"The irony is that the Tuwaitha facility south of Baghdad already possessed yellow cake uranium. Between 1980 and 1982, Iraq procured more than 400 tons of yellowcake from Portugal and Niger which remained in a storage complex close to Tuwaitha. [13] [14] The facility and its yellowcake were monitored and frequently inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency after the 1991 Gulf War. About 1.8 metric tons of "yellow cake" and 500 tons of unrefined uranium went missing as the Iraqis left Tuwaitha unattended during the war.[15]When the facility was first encountered by U.S. Marines, they thought they had stumbled upon an illegal weapons cache; according to nuclear experts, however, they actually wound up breaking the IAEA seals that are "designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use or end up in the wrong hands."" Wiki
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I wonder how many people realize that Saddam's government possessed 550 tons of yellowcake HEU at the time that the Bush Administration claimed that he was trying to buy more from Niger. The USMC reached the store of yellocake at Tuwaitha during the invasion. As it says above, the material was still secured by IAEA seals.
I was reminded of this when reading "The Italian Letter" in which Paul Pillar, the NIO at that time is quoted to that effect.
The reason all that "mild" uranium was unused was that the Iraq of the '90s lacked the ability to do anything with it.
Think About IT!!
pl
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