Billmon,

Hope this one doesn't blow up in your face.
You are one bad ass nukular dude.

You are completly overreacting. Nuclear waste disappearing happens every day. Japan doesn't know what happend to 200 tons of this stuff. And according to the New Republic if anything nu-cul-ar happens, it is the fault of North Korea! So you cannot blame the mighty Coward-in-Chief.

I just can't believe most of the other bloggers don't react to the Washington Post article. I totally agree with your comments, Billmon. So it goes, the Tralfamodorians would say.

Benny229 -

thanks, you know, I think you're right. I've been getting progressively more and more depressed and despondant these days (read zizka's 12 point rant, thats how i'm feeling.) The only way to get through these dark days is to adopt a more Kurt Vonnegut attitude. Its funny, after reading your post I feel a little better.

Hi Ho.

Hey! I live in Los Angeles!

I guess it would be safer if I moved to Crawford TX.

You are completly overreacting. Nuclear waste disappearing happens every day. Japan doesn't know what happend to 200 tons of this stuff.

I don't think I'm over-reacting. My understanding is that most of the materials that "routinely" go missing are relatively low-level stuff -- contaminated medical equipment, etc. -- not the kind of concentrated wastes (thorium, cesium, etc.) stored at the Iraq sites.

I vaguely remember the Japanese story, but not th details.

In any case, having stuff like that disappear in a country like Iraq -- in the middle of a war -- seems worth worrying about.

But apparently the administration and the military see it your way . . .

I don't think I'm over-reacting. My understanding is that most of the materials that "routinely" go missing are relatively low-level stuff -- contaminated medical equipment, etc. -- not the kind of concentrated wastes (thorium, cesium, etc.) stored at the Iraq sites.

Don't take my sarcasm too seriously. ;-)

so undtidy all these bunker buster bombs, and such

See, that's the thing. If we *find* the missing nuclear materials, then it's a lot harder for someone to use them against us later, and a lot harder for Bush to milk the attack for political points.

Gen. Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don't think I do, sir.
Gen. Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to leave to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to the politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all our precious bodily fluids.

One of the headlines is wrong. Bush would not call blast unfortunate; he would call blast a reason to bomb Syria.

Rumsfeld Lies

Mandrake, do you ever wonder why Billmon doesn't drink water?

I think Bush would call it "untidy", taking a cue from his pal Rumslove.

The Horse's take:

Ari Claims Americans are Safer Now That All Threats Presented as Pretexts for Iraq Invasion Worse

David Gregory nailed Ari today. He asked Fleischer repeatedly how the Unelected Fraud can say we are "safer" as a result of the Iraq slaughter when he has no idea what happened to WMDs he claimed existed and might have been dispersed.

Let's see. Saddam Hussein is alive and missing. Saddam Hussein's regime made off with a billion dollars. WMDs claimed to have existed are nowhere to be found now. Saddam Hussein is said to have "close ties" to terrorists.

But we're safer.

Yup, I feel lots safer.

Bush calls it a Jobs package now; the dividend part is only a whisper.

Call me paranoid, but part of me thinks that perhaps this is all part of the plan. The more afraid we are of the terrorists, the more Rove and company can manipulate us...

The goal is not to eliminate terrorism, its to generate some more. The defense industry needs customers.

Ok, 1st dumb question of the evening. Taking into account the suicidal, how does one get the stuff transported from here to there without the thief getting very sick? Lead suitcases can't be that common an item given the short window of opportunity the war presented.

2nd dumb question. Presumably the Cia had Iraq covered by satallites 24/7 during the run up to the war and beyond. What was spotted at these sites during this time? Do we have photos of any of this?

3rd and final (wild cheering). Supposed these materials were taken by amatures for resale later. Who has the money and sophistication to buy this stuff that *isn't* being watched by 50 agencies. Or does it matter?

vachon -- I'll take a crack at your questions.

1.) containers for transporting hazardous radiological wastes aren't hard to find -- the medical industry, for example, uses them all the time. And as you note, the sort of people who fly airliners into office buildings probably aren't going to worry about picking up a few extra rads along the way to a suicide bombing.

2.) The NSA (not the CIA) can't cover any given spot on earth 24/7. They don't have enough birds. (I'm taking about the high-res surveillance ones that fly in low earth orbit, not the ones doing communications intercepts, which are higher up, in geosych orbit.)

Also, I don't know if Big Brother has the capability, yet, to watch individual looters running around in a research complex -- particularly at night.

Truth is, it probably isn't the garden-variety looters we should be worried about -- they were after typewriters, not cesium. The real threat that there may have been Iraqi officials or workers who knew exactly what was at those complexes and understood how to handle the stuff.

They may have stashed stuff away for later resale, with the idea that they might need the cash to buy their way out trouble or out of Iraq.

3.) A crude dirty bomb is simplicity itself -- take a container of highly radioactive material, strap a shitload of dynamite to it, and blow it up in an open area, preferably on a windy day.

Starting a big fire first is also a nifty idea -- get a nice big updraft going and you can greatly widen the fallout zone. The photo on my mock NY Times post was actually taken in Bellingham a couple of years ago, after a gas pipeline exploded and caught fire.

So there you go: take container of highly radioactive waste, strap a shitload of dynamite to it, then blow up a pipeline -- or a LNG tanker, or a anything else big and flammable.

Cheers.