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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums‘Low Grade’ Nuclear Material Is Seized by Rebels in Iraq, U.N. Says
LONDON Iraq has notified the United Nations that Sunni militants seized nuclear material from a university in the northern city of Mosul last month as they advanced toward Baghdad, the nuclear regulatory body of the United Nations said on Thursday.
Gill Tudor, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is based in Vienna, said in a statement that the organizations experts believed that the material thought to be uranium was low grade and would not present a significant safety, security or nuclear proliferation risk.
Word of the seizure first emerged in a letter to the United Nations dated Tuesday and seen by reporters from Reuters, which quoted it as saying that terrorists from the insurgent Islamic State in Iraq and Syria had taken control of the materials.
The letter said that almost 90 pounds of uranium compounds had been kept at the university and that the materials can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, Reuters said.
The mention of such weapons has a resonance in Iraq, where the American-led invasion of 2003 was justified in Washington and London by assertions that Saddam Hussein, the leader at the time, had acquired weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found by the invading forces.
In her statement on Thursday, Ms. Tudor said the atomic energy agency is aware of the notification from Iraq and is in contact to seek further details.
She said experts did not believe that the material could be fashioned into a weapon. Nevertheless, the statement said, any loss of regulatory control over nuclear and other radioactive materials is a cause for concern.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/world/middleeast/iraq.html?_r=0
Oh FFS.
Response to morningfog (Original post)
Turbineguy This message was self-deleted by its author.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction
and
experts did not believe that the material could be fashioned into a weapon
Got it. I'm scared. No I'm not. Yes I am. No I'm not.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)but not death?
Probably the usual crappy reporting then?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Which is why it was just sitting there in a university. The reporting is part of the drum roll as far as I can tell. We've seen this movie before.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)Or worse: something to act upon.