So what's the scoop?

Egypt has both Christian and Moslem communities and the politics of the Middle East are equally diverse. Air your views on the situation.

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Ebikatsu
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So what's the scoop?

Post by Ebikatsu »

Do you think Egypt is stockpiling enriched Uranium or not?

Do you think it has the right to, since Israel has weapons of mass destruction close to it's border?
Do you think Egypt has the right to protect itself from the Israeli WMD should Obama start distancing the US from Israel?


Egypt rejects reports of nuclear probe
Released on - Thursday,07 May , 2009 -18:27 29

Egypt on Thursday dismissed as "erroneous and old" reports that the UN's nuclear watchdog is investigating traces of enriched uranium at an Egyptian nuclear facility.

Reports of an investigation "into the discovery by the International Atomic Energy Agency of traces of enriched uranium in Egypt are erroneous and old," foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki said in a statement.

"It's surprising that media can get hold of an IAEA report that is to be made public at a meeting in June," he said, apparently referring to the agency's Safeguards Implementation Report (SIR).

"This raises several questions on what pushed some people to reveal this information," Zaki said.

"Egypt has in the past already explained to the agency the circumstances of this matter and agency officials agreed with Egyptian explanations," Zaki said, adding that the issue had arisen in 2007.

"The agency always says in its reports that Egyptian nuclear activities are of a peaceful nature," Zaki said.

A diplomat familiar with the IAEA's inspections work said the SIR is a standard report provided to the IAEA board each year describing the status of safeguards verification in all countries.

"As part of the routine application of safeguards in Egypt, IAEA inspectors have taken environmental samples," the diplomat said.

"It is not that unusual for the agency to find traces of nuclear material in environmental samples at nuclear sites in a country. As needed, these are followed up by the Department of Safeguards."

Egypt decided in 2007 to relaunch its nuclear energy programme, which started with the Soviet Union in 1961 but was frozen following the 1986 nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.

It has one research reactor at Inshas northeast of Cairo and is currently carrying out consultations on where to build its first nuclear power station.

Egypt, which ratified the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1981, seeks a nuclear weapons-free Middle East and regularly criticises Israel for its undeclared nuclear arsenal.

However, Cairo has also said it will not sign a voluntary additional protocol to the NPT that would allow more intrusive inspections, saying it could make it too dependent on other countries for nuclear energy needs.

http://arabia.msn.com/News/MiddleEast/A ... 87042.aspx


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PRchick
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Post by PRchick »

First I've heard of it. Haven't seen anything in the media here. I think the world would be better off without anynuclear weapons.
"A man who has had a bull by the tail once has learned 60 or 70 times as much as a man who hasn't."
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Ebikatsu
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Post by Ebikatsu »

Interestingly 5 of the nuclear club are also the same members who have the veto, not very democratic is it? :(
USA, Russia, UK, China, and France of which only the USA has launched a nuclear bomb on a civilian population, not making it a good choice as a veto partner, which allows one member to over ride the opinions of the majority of it's members.

The other nuclear powers India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea are in such a mess right now that anything could go off with a bang.
I'm pretty sure that the so called WMD in Iraq were actually there. The USA by invading have now taken control and not admitted to finding them, conveniently having yet another powder keg like Israel on it's side should the arab nations decide to fight back.

Saddam as is heavily reported had a huge arsenal and most of his enriched Uranium was supplied by Germany, France and Russia. Israels Mossad blew up the reactor that France shipped to them but did not get the others they now have.
The USA have played a very dangerous game supporting the Israeli's, Pakistan and India's nuclear programmes and because of this Iran wants to level the playing field. Can you blame them?
We might not agree with their regime or culture but we should understand their humiliation when one country who HAS used nuclear on civilians tells the arabs that they can't have nuclear, because they might do to Tel Aviv what the Enola Gay and Little Boy, and the Fat Man done to the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing 250,000 the same amount of Israelis currently occupying the West bank.

A real mess





:(
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PRchick
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Post by PRchick »

What are you basing your assumptions on? Please provide your proof.
"A man who has had a bull by the tail once has learned 60 or 70 times as much as a man who hasn't."
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Post by LivinginLuxor »

According to Al-Ahram, the enriched uranium was used for medical diagnoses. The IAEA accepted that explanation.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/947/eg4.htm
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Ebikatsu
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Post by Ebikatsu »

LivinginLuxor wrote:According to Al-Ahram, the enriched uranium was used for medical diagnoses. The IAEA accepted that explanation.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/947/eg4.htm
maybe......maybe not :mrgreen:


Who armed Saddam?
From Lev Lafayette, 26 July 2002

1. The British Foreign Office's "Report on Strategic Export Controls" (released last night) shows that:

a. Arms sales to Indonesia increased from #2m to #15.5m. Licences include all-wheel vehicles, components for aircraft cannon, combat aircraft and military aero-engines. This to a country that committed state-sponsored terror in East Timor.

b. Arms sales to Pakistan increased from #6m to #14m. This to a military dictatorship that created the Taliban.

2. In light of these figures, and the rhetoric of war against Iraq, some points need to be made. Given that Saddam is often described as "a man who is willing to kill his own people by using chemical weapons", it's worth examining who armed him in the first place.

3. In the 1970s, Saddam approached the USSR, until then his conventional weapons supplier, to buy a plant to manufacture chemical weapons, but his request was refused. Saddam then began courting the West, and received a much more favourable response.

4. An American company, Pfaulder Corporation of Rochester, New York, supplied the Iraqis with a blueprint in 1975, enabling them to construct their first chemical warfare plant. The plant was purchased in sections from Italy, West Germany and East Germany and assembled in Iraq. It was located at Akhashat in north-western Iraq, and the cost was around $50 million for the plant and $30 million for the safety equipment.

5. British, French and German multinationals turned the request down on moral grounds or because the Iraqi delivery schedule couldn't be met—not because their governments objected.

6. The United States took other steps to ensure that Saddam's rule was strengthened. Mobile phone systems were mainly in the military domain at the time, but the United States government approved the 1975 sale by the Karkar Corporation of San Francisco of a complete mobile telephone system. The system was to be used by the Ba'ath Party loyalists to protect the regime against any attempts to overthrow it.

7. The United States also supplied Saddam with satellite pictures of Iranian positions during the Iran-Iraq war.

8. France provided Saddam with extended-range Super Etendard aircraft capable of hitting Iranian oil facilities in the lower Gulf.

9. While Britain's Margaret Thatcher mouthed platitudes about not supplying either Iran or Iraq with lethal weapons, Britain's Plessey Electronics supplied Saddam with an electronic command center.

10. Iraq was also able to buy French-built Mirage-1 aircraft and Gazelle and Lynx helicopters from the British company Westland.

11. In 1976, while on a visit to France, Saddam concluded the purchase of a uranium reactor. Jacques Chirac, then the Prime Minister and now the President, approved the deal. The supplier was Commissart l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and the plutonium reactor was called Rhapsodie. France also signed a Nuclear Cooperation Treaty with France, providing for the transfer of expertise and personnel.

12. In 1978, the Italian firm Snia Technit, a subsidiary of Fiat, signed an agreement with Iraq to sell nuclear laboratories and equipment.

13. Whenever the declared policies of the Western countries stood in the way of an arms deal, Western governments used two methods to get around their own rules and thereby manage public opinion.

a. The first method was the well-established use of the 'front'. Thus, Western governments supplied Saddam through the pro-West countries of Jordan and Egypt, which acted as a front for Iraq. This was done to overcome Congressional, parliamentary and press hurdles, even when it was obvious to military experts that Jordan and Egypt had no use for the weapons in question. Saddam also set up his own weapons buying offices in the West, with the knowledge of the host governments. For example, Matrix Churchill was a weapons purchasing company set up in Britain.

b. The second method was to extend Saddam massive credits which he could then use for military purposes. Thus, the Banco di Lavoro in the United States gave Saddam US$4 billion worth of credits, ostensibly to buy food, but which was diverted to buy weapons with the knowledge of everyone involved. Britain's Export Credit Guarantee department kept increasing his credit and much of the money went to the direct purchase of arms. The French government guaranteed US$6 billion worth of loans to French arms makers to sell Saddam whenever he wanted. Whenever the declared policies of the Western countries stood in the way of an arms deal.

14. When Saddam did in fact "use chemical weapons against his own people", he did so on the afternoon of 17 March 1988, against the Kurdish city of Halabja. The United States provided diplomatic cover by initially blaming Iran for the attack. The Reagan Administration tried to prevent criticism of the atrocity. The Bush (senior) administration authorised new loans to Saddam in order to achieve the "goal of increasing US exports and put us in a better position to deal with Iraq regarding its human rights record".

15. The US Department of Commerce licensed the export of biological materials—including a range of pathogenic agents—as well as plans for chemical and biological warfare production facilities and chemical-warhead filling equipment—to Iraq until December 1989, 20 months after the Halabja atrocity.
Sources:

Saod K. Aburish, Saddam Hussein, The Politics of Revenge, New York, 2000.

Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq, Boston, 1997.

Geoff Simons, Iraq from Sumer to Saddam, London, 1996.

Kenneth R. Timmermann, The Death Lobby, How the West Armed Iraq, London, 1994.
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