Possible Plutonium Find Has Wide and Disturbing Implications

STRATFOR ^ | Apr 10, 2003

[Beck_isright]

Remember the ship from North Korea with the missles encased in concrete? That is how you would ship plutonium also if you do not want it detected. Now, remembering that only 2% of all shipping containers are inspected coming into the U.S.A., just how hard do you think it would be to smuggle 20 lbs of plutonium into the U.S. Especially since dopers smuggle tons of drugs in on a weekly basis.

V

Sleep tight on that one gang.

[aruanan]

Unlike uranium, plutonium does not occur naturally in any form.

This is a misstatement. "Traces of plutonium have subsequently been found in uranium ores, where it is not primeval but naturally produced by neutron irradiation."--Encyclopedia Britannica.

[Beck_isright]

What about the plant in Brazil?

[Bob Mc]

"Could it be that THIS is really why we went in? If true, the implications are mind-boggling. How did they get the plutonium? Did they make it or was it given to them? How did they make it? Who gave them the equipment to make it? who built the reactor if that is how it was made? If it was given to them, who gave it to them? Why? Why, all of a sudden, is the UN saying they knew that "Uranium" was there all along? and they didnt remove it because they had put seals on it (think North Korea) plus it wasnt easy to make a weapon with. If this actually proves to be weapons grade PLUTONIUM, I think we have a huge fight ahead of us.

Yes indeed. If this is the case, it's not Syria, or Palestine, or any of the other third rate middle east countries we have to worry about.

"Mind boggling implicatations", if this is the case is China, Russia, France, Germany, Iran, and North Korea!

[Don Carlos]

the significance of plutonium, as opposed to plain old uranium.

If memory serves me from my CBR training WAY back when - the significance is two-fold. (1) Smaller quantity of fuel is required, and (2) Thermo-nuclear explosion (what used to be referred to as H-bomb) results from plutonium. Much more powerful explosion - megaton range, as opposed to kiloton range of uranium explosion.

[slimer]

Such a confirmation would signal a colossal failure not only of the United Nations sanctions regime as relates to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,

Irrelevant is the word that describes the capability of the U.N.

The sad part is that it took so long to realize this, though many have realized it for years now, and now that it's out, what are we going to do about it?

What a sham the U.N. is and what a waste of U.S. dollars.

[John H K]

All SUCKFOR did was watch Fox and read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, most likely, and then bloviate at length about it as is their habit.

[the_doc]

Plutonium is a trace contaminant in uranium ore. As I recall, it is the product of decay of the Neptunium which is formed as an unstable intermediate by the bombardment of U-238 with neutrons.

So, you are technically correct. Stratfor's point is still well taken.

[Born in a Rage]

~~~~~What a sham the U.N. is and what a waste of U.S. dollars.~~~~~

Yes...and accordinding to the UN website we just made another payment today for humanitarian needs to the tune of 146 or 147 million, ya know, give or take a million or so.

[Z-28]

Yeah, Saddam just may have a couple nukes stashed in some bunkers under Baghdad waiting to set them off remotely.

After all, from Saddam's standpoint, the only casualties in Baghdad now would be coalition soldiers and collaborators with the enemy.

[walden]

You sound like you know what you're talking about-- is the rest of the technical information here correct?

[algol]

Initial reports from Al Tuwaitha indicate very high levels of radiation, yet there have been no reported casualties.

The information is only a few hours/days old. If the radiation were strong enough to produce casualties that fast, it could probably be detected by aircraft, maybe even satellites. That's about like walking into an operating nuclear reactor, or having a mass of nuclear material go supercritical in front of you (you'd know, you'd see the pretty blue flash).

That indicates that most of the radiation is probably not beta or gamma radiation, but alpha radiation,

That indicates no such thing, just that the radiation is at most only a few rads* -- thousands of times what is considered safe, but hardly instantly lethal (650 rads will kill 50% of those exposed within 30 days; a medical x-ray is measured in a few thousandths of a rad)

plutonium-239's calling card.

Also the calling card of numerous other isotopes.

Since the people who discovered the radiation at Al Tuwaitha have reported no health problems,

Yet. But see also above on dosage.

the plutonium is most likely purified -- and therefore usable in a weapons program.

That much plutonium would be quite thermally hot (as the alphas from anwhere but the surface of the plutonium get absorbed and the energy converted to heat). If there's really that much of it, it sounds like it'd be at or above critical mass and spontaneously fissioning from random neutrons.

This report sure extrapolates a lot from a lack of data. Don't buy it, wait for the test results.

(* Note for the pedants: I'm using rads, rems, roentgens, seiverts, and all those other radiation units as roughly equivalent, although I know it really depends on whether you're talking about ionizing potential, absorbed dose, biological effect, et bloody cetera.)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Deeply troubling!

OFFICIAL BUMP(TOPIC)LIST

[John H K]

The other problem is as best I can tell nobody has been at the site (who has talked to the media) other than Marine combat engineers.

Want to venture a guess on how much training Marine combat engineers have had in investigating possible nuclear weapons production facilities and weapons material?

[John H K]

Uranium is far more abundant than plutonium and methods to separate, purify and mold weapons-grade uranium are not particularly technically advanced or expensive. Plutonium manufacture and purification, in contrast, is one of the most advanced weapon-fabrication processes.

OK, since we actually do have people who know what they're talking about on this thread...

Hasn't SUCKFOR gotten this 100% reversed? It's easier to build the BOMB once you have the material from uranium rather than plutonium (you can build a simple "gun" for the uranium, but need a complicated implosion sphere for the plutonium) but it's actually less expensive and easier to create weapons grade plutonium with a reactor than go throug the lengthy and complicated process to chemically enrich Uranium?

My impression was that the facilities at Oak Ridge for Uranium were far more expensive and vast than the reactors at Hanford for Plutonium in the Manhattan Project.

Please correct if I'm mistaken.

[oprahstheantichrist]

"Both Bush and Blair acted as if they knew something about Iraq, but did not want to say in case they started widespread panic."

I've had the same theory for many months. When otherwise quite conservative friends of mine would question the wisdom of the invasion, I've often stated your above post almost verbatim. I'll never forget Tony Blair. He's usually quite liberal, and when W began his "pre-emptive strike" rhetoric, Blair was emphaticlly against it.

Then he did a one eighty, for no obvious reason. Virtually overnight. Either he'd been told something, or shown something that alarmed him, and NOTHING would dissuade him from his alignment with Bush.

[terilyn]

Actually, they reported just a little while ago on Fox that the Marines initially got the positive readings, and called in the Marine chem/bio team to verify. They got the same positive results.

So now they are simply guarding the facility until some independent testing can be completed.

[aruanan]

So, you are technically correct. Stratfor's point is still well taken.

Well, it's not found in nature in quantities than can be mined like uranium ore. But its formation through neutron bombardment is still natural, whether in the ground in uranium ore or through a carefully contrived process.

[the_doc]

Right. Stratfor's point is still well taken.

[The Westerner]

"It also means that United States will hardly want to depend upon the United Nations or the International Atomic Energy Agency for global nuclear security, for if it cannot prevent proliferation in the relatively cut-and-dried case of Iraq, it will be next to useless in cases where the subject has more international standing."

I know little about the scientific analysis, but this article was a long wind-up for the above shattering revelation. Say what?