IAEA Says Iraq Likely Source of Uranium Oxide

[Vince]

Linkified[/url]]IAEA Says Iraq Likely Source of Material

Fri Jan 16,12:09 PM ET
By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press Writer

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The U.S. nuclear watchdog confirmed Friday that Iraq (news - web sites) was the likely source of radioactive material known as yellowcake that was found in a shipment of scrap metal at Rotterdam harbor.

Yellowcake, or uranium oxide, could be used to build a nuclear weapon, although it would take tons of the substance refined with sophisticated technology to harvest enough uranium for a single bomb.

A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the Rotterdam specimen was scarcely refined at all from natural uranium ore and may have come from a known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites).

"I wouldn't hype it too much," said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming. "It was a small amount and it wasn't being peddled as a sample."

The yellowcake was uncovered Dec. 16 by Rotterdam-based scrap metal company Jewometaal, which had received it in a shipment of scrap metal from a dealer in Jordan.

Company spokesman Paul de Bruin said the Jordanian dealer didn't know that the scrap metal contained any radioactive material. He said the dealer was confident the yellowcake, which was contained in a small steel industrial container, came from Iraq.

Jewometaal detected the radioactive material during a routine scan and called in the Dutch government, which in turn asked the IAEA to examine it.

Fleming said the agency will compare the chemical composition of the sample to other samples of ore taken from Iraq's al-Qaim mine, which was bombed in 1991 and dismantled in 1996-97.

She estimated that the Rotterdam sample contained around 5 1/2 pounds of uranium oxide.

President Bush (news - web sites) came under heavy criticism last year when he asserted in his State of the Union address that Iraq was shopping in Africa for uranium yellowcake — intelligence that turned out to be based on forged documents.

 

[Clashman]

I wonder why. Maybe this had something to do with it:

BAGHDAD -- Seven nuclear facilities in Iraq have been damaged or effectively destroyed by the looting that began in the first days of April, when U.S. ground forces thrust into Baghdad, according to U.S. investigators and others with detailed knowledge of their work. The Bush administration fears that technical documents, sensitive equipment and possibly radiation sources have been scattered.

If so, there are potentially significant consequences for public health and the spread of materials to build a nuclear or radiological bomb. President Bush had said the war was fought to prevent the spread of "the world's most dangerous weapons."

It is still not clear what has been lost in the sacking of Iraq's nuclear establishment. But it is well documented that looters roamed unrestrained among stores of chemical elements and scientific files that would speed development, in the wrong hands, of a nuclear or radiological bomb. Many of the files, and some of the containers that held radioactive sources, are missing.

 

[RussSchultz]

B-b-b-b-uuut I thought they didn't have a nuclear program!?

 

[Sazar]

you don't have to have a nuclear weapons programme in order to be able to produce the said substance... or to have it around

A spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said the Rotterdam specimen was scarcely refined at all from natural uranium ore and may have come from a known mine in Iraq that was active before the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites).

B-b-b-b-b-uuuut the article can be misleading if you wish it to be so

 

[Silent_One]

B-b-b-b-uuut I thought they didn't have a nuclear program!?

No Russ, They don't. And this,of course, was just for "scientific and chemical research", like other duel purpose chemicals