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The press release says that, but the indictment text uses the guarded language "samples contain detectable quantities of..." (page 11). I'd guess the plutonium
by perihelions 3y ago
The press release says that, but the indictment text uses the guarded language "samples contain detectable quantities of..." (page 11). I'd guess the plutonium detection was a trace amount from some banal source, maybe cross-contamination within the lab itself. This gets more plausible when you consider the banality of the samples they supposedly found plutonium in: one was isotopically natural uranium, the other thorium. There's no plausible way to end up with plutonium in those materials other than contamination of some sort.
- philipkglass 3y agoThanks for reading more closely. In that case, this is a lot less interesting. It sounds like he was offering materials that are only useful to someone who already has nuclear enrichment/reactor technology.
- vanattab 3y agomaybe usefull as dirty bomb?
- perihelions 3y agoI think that they're sufficiently inept, they didn't actually know what it was they were selling. What they apparently had, from the Myanmar rebel group, was access to a Myanmar uranium mine (natural uranium); there was a concrete offer of 50 tonnes of ore. What they discussed offering to Iran, repeatedly, was "enriched uranium". It's non-credible that the Myanmar rebels have a secret enrichment program. In at least one text, it's clear they didn't even understand the difference: page 4, "How enriched is it? Above 5 percent?"... "I think so and I hope so".
- credit_guy 3y agoYes, but contamination from where? Plutonium does not exist in nature, and plutonium grade is really, really hard to come by.