US probes into missing cobalt in Iraq

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F6540CCF-CFB3-45D3-89F2-1E10BDE84B17.htm


The US occupation forces are investigating what they call the looting of two capsules of radioactive cobalt from a testing site outside Baghdad that was in use under former ruler Saddam Hussein.

The capsules, the size of soda cans with small amounts of cobalt-60 - used in X-ray machines and other medical and industrial applications, were stolen in September and found two weeks later in nearby villages, the The New York Times said on Tuesday.

A 30-year-old Iraqi man and a four-year-old boy were found to have symptoms of radiation sickness in one of the villages, the paper quoted officials as saying.

One of the capsules was discovered less than five metres from where a family had their clay oven to bake bread.


US military commanders are certain the villagers looted the testing site to get scrap metal and not to use or sell the cobalt, which can be used to make "dirty bombs."

<snip>
But, by God, we secured the oil ministry and fields without a hitch.

[maddezmom]

1. anything in the US press? n/t

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

2. By NYT reporter John Burns:

AMIRIYA, Iraq - An apparent lapse in surveillance by U.S. forces has led to the looting of dangerously radioactive capsules from Saddam Hussein's main testing site in the desert outside Baghdad and the identification of at least one 30-year-old Iraqi villager, and possibly a village boy, as suffering from radiation sickness.

The capsules, taken from a site once used by Saddam's government to test the effects of radiation on animals and perhaps humans, have since been recovered after a wide American sweep through the area.

But U.S. officers fear that more cases of the sickness may follow, and that they will be powerless to help unless people in the villages of Amiriya and Shamiya break their silence and identify men who looted the desert site in early September.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the American commander in Iraq, has ordered an investigation to discover why an arc of eight 75-foot radioactive testing poles at the site was not more closely guarded after U.S. nuclear experts filed a report to the Pentagon identifying them as dangerous in a visit to the site May 9, officers said.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has taken a personal interest in the case.

<snip>

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/7345121.htm

[Mikimouse]

3. We need to know exactly what these sources

were used for. There is a contradiction between the two news sources.
"The capsules, the size of soda cans with small amounts of cobalt-60 - used in X-ray machines and other medical and industrial applications, were stolen in September and found two weeks later in nearby villages, the The New York Times said on Tuesday"

The first says 'small amounts', while the second says dangerous amounts. Cobalt 60 is often used for radiation therapy, and those sources are physically small, but in terms of activity, are huge, by comparison to diagnostic sources. We need to know exactly how much activity they are talking about, in terms of megabequerels. Sometimes these types of stories are published and later it turns out that the writer had no clue about the nature or activity of the source. This is very fishy.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

4. UPI's story basically rewords the NYT story...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- The New York Times reports a case of radiation sickness in Iraq has triggered an investigation into how two capsules containing cobalt were stolen.

The capsules were first stolen from Saddam Hussein's main battlefield testing site in the desert outside Baghdad, but have since been recovered by U.S. troops in a security sweep, the Times reported Tuesday.

But at least one 30-year-old Iraqi villager, and possibly a boy, have radiation sickness.
<snip>

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20031125-074232-5331r.htm

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

7. Further info: Soldiers try to test Iraqis for radiation exposure

http://www.wcnc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D7V1RHR00.html


When Iyad Anad looted a stainless steel cylinder from an Iraqi army base, he thought he was getting an irrigation pipe for his farm. Instead, he risked contaminating himself with radiation.

"All the other people took cars and furniture. My luck was to lay my hands on a radioactive capsule," the 30-year-old farmer said, chuckling.

But Anad and others who have come into contact with the radioactive materials are distrustful of the Americans, and that has complicated efforts to test them for exposure to the potentially deadly cobalt inside the cylinders.

A U.S. military team specializing in weapons of mass destruction notified troops of the 82nd Airborne Division in October that two radioactive cobalt cylinders were missing from Iraq's Chemical Corps Training Center outside Amiriyah, about 45 miles west of Baghdad.

Using aerial surveillance they located the two capsules, said Lt. Kevin Murray: one in a farmer's yard and the other near a house several miles away. The capsules had been looted from the base when it was abandoned at the end of the war.

"These people didn't know what they were messing with. They were just looting," said Murray, 25, of Philadelphia.

U.S. troops went to the two houses, but were told the owners weren't home, Murray said. Neighbors wouldn't provide names or say when the owners would return.

"They were afraid we would take them to jail," Murray said.

Abdelsalam Maneh, an Army translator, said nobody would provide information, even when the soldiers warned a pregnant woman in one of the houses that the cobalt could harm her baby.

"Everyone said they didn't know his name. Even his wife refused to give his name," he said. "They told them, `No one is going to jail. We just want to test the guys.'"
<snip>

Seems as if we don't have the best reputation over there.

[Barrett808]

5. Oh, eight capsules? What about all seven looted sites at Tuwaitha?

Bush only allowed the IAEA to inspect one site, and then only after weeks of pressure. IAEA inspectors were not allowed to check the local population for contamination.

There is no innocent explanation for this. And they have the gall to say they're concerned about these capsules?

In a measure of how concerned the Americans were when they reached the two villages to recover the capsules, the officers described how an American soldier wearing no protective equipment approached the capsule, mounted atop a 60-pound steel counterweight, ran with it and "heaved it over the fence, 100 feet from the house."

Bah.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. After seven months these are finally noticed?

<snip>
The two houses where the cobalt 60 capsules were found were identified after U.S. Black Hawk helicopters fitted with powerful radiation detectors flew wide patterns across the desert near the testing site, the officers said.
<snip>


I would think that if we were really there looking for WMD, that these two items would have been found before,