This article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/28/wcolombia128.xml says:
Colombia seizes 60lb of depleted uranium
By Jeremy McDermott in Medellin
Last Updated: 1:19am GMT 28/03/2008
Colombia's government has claimed that Leftist rebels were plotting to make a "dirty" radiological bomb after security agents seized 60 lb of low-grade depleted uranium.
The radioactive material was found buried by the side of a main road near Bogota, the capital.
The seizure comes weeks after the Colombian air force bombed a guerrilla camp in Ecuador, killing Raul Reyes, the "public face" of the Farc revolutionary group.
The government claimed that three computers seized after the raid showed that the guerillas were looking to acquire uranium in order to make a dirty bomb.
While depleted uranium cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon, it could be mixed with explosives to spread radiological material.
The government also said the computers showed that Venezuela and Ecuador were supporting the Farc.
But presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador both insisted that the Colombian military was telling lies to justify its bombing of Ecuadorean territory.
"It is now so hard to believe anything the Colombian government says, there have been so many lies," said Wellington Sandoval, Ecuador's defence minister.
A defence attaché at an embassy in Bogota also cast doubt on the claims, believing it unlikely that the Farc had the know-how to make a bomb.
I have to wonder just what in the world is really going on here. The radioactively level of depleted uranium is very close to non-existent. The U.S. fired DU penetrators all over the place in Afghanistan and Iraq, without any serious problems; obviously, even vaporized DU doesn't cause a serious contamination problem.
So what's the real story here?
This story is not unique. I have read several stories over the last couple of years about busts of people who were purportedly in the process of obtaining uranium to make dirty bombs.
Somebody is lying to us. I just haven't figured who is behind it, and what their ultimate purpose is. (The article suggests that in this case the Columbian military is lying in order to justify bombings. That doesn't, however, address the persistent stories of uranium and "dirty bombs" in other parts of the world.)
