Georgians stop smugglers with nuke bomb materials — then let them go
posted at 9:51 am on June 20, 2007 by Allahpundit
A little something light while you’re having your Cheerios.
Georgian customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back to Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported yesterday…
“Georgian customs detected a high level of radiation while checking one of the cars,” Imedi reported.
“They discovered plutonium-beryllium.”…
The car was sent back to Azerbaijan, although smuggling nuclear materials is a crime under Georgian law.
It was unclear whether Azeri authorities had been informed.
“The decision to send it back was made,” Soso Kakushadze, head of the environment ministry’s radiation department, told Reuters.
“It was the right decision, as it would have been very expensive to keep it in Georgia, and special conditions are needed,” he said…
Georgian special services foiled an attempt by a Russian citizen to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million in Georgia in February 2006.
FYI, Beryllium is used as a “trigger” in nuclear weapons, to set off the atomic chain reaction.
Don’t we … already have an arrangement with Georgia to deal with these “situations” when they arise?
Blowback
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I would have expected better from a country with five Crusader crosses on its flag.
Coyote D. on June 20, 2007 at 9:57 AM
Ohh that Georgia. Well that certainly got the pulse up this morning.
LakeRuins on June 20, 2007 at 10:03 AM
The smugglers will be placing an advert in the Wanted Pages of the Baku Times: “Need 4 Mexican coyotes to transport delicate fissible materials into Georgia. Meet under the B&Q sign near the Maiden’s Tower on Friday. Pay is scale.”
Mindcrime on June 20, 2007 at 10:08 AM
How about a courtesy phone call to give the Azeri peeps a heads up on the inbound rolling nuke?
Alden Pyle on June 20, 2007 at 10:09 AM
Reuters and Boston Globe…….anyone fact checking this story? I tried a search for other stories about it and nada but I’m no net guru.
Limerick on June 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM
I blame Saxby Chambliss.
Dean Barnett on June 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM
Why don’t we have scores of CIA agents, posing as mafiosos/jihadists, scattered throughout the world, buying up this crap in the pretense of wanting to harm Amerika.
(Same with the Afghan opium crop.)
It’s going to be sold to somebody. We can outbid anybody.
Why shouldn’t we own it.
profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 10:15 AM
Hot potato.
reaganaut on June 20, 2007 at 10:24 AM
Jimmy Carter is from Georgia.
Griz on June 20, 2007 at 10:26 AM
A year or so ago when President Bush was in Georgia I thought that he would surely be attacked or killed – fortunately that didn’t happen. Remember the grenade that was thrown at him didn’t go off.
It’s from places like this that 9-11 type events happen; wannabe countries.
ar_basin on June 20, 2007 at 10:26 AM
Yeah, then we can use the opium to keep the little people down by including it in the various and sundry handouts we offer…
we can use that glowing stuff to further oppress our various and sundry colonies around the world…Imperial Swine that we are…
I’m fer it!
Pilgrim on June 20, 2007 at 10:29 AM
Because during the Clinton years it was determined that our intelligence people should not be getting into bed with the bad guys so he pushed legislation to prevent just that. Now the only ones who can associate with shady characters are elected officals.
LakeRuins on June 20, 2007 at 10:37 AM
Lakeruins is on a roll today…good job!
Pilgrim on June 20, 2007 at 10:38 AM
To heck with that. I say we hire the Georgian customs officials to work over here…at least they know how to keep somebody from crossing the border.
James on June 20, 2007 at 10:42 AM
Pilgrim-
Burn the opium crop out of sight of the sellers to keep it off the market, but leave them with the impression that they had stuck a blow at the Great Shaitan.
And recycle the radioactive materials captured for our own arsenals/power plants, or decommission it, as needed, if it is mere dirty bomb grade material (x-ray machine junk, etc.).
profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 10:43 AM
Now who would be interested in a trigger for a nuclear weapon?
JackStraw on June 20, 2007 at 10:51 AM
That would be those charming “newcomers” to America, right?
profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 11:29 AM
When the USSR fell apart, we bought like 60% of their nuclear warheads and material for power plants ( and to keep it under control) etc. but the facts are that there were so many thousands of nukes in USSR that no one in the world knows where they all are now. There are probably 3000 warheads in places unknown.
I believe I saw that 30,000 nukes were still in the ground, missiles, and almost all of them here. 5% of the nukes are in the other half dozen nuclear countries.
If only 2% of weapons grade nuclear material is unaccounted for today, that is still enough to kill Europe or America. ALL of either.
We should be spending much more time and money finding it.
What do you think is powering Russia and Putin today?
Nukes? nope…money from those nukes.
shooter on June 20, 2007 at 11:39 AM
I was thinking more along the lines of somebody in their neighborhood. Like next door. A country with stong ethnic and religious ties.
Hmmmm.
JackStraw on June 20, 2007 at 11:46 AM
This shows how terrified some were back in 2001
Keep in mind that almost the entire time we should have been focusing MAINLY on this problem, just after the Soviet collapse, is when the Clintons were in the White House. But they were on an 8 year ‘cover my ass’ term and not concerned with much else.
do some searching …it’s… more than a little troublesome.
shooter on June 20, 2007 at 11:48 AM
whooops should be 3,000 not 30,000 nukes. Truth is, they surely wont tell us the correct count.
from between 70,000 and 100,000 nukes in 1989-1991 down to what? less than 3,000 each…I doubt it…SO- WHERE ARE THEY , and the scientists?
shooter on June 20, 2007 at 12:08 PM
If a nuclear weapon is ever exploded in the U.S., one can reasonably expect the U.S. government to dither afterward. If a President decides to fiddle around with visiting mosques, obtaining U.N. “Security” Council “resolutions,” and “nation-building,” it would be handy if someone were in a position to cut all that nonsense short and destroy a couple of governments near the top of the U.S.’s list of known enemies. So I’m left wondering about the feasibility of one or more very wealthy Americans gathering small nuclear arsenals of their own.
Kralizec on June 20, 2007 at 12:28 PM
JackStraw-
I was just thinking of those same people’s eventual DESTINATION.
shooter-
That failing to drive hard to secure these loose nukes (and related radioactive materials) by Clinton and Bush is a black mark on both of their legacies.
Doing 60% of such a job is a 40% failure.. which may prove 100% fatal.
profitsbeard on June 20, 2007 at 12:36 PM
From the Boston Globe…..hmmmm….
How did the Georgians/Azerbaijans :
a) Identify what the radioactive material was?
b) Given that material is highly lethal, where the smugglers wearing protective suits and lead shielded car?
c) Were they glowing in the dark when they were discovered?
d) What was the nationality of the Azerbaijan smugglers, Muslims? (gotta ask it)
e) Given it’s relative location to Iran, why take it through Georgia?
Inquiring minds wanna know.
Kini on June 20, 2007 at 1:02 PM
Freelancer on June 20, 2007 at 3:09 PM
Well, thank the Lord that they have that law. We all know just passing a law will stop the problem.
Next up, Banning guns in DC to stop the massive murder rate….
…Nevermind…
Tim Burton on June 20, 2007 at 6:23 PM