www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,83821,00.html
Marines may have found weapons-grade plutonium in a massive underground facility discovered beneath Iraq's Al Tuwaitha nuclear complex, Fox News confirmed Friday. Meanwhile, the Army Times reported that troops with the 101st Airborne Division this week unearthed 11 shipping containers full of lab equipment at a chemical plant in Karbala. The material was discovered at the complex, which is operated by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission and is located south of Baghdad's suburbs. While officials aren't prepared to call the discovery a "smoking gun," two preliminary tests conducted on the material have indicated that it may be weapons-grade plutonium. The discovery of the underground labyrinth of labs and warehouses was unexpected, Fox News has confirmed, and forces in the area are testing a variety of things to best determine the significance of the find. So far, Marine nuclear and intelligence experts have found 14 buildings that have high levels of radiation, Prine reported Thursday. His report noted that some of the tests have found nuclear residue too deadly for human contact. The CIA encouraged international inspectors in the fall of 2002 to probe Al Tuwaitha for weapons of mass destruction, and the inspectors came away empty-handed. I never heard anything about that," physicist David Albright, a former IAEA Action Team inspector in Iraq from 1992 to 1997, told the Tribune-Review. That leads me to wonder, if the readings are accurate, whether radioactive material was deliberately left there to expose people to dangerous levels. John Seegar, a combat engineer commander from Houston, is currently running the operation in Al Tuwaitha. The equipment included a machine used to analyze chemical compounds and a 750-pound centrifugal pump that was made in Finland, shipped to a Jordan company and ended up in Iraq. One bin was filled with documents on Baath Party letterhead. Chemical protective mask filters were on the ground and hand grenades and loose ammunition were also in the facility. The Mobile Exploitation Team -- made up of civilians and military chemical experts -- went to the scene Thursday and closed off the area. The Karbala Chemical Plant supposedly was bombed during the first Gulf War, but there are signs that an active lab there was recently used. Fox News' Carl Cameron and Major Garrett contributed to this report. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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