said do not allow anyone in and out of this place.” Last week American troops finally went back to secure the site. Al Tuwaitha’s scientists still can’t fully assess the damage; some areas are too badly contaminated to inspect. “I saw empty uranium-oxide barrels lying around, and children playing with them,” says Fadil Mohsen Abed, head of the medical-isotopes department. Stainless-steel uranium canisters had been stolen. Some were later found in local markets and in villagers’ homes. “We saw people using them for milking cows and carrying drinking water,” says Ibrahim. The looted materials could not make a nuclear bomb, but IAEA officials worry that terrorists could build plenty of dirty bombs with some of the isotopes that may have gone missing. Last week NEWSWEEK visited a total of eight sites on U.N. weapons-inspection lists. Two were guarded by U.S. troops. Armed looters were swarming through two others. Another was evidently destroyed many years ago. American forces had not yet searched the remaining three.

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http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6068775.htm
Looting of Iraqi nuclear facility indicts U.S. goals
If we feared the loss of radioactive materials, why not guard them?
TRUDY RUBIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003

TUWAITHA, Iraq - On a dusty road, just outside of Baghdad, lies one of the great mysteries of the Iraq war.

<snip>

The administration knew full well what was stored at Tuwaitha. So how is it possible that the U.S. military failed to secure the nuclear facility until weeks after the war started? This left looters free to ransack the barrels, dump their contents, and sell them to villagers for storage.

How is it possible that, according to Iraqi nuclear scientists, looters are still stealing radioactive isotopes? The Tuwaitha story makes a mockery of the administration's vaunted concern with weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military hastened to secure the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad from looters. But Iraq's main nuclear facility was apparently not important enough to get similar protection.

<snip>

And why, in facilities other than Location C, is the looting apparently continuing? Hisham Abdel Malik, a Iraqi nuclear scientist who lives near Tuwaitha and has been inside the complex, told me that in buildings "where there are radioactive isotopes, there is looting every day." He says the isotopes, which are in bright silver containers, "are sold in the black market or kept in homes." According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, such radioactive sources can kill on contact or pollute whole neighborhoods.

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[Beam Me Up]

1. The neoCONS need a justification for tactical nuclear war in the ME

A nuke attack of any kind on US assets here or abroad can easily be blamed on 'terrorists' justifying an all out tactical nuclear war in the ME.

[Stephanie]

2. Cheney says it all the time.

He's always threatening nuclear attacks on American cities. If he were honestly concerned, he would have prevented the looting.

[BeFree]

3. Scenario

Someone in the pentagon had to have considered sending troops to protect these weapon stashes and nuclear dumps. As the suggestion moved up the line someone else had to quash it. So there is a higher authority who is responsible for the error. It is not a matter of they forgot. Someone had to have made sure these sites were not protected.

We all witnessed the seemly lack of a plan for Iraq. IMO there was a plan all along and that plan was to make Iraq into a hell-hole as quickly as possible. They succeded.

Deep within the bowels of the pentagon there is a staff officer who has the can of worms holding the secrets to Al-qaaqaa. Who is he/she?

[ClintonTyree]

5. Every General involved.............

said it would take "at least several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq after the invasion". Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld held on to the opinion that it could be done with 50,000 troops. They compromised on around 130,000, but the Generals did it under protest. That's why there were so many "early retirements" and "reassignments" shortly before and after the invasion. The neo-cons thought they knew best and disregarded the military. What you see now is the result of that arrogance.There were just not enough troops deployed to secure all of these sites not to mention the museums etc. That Ministry of Oil and the oil fields themselves were sure guarded well though.

[Beam Me Up]

7. I agree. Someone KNOWS OF TREASON.

That someone should come forward and TESTIFY w/ evidence of TREASON against forces of the UNITED STATES. That someone had also better watch his/her back and be very selective in who she/he reports to.

[Beam Me Up]

4. Yes, this is what they WANT.

Imagine what would happen of only ONE thermonuclear device is detonated in a US city, anywhere in the country. Horrible, horrible, horrible. News media will make endless 24/7 broadcast of the death, devastation, misery and suffering for weeks on end. The whole WORLD will be shown this ugly, ugly thing. And who will be blamed for it? Certainly not the reTHUGS or the neoCONS! The drums of war will beat louder than ever and everyone will say, pull out the stops! EYE FOR AN EYE, etc. This will give them the justification for anything they want -- full military draft if need be.

This MUST BE STOPPED, agent MIKE, are you listening? You GUYS and your counterparts have to STOP this decent into HELL!

[soup]

6. Remember seeing pictures of this.

Horrifying. Children playing - people taking the containers to use for their family's water storage.

Can't find them on this computer, they were either lost when the hard drive took a dive, or on one of the older back-up comps, but have them saved somewhere.

Does anyone else have those? They speak more than a thousand words.

on edit: first link to MSNBC is opening to microsoft.com ??

[Stephanie]

8. I have them on some old threads but archives are closed

Here are a few from Greenpeace:

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http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/extra/?campaign_id=135724&forward_source_anchor=Tuwaitha&item_id=285993

http://www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/gallery-2?revision_id=284861

The Problem

When Iraq fell under US control on 9 April 2003, the occupying powers failed to properly secure Tuwaitha and other nuclear sites. Occupying forces also failed to conduct an inventory of materials at any of the sites.

Just one day later, on 10 April, the door of one storage area at Tuwaitha was found breached. US forces were requested by the IAEA to secure the storage facility sometime after April 11 but, by May 3 when US forces conducted a site survey, they were still letting scores of "workers" enter and take whatever they liked. Seven sites associated with Iraq's nuclear program have been visited by the Pentagon's special nuclear programs' teams since the war ended, and all showed signs of "looting".

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http://www.greenpeace.org/international_en/news/details?item_id=613590

http://www.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/gallery-2?revision_id=613587
Greenpeace documented looters in abandoned hangar at Tuwaitha nuclear centre in Iraq in June 2003.

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*edit* Sorry, the images won't post - they are at the link.

[Stephanie]

9. Awesome! Tuwaitha in the Boston Globe today!!!

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/10/27/eyewitness_to_a_failure_in_iraq/
Eyewitness to a failure in Iraq
By Peter W. Galbraith | October 27, 2004

<snip>

.... About the same time, looters entered the warehouses at Iraq's sprawling nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha on Baghdad's outskirts. They took barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere.

"There was nothing secret about the Disease Center or the Tuwaitha warehouses. Inspectors had repeatedly visited the center looking for evidence of a biological weapons program. The Tuwaitha warehouses included materials from Iraq's nuclear program, which had been dismantled after the 1991 Gulf War. The United Nations had sealed the materials, and they remained untouched until the US troops arrived."

<snip>

"Some of the looting continued for many months -- possibly into 2004. Using heavy machinery, organized gangs took apart, according to IAEA , 'entire buildings that housed high-precision equipment.' This equipment could be anywhere. But one good bet is Iran, which has had allies and agents in Iraq since shortly after the US-led forces arrived.

"This was a preventable disaster. Iraq's nuclear weapons-related materials were stored in only a few locations, and these were known before the war began. As even L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator in Iraq, now admits, the United States had far too few troops to secure the country following the fall of Saddam Hussein. But even with the troops we had, the United States could have protected the known nuclear sites. It appears that troops did not receive relevant intelligence about Iraq's WMD facilities, nor was there any plan to secure them. Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites."

[soup]

12. "Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites"

>According to witnesses, Allison's survey team reached both of these sites on April 10, the same day that ElBaradei cited them as the two most important for U.S. forces to protect. But because of continuing debate within the Bush administration over whether to enter without IAEA inspectors present, Allison received a hasty order to withdraw. When Allison was told to evacuate all U.S. personnel, including troops providing security at the perimeter, he grew agitated, witnesses said.

"Whoever gave that order better check his retirement plan, because if we leave this place open somebody is going to lose their job," he told an officer at the ground forces operations center of Central Command, according to two witnesses. Allison confirmed the gist of the conversation.<

>Daoud Awad, who ran the electrical design department at Tuwaitha, said in a brief interview that he "saw with my own eyes people carrying the containers we used to put radioactive materials in." The containers slightly resemble jugs commonly used for milk, he said, "and they didn't know what was inside."<

>"How could they leave a place like this without protection?" he asked. "It's not an ordinary place. It's too dangerous."<
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0510-01.htm

---
Thanks for the Greenpeace links.

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. This admin can be so cunning and so stupid at the same time. What

flip-floppers they are!

[Holikernsy]

11. Need help

Hi, I need help with and argument with someone who says there is absolutely no evidence that the explosives were taken while the soldiers were there. I know there is alot but what would be the best way to convince a freeper?

[Stephanie]

13. It doesn't matter when they were taken

The explosives were sealed and monitored by the UN weapons inspectors before the invasion. When Bush decided to invade, the inspectors were forced to leave.

You'll notice in my post above that the Iraqi guards were protecting the Tuwaitha site, but the U.S. soldiers disarmed them. They did not, however, stop the looting because they had no orders to do so.

[Karenina]

14. HALLO!

:hi: :loveya: :kick:

[Nordic]

16. yes and the point is we SUCCESSFULLY defended the oil ministry and the oil

wells.

But not this.

It's a monumental fuck-up.

Good work Stephanie

[newyawker99]

18. Hi Holikernsy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[NicRic]

15. Its to bad the media.....

will take whatever bushes spin on this is an report it as fact. You dont believe at this point in the game our lazy media would actually do the hard work of investigating and reporting the truth B/4 the election ! All you willl see on T.V. news is bush denoucing what Kerry is saying ,I've also noticed when I've seen the charges leveled by Kerry on this subject ,the bush response is at least twice as long ,allowing him to put more spin of the whole story to his favor of course ! If bush does win this election ,I will always look at the media as the great enabler, of a corrupt White House who's policies have and will continue to get alot of people killed , and all of us will be paying the higher cost of their misguided economic and milatary policies !

[Nordic]

17. YES! THAT is the #1 problem facing AMERICA today, and the WORLD!!

IMHO

[Stephanie]

19. They NEVER gave orders to guard these sites!

.