The American Spectator

The bottom line was that a British firm had been allowed to sell highly-dangerous radioactive material to Iran without scrutiny by the British authorities, and then within a few months something very similar happened again, either in bizarre obeisance to some bureaucratic legalism (“it’s not on the list”), or because no one cared. Of course, lethal respect for legalisms of this sort has some tradition behind it: during the Zulu War, a large British force was wiped out when attacked because the quartermasters would not issue ammunition without forms.

Previously, in May 1999, Bulgarian customs officers trained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection discovered highly-enriched Uranium U-235 concealed in an air-compressor in the trunk of a car at a border-crossing checkpoint. It was believed this was a sample to show prospective buyers.