1999, 2000 Iraqi memos: Procurement of 50000 Aluminum Tubes That Can Be Used For URANIUM ENRICHMENT.

Pentagon/FMSO website for Iraq Pre-war documents ^ | April 24 2006 | jveritas

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Interesting thread and true....but they may yet eat their words:

Semi-News: Saddam Memos Called 'Old News' by Major Media

Course in this case it is not a confession letter but a simple memo involved with procuring 50,000 tubes of high quality aluminum....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well, I was just putting up links to documents that Shelayne had found....crdit due Shelayne.....She I presume.

[jveritas]

Great work Shelayne :)

[pittsburgh gop guy]

Corner bump!!!!!!!!

[headstamp]

Yes, that was a great show.

Didn't the inspectors back in 2002 or 03 pick up a certain residue when checking the Iranian plants that lead them to believe they were processing for weapons grade material?

[Marine_Uncle]

"Now look at this:
SPECIFICATION: AL-ZN-MG-CU 215/ NO. 7075
We have an alloy with Zinc, Magnesium, Copper and aluminum...and of course Thickness = 3.3 mm
Isn't 3.3 mm a bit thin? And why the ingredients in the alloy?"

No according to what I am reading in the document I mentioned.
The alloyed tubing has a pretty high tensile strength as well as the fact it is a tube, so it will not bend quite so easily. The document blaster88 provides in this post, goes into all kinds of details as how intricate building such a system is. But that deviates from your question. Apparenntly this particular alloyed mix in tube form is sufficient for use in the system being discussed with the wall thickness specified. We have to remember, if it was used in the rotary parts of the unit it would have to be very light weight.
At any rate. It sure sounds like these tubes where really intended for use in centrifugal equipment and not as a rocket. Like some have indicated, why would one need such a high tensil strength tube for a small rocket that only had to travel a few miles. It would be pure waste of money.
They where waiting for sanctions to be lifted and get back into the swing of things both nuclear as well as biochemical.

[Marine_Uncle]

"FROM what planet did you parachute into here?"
heheh. Go getem Erny.

[jw777]

I don't recall that, but I was very intrigued when they showed how Khans ingenious process of cutting out several steps by using smaller tubes and how the show actually mentioned Iran and what we assume their enrichment facility looks like. I cannot find the name of that Show on the net. I have been looking for a couple hours.

[usmcobra]

if my Mark I eyeball is correct these enrightment tubes from Libya share the same ration of dimensions as the Iraqi specifications I.E: 81mm by 900mm or roughly one wide by ten widths long.

Anyone of You math whizes think you can figure out the exact dimensions using the 2x4 in the box as a reference point. I don't do metric math that well.

[Shelayne]

Thanks for doing the links for me. I seem to be a little "technologically repressed". LOL.

Yes, I am a SHE. :^)

[RayRobisonblog]

FYI, from what I read these type of tubes were used in the past (this specification but I don't think the same aluminum alloy) as the housing of a rocket. The missile body frame. Nothing to do with artillery as a launcher of a projectile and nothing to do with a missile launching platform, just the rocket itself, from what I read.

[Shelayne]

:^) My pleasure.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Get those boys working on the technology....

[freema]

Ping to #169

[freema]

Thanks, pinged it to Zeppo and jveritas.

[headstamp]

This it?

http://times.discovery.com/tvlistings/episode.jsp?episode=0&cpi=115528&gid=0&channel=DTC

[jw777]

YEAH> I think that was the program. Excellent. I'm glad someone else saw it.

[blaster88]

We are really having the argument that was in the 2002 NIE - whether Saddam was buying the tubes i beyond question - we knew that he was because we intercepted the shipments in transit. We knew who they came from, we knew where t€hey were going, we knew the amounts, the price, the specs - all of that. The Iraqis themselves owned up to the covert procurement - after they got caught. They said, oh, these are for rockets. Hans Blix was aware of the purchases, and he and UNSCOM thought they were for the rocket program.

Duelfer's report is that in the opinion of the CIA (ahem), they were for the rocket program, but there was certainly a lot of questionable activities centered around them, but that didn't prove anything.

It is true that Iraq used 81mm rockets, and they did have a performance problem with them. There isn't all that much information about what sort of problems they were having, but unless there were issues with rocket motor blowouts to the sides, I don't really see how the tensile strength of the aluminum (which is going to affect how it reacts while spinning) improves it. With more info on the rocket program, and the analysis of a rocket scientist, perhaps we might see that to be the case.

But the argument is not whether the tubes are suitable at ALL for use in centrifuges - of course they are. That's why they are on the NSG list to begin with. If these tubes had zero applicablity, then they wouldn't be controlled, and Iraq would not have had to purchase them covertly. Too often, the reporting makes it sound like "experts" have concluded that they COULD NOT be used in centrifuges. This simply cannot be true. What they concluded was that they were better suited for use in the rockets than in centrifuges - which is no doubt true.

But Iraq was under sanctions, and under watch. If they bought materials ideally suited for centrifuges, there would be no cover story if they got caught. That's why they operated many, many "dual use" facilities. (For example, they had plenty of castor oil plants. Byproducts of castor oil production are used to make ricin. The Iraqi story? Brake fluid. Of course, brake fluid hasn't been castor oil since WWII. But, hey, whose word are you going to take, nice, peaceful, Saddam in a box, or the evil Cheney and his puppet Bush?)

But back to the aluminum tubes. You can bet that we knew what AQ Khan's plans looked like before the ring was busted, and they included gas centrifuges made from non-ideal diameter aluminum tubes. Remember, these were all surreptitious programs, they had to use what they could get.

So to these documents - there may be nothing new here. Maybe they contain quantitities or orders that were unknown. I think this is the first time I have seen publicized what countries the suppliers were from. Germany is an NSG participant - certainly there are rogue companies and individuals, but this doesn't look good for them. Whether there is any new in them is going to be who signed them, and what directorate they came from. If it was from a group that was conventional weapons only, or was it one of those "dual use" groups where Iraqi nuclear scientist were keeping shop?

[jveritas]

Agree 100% with your post. These documents about Saddam Regime Procurement of tens of thousands highly specialized Aluminum tube are not showing something we did not know, but they are the first publicized ones about one of the most debated and inconclusive issues of WMDs. No one can say for certainty that these tube were not going to be used for the Nuclear Program even if the ISG leaned prematurely that they were not.

To tell you the truth, the more I read the ISG report, the more I think they did not finish the job and it was kind of sloppy work they did. I hate to say this on a public forum, but when these guys only inspect one quarter of 1% of Iraq ammunitions, and only inspect in details 2 ammunition depots out of hundreds if not thousands, and conclude that there was no Chemical Weapons, then I think they did a lousy job.

PS: Do you know that out of hundreds of ammunition depots the ISG planned only to investigate just 11 but at the end they only investigated 2 in details, just 2, they could not even investigate the already extremely small number of ammunition depots (11) that they have planned to do !!!

[jveritas]

Which dimensions are you looking for?

81 mm =3.19 inches.

900 mm = 35.43 inches.

1 inch =25.4 mm.