rumors of mini nuke used in iraq

[johnny_red]

weblogs from baghdad and interviews with former detainees have indicated the existence of a mass grave under baghdad's airport. see for example this article.

excerpt: "We heard rumors that there was a mass grave of Iraqi and US soldiers underneath the prison camp. My fellow prisoners and I secretly dug under our tent for a few feet and found recently deceased corpses.


also from salon.com: Wamid Nathmi, a political scientist who used to be regarded as something as close to an opposition figure as one could get in Iraq, has made a 180-degree turn and now subscribes to paranoid theories about how Baghdad could have fallen. At first, he says, he blamed "traitors," but now he hints that Americans used some new and terrible weapon, "maybe a limited-scale nuclear device," against the soldiers defending the International Airport. "Go to the airport," he urges. "The Americans keep it closed to everybody, and I have heard there are hundreds or thousands of dead Iraqi soldiers there who have been burned all over, not shot. That is how they were able to defeat us."

and finally, from a freelancer's warblog: There is mounting evidence a small nuclear device was used during the battle for the airport. There have been reports of a mass grave at the airport (both US and Iraqi, meaning the US bombed their own soldiers) and for weeks after the invasion, the airport was entirely closed and there were trucks removing topsoil. The place where they dumped the topsoil (near the main prison in the country that is now
being used to house 'suspected terrorists' is still heavily guarded (why would they guard a landfill?) and Iraqis who worked at the airport are reporting illnesses, and soldiers there were told not to have physical contact with them and not to share things like water. Hmmm. Someone should check on those soldiers when they come home, I think they call it 'Gulf War syndrome' or 'my own country told me it
would be safe to be around lots of radioactive material and I believe them and now I have a rare form of cancer syndrome.' They're having trouble finding Iraqis, no matter how poor, to work at the airport.

does anyone have any information about this? according to a recent democracy now! report bush has earmarked significant funds for mini-nuke research... a live beta test?

[deminflorida]

1. I'm sorry, but this would have been detected....

Green Peace would have been all over this shit. And you can bet your ass they were monitoring. This is just ridiculous...

[johnny_red]

4. subject field must not be blank

that was my first thought too, this is very detectable, but then thats why they are smaller, you know? a blast that is designed to flatten out, directed parallel to the surface of the earth wouldnt register nearly as strongly as it is, and would be more effective from a tactical POV.

i am just bullshitting, i dont really know. but the tenacity of these rumors makes me curious.

[JailForBush]

2. I think it's a little early for a live beta test, and deaths on a scale

described above would be pretty hard to hide. They could have used some secret weapons, but I doubt that they included nuclear weapons or that they killed really extraordinary numbers of people.

[Eric J in MN]

3. why would Bush visit the airport if it were radioactive? nt

nt

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. Many press reports from abroad that differ with Centcom

have been dismisse by the regime as tinfoil hat conspiracy theory Islamic terrorist propaganda.

There have been reports of mini-nukes used by the crusaders since the invasion of Afghanistan.

It is not unusual to find reports of unconventional weaponry in the same papers that engage in blatant reporting of unauthorized US casualties.

Such papers are known inciters of anti-coverbanism.

[johnny_red]

6. ?

coverbanism <~~~~~~ wtf? (as i broadcast my ignorance)

[DuctapeFatwa]

8. the bush regime has decreed some things under cover ban

meaning that press coverage is banned. One of the most famous ones is the ban on covering coffins carrying dead Americans arriving at airports, but many aspects of the crusade are under cover ban.

[csc]

7. Earthquake

Noooooo! A mininuke did not go off in iraq it was just an earthquake! YEA YEA the timing was perfect but it was just a happy coincidense and happened at the same time america decided to invade an arab nation for oil reserves BUT IT WAS JUST A COINCIDENSE!!!! DIDN"T YOU SEE THE BUSH ANOUCEMENT ON FOX NEWS??? DIDN"T YOU LISTEN TO RUSH TODAY????? IF THEY SAY IT WASN"T A NUKE THAN IT WASN"T A NUKE!!!!!!!!! REMEMBER IT WAS CLINTON WHO WAS THE LIAR NOT BUSH!!!

Now I need to be serious i really have to admit that i hate america. rush is actually right on this because i do. what is there to be proud of in our history? The slavery? racial intolerance? The genocide of native Americans? spreading capitalism around the world like a plague? Sexism? Homophobia? Support of isreal? R history is nothing but things to make any real progressive minded person vomit europe got it right it reformed and now has societies that are utopias compared to america but we aren't moving in that direction we're moving back 2 the era. of the Rockerfellers where free enterprise has more change than ever 2 ravage the environment and exploit the poor so that white men can grab back all of the wealth.

[kalian]

9. Yes, I have heard about these reports as well....

something wicked happened over at the Baghdad airport. I remember
reading that the US troops that overran the airport were told to
use their NukeBioChem gear.
When they got there, very few Iraqi soldiers remained and then
there were reports that "massive" amounts of bodies were recovered
and had to be "disposed" off by the US soldiers.
After that...everything about that incident was clamped down. Very
strange to say the least.

Now, if Baghdad international had been "nuked" how come the terminal
is still standing...and how come flights are operating from it?
:shrug:

[bemildred]

10. FWIW irakwar.com gave a completely different picture

of the taking of the airport. Me I don't believe much of
anything, I just read it all. I have to say the idea of an
undetectable, safe, mini-nuke seems a bit far-fetched. My
vast experience in the defense industry did not lead me to
believe they were capable of miracles. They talk a good miracle,
but most of the time what you get is more like a firecracker and
lots of press releases.

[ming]

11. Another rumour

I also heard rumours about some kind of directed energy weapon being used. A caller to the Mike Malloy show said that there were legitimate reports of energy rays being used that literally melted tanks.

Although I admit my first instinct is to immediately assume that whatever the administration says, assume the opposite, but neither of these stories makes any sense.

Even mininukes would light up radar screens for hundreds of miles around, not to mention commercial satellites. As far as energy weapons go, even if they were developed, they would be horribly inefficient and would require a mininuke to power them!

However, mininukes and secret mass graves do make for an effective story to instill terror in your enemy.

[bemildred]

12. Directed energy weapons would have the advantage of

not littering radiation all over the place. OTOH, as you
mention the physics are somewhat daunting. I understand
they have made such things work, but they are heavy and
bulky and not very portable.

[TheDebbieDee]

15. The Neutron Dance.........er, ugh......the Neutron Bomb!

Kalian:Now, if Baghdad international had been "nuked" how come the terminal is still standing

In the early 80s, the United States military or Dept. of Defense developed the Neutron bomb. The purpose of the Neutron bomb was to kill humans with massive amounts of radiation while leaving the environment habitable. IIRC, a lot of religious and ethical organizations at the time questioned the morality of a weapon that made it easy to get kill people while leaving their homes and belongings in such useable condition.

Also, from what I remember of television coverage of the invasion last spring, there was some type of news blackout at one of the Baghdad airports for a few days when our forces began to enter and attempt to secure Baghdad. It was during the time when the focus of all the networks' coverage first shifted to American military trying to gain control of neighborhoods throughout Baghdad.

[IndianaGreen]

13. high-power microwave (HPM) technology

Friday, August 16, 2002 issue.

Directed-Energy Weapons: Possible U.S. Use Against Iraq Could Threaten International Regimes

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department might use high-power microwave (HPM) technology, now under development, in an attack on Iraq, bypassing the traditional Pentagon approval process for using new technologies, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this month.

“You never know,” he said at a press briefing Aug. 9, adding that there is already precedent for deploying weapons still under development.

Some human rights and international legal experts have expressed concern that the weapons might cause unnecessary human suffering or destroy civilian infrastructure, which is prohibited by an international arms control agreement. The United States has faced international criticism in recent months for what some critics perceive as a U.S. pullback from multilateral arms control agreements.

A 1977 protocol to the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war prohibits weapons that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and that are indiscriminate in their effects. It requires countries to assess the legality of a new weapon in light of the protocol and other international conventions. While the United States has not signed the protocol, it has indicated that it recognizes those principles as customary law and legally binding.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020816-dew.htm

[mikehiggins]

14. Here's the secret weapon

Its called money.

People who think the Iraqis had to be nuked to beat them are insane.

The officer corps was largely bought off and many sent their troops home. What was amazing wasn't that there was such a low level of actual resistent, it was that there was any at all.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

16. Them Afghani's must be alot tougher than them iraqi's

These findings are significant in three ways:



1. The volumes (total concentrations) of uranium in the civilians studied are abnormally high as compared to local population controls. The only other findings presenting with these high concentrations are historically anomalous in certain populations exposed via unusual geological and technological (including occupational) conditions.

2. 100% of the studied population in the preliminary sample groups in Afghanistan is positive for these abnormally high concentrations.

3. The isotopic signature of the uranium in the Afghan study population is Non-depleted Uranium. This is an unexpected finding in that there has been no report of or confirmed findings of Non-Depleted Uranium in OEF or other military conflicts. It is not know at this point if the uranium is adulterated with transuranics.
---------------
The preliminary results of the radiological urine analysis are corroborated by radiological measurements of debris and weapons’ fragment samples at OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) target sites and bomb-craters.

------------------
To date, there is no evidence of geological or other conditions that might explain the contamination. Significantly, the on-set of acute, uranium internal contamination symptoms coincide with the dates of Operations Enduring Freedom’s bombing campaign and match bomb-crater and target site samples.


http://www.umrc.net/AfghanistanOEF.asp