Nuclear experts said the discovery of a underground nuclear complex in Al-Tuwaitha, Iraq, on April 6 is possibly the "smoking gun" United States intelligence agencies have sought.
Carl Prine, a reporter with the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review who is embedded with the 1st Marine Division, reported the findings in the newspaper's April 9 edition.
The city is located 18 miles south of Baghdad and houses the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.
Prine reported that the underground facility includes labs, warehouses, and bomb-proof offices. While it was hidden from the public and the U.N. inspectors who combed the site just two months ago, the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Engineers discovered it three days ago, he wrote.
Prine reported that Marine nuclear and intelligence experts discovered 14 buildings with high levels of radiation. Some of the readings show nuclear residue too deadly for human occupation.
Al-Tuwaitha was built in the early 1960s along the Tigris River. Nuclear experts believe the government began Iraq's nuclear weapons program there between 1972 and 1976. Satellite imagery shows dramatic expansion at the site in the '70s, '80s and '90s, according to the Institute for Science and International Security.
Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear engineer who defected in 1994, reportedly testified before Congress last August that Iraq could have had nuclear weapons by 2002.
Hamza said the French built a reactor at Al-Tuwaitha that Israel destroyed in 1981. The Russians built a reactor that was destroyed during the Gulf War, he said.
At a Pentagon briefing April 10, officials said they were investigating the site, but cautioned that they were not aware of any weapons-grade materials.
Also, a scout team from the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency arrived in a convoy April 10 at the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex. The probe could take weeks to determine whether plutonium is present at the massive nuclear facility and extensive underground complex.
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