Iraqi Nuke stuff Gone Missin' ---- Natch

I remember reading something about this last summer or in the early fall. Essentially that while we were guarding the ministry of oil (and not much else) and allowing unchecked looting take place all over Iraq, some intrepid folks made off with Saddam's Stash of Yellow Cake. Other folks used the empty drums to collect rain water. This is all from memory, and of course was buried by the sheer volume of administrative incopetance during the occupation.

UN: Iraqi Nuclear-Related Materials Have Vanished
By Irwin Arieff

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons are disappearing from Iraq (news - web sites) but neither Baghdad nor Washington appears to have noticed, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency reported on Monday.

Satellite imagery shows that entire buildings in Iraq have been dismantled. They once housed high-precision equipment that could help a government or terror group make nuclear bombs, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.

Equipment and materials helpful in making bombs also have been removed from open storage areas in Iraq and disappeared without a trace, according to the satellite pictures, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said.

While some military goods that disappeared from Iraq after the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion, including missile engines, later turned up in scrap yards in the Middle East and Europe, none of the equipment or material known to the IAEA as potentially useful in making nuclear bombs has turned up yet, ElBaradei said.

The equipment -- including high-precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders -- and materials -- such as high-strength aluminum -- were tagged by the IAEA years ago, as part of the watchdog agency's shutdown of Iraq's nuclear program. U.N. inspectors then monitored the sites until their evacuation from Iraq just before the war.

The United States barred the inspectors' return after the war, preventing the IAEA from keeping tabs on the equipment and materials up to the present day.

I also remember the decision to keep the inspectors out post war. In my mind it would be what you would do if you were planning on planting WMD's. At this time I have to admit that I lost any remaining respect (Yeah I know) for the administration, when it became obvious that they had not planted WMD's. That was proof of incopetance on a scale I did not think that these guys could reach. So Preznit DimWit, we are safer you say? Simply Amazing.