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| Axis of Evil |
| Uranium Seized In Turkey |
| 2002-09-28 |
| More than 15kg of weapons-grade uranium has been seized in Turkey. Paramilitary police found the chemicals - worth $5m on the black market - in a taxi in the southern province of Sanliurfa, which borders Syria and is about 155 miles from Iraq. It was held in a lead container hidden beneath the vehicle's seat. We can probably launch any time now... America and Britain has insisted Iraq could produce a nuclear bomb within a year if it could obtain fissile material from abroad. Like weapons-grade uranium... The find is likely to be seized upon by both countries who are pressing for a military strike on Iraq to end its alleged nuclear weapons programme. "Our investigation on whether the uranium was destined for a neighbouring country is continuing," a Sanliurfa police official was quoted as saying. "SÌkrÌ, don't hit him there! He'll get cancer or something... Well, guess it doesn't matter, does it? Heh heh." Authorities believe the uranium came from an east European country, Turkish news agency Anatolian reported. Which one? Not... Ukraine? Mr Powell would probably like to talk to them about that, too... Police in Istanbul seized more than 1kg of weapons-grade uranium last November that had been smuggled into Turkey from an east European nation. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #6 Steve, it's worse than that. All he really needs is enough to make one working bomb. After that, he can bluff. |
| Posted by: Kathy K 2002-09-29 04:58:56 |
| #5 Steve DenBeste, as always, has an article on-point to Joe's question. Borrowing from his analysis, Saddam would prefer to have about ten working devices. Say each one needs about 15 kg of fissable material. So that's 150 kg needed to implement a strategy. What strategy? Simple. Explode one bomb underground. Every seismometer in the world will notice. Then Saddam tells the world, "I get what I want or I set off one of my many, many bombs in San Antonio, or Milan, or Liverpool." What intelligent western leader would call his bluff? What American would? Sure, we can turn Iraq into obsideon, but the consequences to us -- losing a single city -- is more than we could bear. DenBeste notes the psychological power of deterrence in the classic case of a person driving a new, shiny Jaguar in a street confrontation with a person driving a rusty Pinto. The Pinto wins every time. All Saddam needs is a Pinto. He needs a couple hundred kilos of U-235. Test one bomb to prove that their bomb works, and use the rest to intimidate the world. It will work, and unfortunately it's what the Ed Asners of the world are missing. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-09-28 14:55:05 |
| #4 You should understand that I'm repeating this at, at best, secondhand or thirdhand - "friend of a friend" stuff, so take with a couple of large grains of salt until confirmation can be obtained - but comments I've read on other blogs which are discussing this incident say that (1) the Iraqis already _have_ the nuclear devices built, they just need the fissile materials; and (2) according to DEBKA or some such source (see what I mean about grains of salt?), there are at least two teams of Iraqi agents on the loose in Europe searching for sources for said fissile material. All that being said, though, I had a really ugly thought. The Turks intercepted one 15kg shipment of uranium, just about enough for one implosion-type weapon (though not nearly enough for a more primitive "gun" type weapon, such as we used on Japan). We really have no guarantee at all (and this is the ugly thought) that that was the _only_ shipment of weapons-grade uranium. _How many more did manage to get through_??? |
| Posted by: Joe 2002-09-28 14:29:37 |
| #3 We don't know that Mr. Hussein would use it to make a weapon....maybe he'll use it for the public good. President Bush needs to depoliticize seizures of weapons grade uranium and let the U.N. inspections have a chance..yadda yadda yadda |
| Posted by: Tom Daschle 2002-09-28 11:47:46 |
| #2 I understand it takes about 15 kilos to make a nuke. Smaller quantities could be used in "dirty bombs"... |
| Posted by: Fred 2002-09-28 11:35:23 |
| #1 So now we have to think: How much does he have? Should conventional forces be sent into Iraq, in face of WMD? What do the National Security Act Directives (which impose a functional role on the President) order here? Holy S#$%!!! |
| Posted by: Allah the Dog Faced God 2002-09-28 10:38:56 |