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U.S. Allows Iraqi Nuclear Sites to be Looted
BUZZFLASH
READER COMMENTARY
by Eric Arnow
To the Editor:
Why is the media not emphasizing the story of the looting of the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre in Iraq?
We just killed 5000-10,000 Iraqi civilians over alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction. Yet, the first thing our forces did in the invasion was to secure the Iraqi Oil fields, and the Ministry of oil.
Virtually everything else was allowed by our forces to be looted, including this known storage site for uranium and other radiological materials.
If the Administration was so worried about dirty bombs, doesn't it make sense that the FIRST place to secure would be Iraq's nuclear materials?
Yet, rather than US troops securing six such sites and preventing looters from taking the materials, they instead confiscated a video tape of a Reuters journalist who was attempting to document the scene. According to Reuters, local people were emptying barrels containing uranium and selling them for $2-3 apiece.
But this report raises serious questions about the competence and sincerity of US Government efforts to prevent the development of dirty bombs. The International Atomic Energy Agency had monitored this site for years, so as to prevent its use by Iraq for weapons development.
Look, a US citizen, Jose Padilla has been stripped of his civil rights for THINKING of building such a bomb, yet our forces secured the oil fields, rather than this obvious target of terrorists. Now the military is limiting the IAEA in its investigation.
Donald Rumsfeld said that the idea that the war against Iraq was about oil is a myth (his exact word), yet we secure the oil, but not the dirty bomb material. Actions speak louder than words. The press should be all over this. Where are you?
Get over it. The war was about stealing a sovereign nation's oil, not weapons of mass destruction.
Eric Arnow
BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
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