<font color="#ffccff"> Ummm ?
<font color=deeppink>
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OPERATION: IRAQI FREEDOM
Marines find underground nuke complex
Captain guarding facility: 'How did the world miss all of this?'

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Posted: April 9, 2003
7:00 p.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

U.S. Marines have located an underground nuclear complex near Baghdad that apparently went unnoticed by U.N. weapons inspectors.

Hidden beneath the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission's Al-Tuwaitha facility, 18 miles south of the capital, is a vast array of warehouses and bombproof offices that could contain the "smoking gun" sought by intelligence agencies, reported the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"I've never seen anything like it, ever," said Marine Capt. John Seegar. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"

Marine nuclear and intelligence experts say that at least 14 buildings at Al-Tuwaitha indicate high levels of radiation and some show lethal amounts of nuclear residue, according to the Pittsburgh daily. The site was examined numerous times by U.N. weapons inspectors, who found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

Marine combat engineers guard Iraqi Atomic Energy Department (Carl Prine/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

"They went through that site multiple times, but did they go underground? I never heard anything about that," said physicist David Albright, a former International Atomic Energy Agency inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997.

In a 1999 report, Albright said, "Iraq developed procedures to limit access to these buildings by IAEA inspectors who had a right to inspect the fuel fabrication facility."

"On days when the inspectors were scheduled to visit, only the fuel fabrication rooms were open to them," he said in the report, written with Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear engineer who defected in 1994. "Usually, employees were told to take to their rooms so that the inspectors did not see an unusually large number of people."

Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist, said radiation levels were particularly high at a place near the complex where local residents say the "missile water" is stored in mammoth caverns.

"It's amazing," Flick said. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."

Noting that the ground in the area is muddy and composed of clay, Hamza was surprised to learn of the Marines' discovery, the Tribune-Review said. He wondered if the Iraqis went to the colossal expense of pumping enough water to build the subterranean complex because no reasonable inspector would think anything might be built underground there.

"Nobody would expect it," Hamza said. "Nobody would think twice about going back there."

Michael Levi of the Federation of American Scientists said the Iraqis continued rebuilding the Al-Tuwaitha facility after weapons inspections ended in 1998.

"I do not believe the latest round of inspections included anything underground, so anything you find underground would be very suspicious," said Levi. "It sounds absolutely amazing."

The Pittsburgh paper said nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians, housed in a plush neighborhood near the campus, have fled, along with Baathist party loyalists.

"It's going to take some very smart people a very long time to sift through everything here," said Flick. "All this machinery. All this technology. They could do a lot of very bad things with all of this."

Marine Capt. Seegar said his unit will continue to hold the nuclear site until international authorities can take over. Last night, they monitored gun and artillery battles by U.S. Marines against Iraqi Republican Guards and Fedayeen terrorists.

The offices underground are replete with videos and pictures that indicate the complex was built largely over the last four years, the Tribune-Review said.

Iraq began to develop its nuclear program at Al-Tuwaitha in the 1970s, according to the Institute for Science and International Security. Israel destroyed a French-built reactor there in 1981, called "Osiraq," and a reactor built by the Russians was destroyed during the 1991 Gulf War.

In testimony before Congress last August, Hamza – the architect of Iraq's atom bomb program – said that if left unchecked, Iraq could have had nuclear weapons by 2005.

Edit to remove advertisments.</font></font>

[ 04-10-2003, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

<font color=skyblue>Picks jaw up from floor...

I love Israel!

That is about all I can say.
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Sounds like a plant to me.

<font color=orange>That brought a good chuckle! Good one!!! :D </font>

I saw some video footage of this discovery earlier today.
Pretty effin' scary!
FOX news is interviewing a reporter with the Marines guarding it right now.

Giggles hysterically.
Of course the IAEA weren't carrying geiger counters - they don't do nuclear stuff...

<font color = lightgreen>Certainly sounds suspicious, but the only way inspectors could miss this would be if they were never allowed there or the sight was cleaned before visits. I'll wait for some more corroborating evidence, which could take months.</font>

It was all underground...the inspectors "never saw" any underground facilities.
You are right to wait for more evidence though. Even though "radioactive readings went off the scale in as many as 14 of the underground buildings", whether it is one of the many "smoking guns" expected to be uncovered has yet to be proven.

<font color="#ffccff">The Inter National Atomic Energy Agency doesn't do nuclear stuff?

Edit: one would wonder what an Atomic Energy group WOULD do....</font>

[ 04-11-2003, 08:48 AM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

Strange that this isn't reported in my newspaper. If it's true than I would have thought it would have been on the front page.

Oh dear!! Lookie what I found! ;)

Experts say U.S. `discovery' of nuclear materials in Iraq was breach of U.N.-monitored site
By William J. Kole, Associated Press, 4/10/2003 19:43

VIENNA, Austria (AP) American troops who suggested they uncovered evidence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq unwittingly may have stumbled across known stocks of low-grade uranium, officials said Thursday. They said the U.S. troops may have broken U.N. seals meant to keep control of the radioactive material.

Leaders of a U.S. Marine Corps combat engineering unit claimed earlier this week to have found an underground network of laboratories, warehouses and bombproof offices beneath the closely monitored Tuwaitha nuclear research center just south of Baghdad.

The Marines said they discovered 14 buildings at the site which emitted unusually high levels of radiation, and that a search of one building revealed ''many, many drums'' containing highly radioactive material. If documented, such a discovery could bolster Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weaponry.

Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owens, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said officials there have not heard anything through military channels about a Marine inspection at Tuwaitha.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspected the Tuwaitha nuclear complex at least two dozen times and maintains a thick dossier on the site, had no immediate comment.

But an expert familiar with U.N. nuclear inspections told The Associated Press that it was implausible to believe that U.S. forces had uncovered anything new at the site. Instead, the official said, the Marines apparently broke U.N. seals designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use or end up in the wrong hands.

''What happened apparently was that they broke IAEA seals, which is very unfortunate because those seals are integral to ensuring that nuclear material doesn't get diverted,'' the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Army Times, meanwhile, reported that troops with the 101st Airborne Division have unearthed 11 shipping containers, filled with sophisticated lab equipment, buried at a chemical plant in Karbala. It said the equipment's value and evidence that some of it may have been smuggled into Iraq raised suspicions that the facility had been used to manufacture chemical weapons.

U.N. arms inspectors visited a facility in the immediate vicinity of the chemical plant Feb. 23, but did not find the buried equipment. Officials at the U.S. Central Command suggested that no conclusions should be drawn.

Several tons of low-grade uranium has been stored at Tuwaitha, Iraq's principle nuclear research center and a site that has been under IAEA safeguards for years, the official said. The Iraqis were allowed to keep the material because it was unfit for weapons use without costly and time-consuming enrichment.

Tuwaitha contains 1.8 tons of low-grade enriched uranium and several tons of natural and depleted uranium.

The uranium was inspected by the U.N. nuclear agency twice a year and was kept under IAEA seal at least until early this week, when the Marines seized control of the site.

The U.N. nuclear agency's inspectors have visited Tuwaitha about two dozen times, including a dozen checks carried out since December, most recently on Feb. 6. It was among the first sites that IAEA inspectors sought out after the resumption of inspections on Nov. 27 after a nearly four-year break.

On at least one occasion, inspectors with special mountaineering training went underground there to have a look around, according to IAEA documents.

David Kay, a former IAEA chief nuclear inspector, said Thursday that the teams he oversaw after the 1991 Gulf War never found an underground site at Tuwaitha despite persistent rumors.

''But underground facilities by definition are very hard to detect,'' he said. ''When you inspect a place so often, you get overconfident about what you know. It would have been very easy for the inspectors to explain away any excessive radiation at Tuwaitha. The Iraqis could have hidden something clandestine in plain sight.''

American intelligence analysts said before the U.S.-led campaign began that new structures photographed at Tuwaitha might indicate a revival of weapons work. IAEA inspectors checked but found nothing.

The Tuwaitha complex, run by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission on a bend in the Tigris River about 18 miles south of Baghdad, was the heart of Saddam's former nuclear program and was involved in the final design of a nuclear bomb before Iraq's nuclear program was destroyed by U.N. teams after the 1991 Gulf War.

The IAEA, charged with the hunt for evidence of a nuclear program in Iraq, told the Security Council just before the war that it had uncovered no firm evidence that Saddam was renewing efforts to add nuclear weapons to his arsenal.

IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, clearly wary of any coalition claims, said this week that any alleged discoveries of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would have to be verified by U.N. inspectors ''to generate the required credibility.''

ElBaradei said the inspectors should return as soon as possible, subject to Security Council guidance, to resume their search for banned arms.

We're seeing this side of the story too. It's not like our media is controlled.

I'll treat the above story the same as stories from an opposite perspective and wait for proof to determine what is what.

[ 04-11-2003, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Lil Lil ]

But an expert familiar with U.N. nuclear inspections told The Associated Press that it was implausible to believe that U.S. forces had uncovered anything new at the site. Instead, the official said, the Marines apparently broke U.N. seals designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use or end up in the wrong hands.

''What happened apparently was that they broke IAEA seals, which is very unfortunate because those seals are integral to ensuring that nuclear material doesn't get diverted,'' the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
*Note use of the word "apparently"

David Kay, a former IAEA chief nuclear inspector, said Thursday that the teams he oversaw after the 1991 Gulf War never found an underground site at Tuwaitha despite persistent rumors.
*Note the use of the word "never"

''But underground facilities by definition are very hard to detect,'' he said. ''When you inspect a place so often, you get overconfident about what you know. It would have been very easy for the inspectors to explain away any excessive radiation at Tuwaitha. The Iraqis could have hidden something clandestine in plain sight.''

*Alternitive theory that just as easily been used for the headline

[ 04-11-2003, 07:35 PM: Message edited by: John D Harris ]

Gotta love them subtitles :D :D :D

On a more serious note - I do expect us to find a smoking gun in the coming days. Just hope that there is some serious cross checking of facts before that next media release happens, because there have been a few incidents lately (Sarin and this one) that don't do a lot to inspire the world's confidence in our claims.

Hmmm, the USMC broke IAEA seals? I'd credit the Marines with more brains than that, since I'd expect the seals to have some form of UN/IAEA logo or similar identification.

Quite possibly - but would your average marine reqocnize them - I doubt it. I certainly don't know the IAEA logo.

So - I've been away for the weekend, who was right in this case, the Worldnetdaily news report or the left wing biased Associated Press report?

Sounds like the IAEA just didn't look hard eniugh. Maybe we should be inspecting them, because I think money has been changing hands here.

[ 04-14-2003, 10:04 AM: Message edited by: khazadman ]

Nope, no money changed hands yet...the Russians are billions of dollars in the hole over lost contracts now that Saddam is gone. Together with France and Germany, their total losses amount to over 100 bilion dollars.

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I was out for the weekend too...who? </font>

Quite possibly - but would your average marine reqocnize them - I doubt it. I certainly don't know the IAEA logo.</font>[/QUOTE]Whether an average Marine would recognize the stuff does not matter. The clearing unit was an Engineer unit. They are familiar with all kinds of construction and hazardous material. They even have NBC specialists to handle NBC hazards. While I don't know the IAEA logo - since the HAZMAT was Radiological, it would have to have been labeled with the INTERNATIONAL symbol for radiological hazards. I know that that symbol is part of NBC training for all US forces. Troops are trained to not go near those symbols - let the NBC experts handle it.