http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/09/us-iraq-security-nuclear-idUSKBN0FE2KT20140709
(Reuters) - Insurgents in Iraq have seized nuclear materials used for scientific research at a university in the country's north, Iraq told the United Nations in a letter appealing for help to "stave off the threat of their use by terrorists in Iraq or abroad."
Nearly 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of uranium compounds were kept at Mosul University, Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the July 8 letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
"Terrorist groups have seized control of nuclear material at the sites that came out of the control of the state," Alhakim wrote, adding that such materials "can be used in manufacturing weapons of mass destruction."
"These nuclear materials, despite the limited amounts mentioned, can enable terrorist groups, with the availability of the required expertise, to use it separate or in combination with other materials in its terrorist acts," said Alhakim.
He warned that they could also be smuggled out of Iraq.
A U.S. government source familiar with the matter said the materials were not believed to be enriched uranium and therefore would be difficult to use to manufacture into a weapon. Another U.S. official familiar with security matters said he was unaware of this development raising any alarm among U.S. authorities.
as to gov't sources they are as befuddled as the right wing politicians and after all the animus created by the Bush admin the wars the invasion of sovereign countries attempting to save them from thousands of years of culture with a faulty broken farce of a few hundred years called democracy.
look around Iraq's borders those countries all have tenuous relationships with us IMO all the right wing saber waving going around this admin and Pres. with their primeval chants of war as a first and diplomacy as never a consideration, any of these countries would love to bring us down a few rungs on the global ladder, like Iran, Syria, Russia not to mention other terrorist groups.
so in short they better take it seriously and proceed under that assumption. they have part of the recipe those other countries very well could have the rest. asking for help is not always what's being said, we are now trying to oust Maliki saying he must go, he's not of that mind, missing uranium could very well have been on his mind before it became missing.
