8/26/2003: Iraqi truck of gold

This is the inside of a fuel tanker, and what the gent there is standing on appears to be bars of gold.

(I'm rich! Rich, I tells ya! Woo hoo! Etc.)

Strategypage has the story of this truck which was impounded by Iraqi police for having bad license plates (Auto licensing enforcement is in effect in Iraq by local cops? Cool.)

A local official turned down a $10,000 bribe to give the truck back, too -- instead taking it to the US Marines so they could take a look.

I seem to recall hearing that another cache of gold turned out to be fake after further inspection, so you never know, but the bribe gives this one an air of legitimacy, doesn't it?

Maybe they were going to build a yellow brick road. After all, their wizard turned out to be a sham, too.

They were probably going to use it to pay for terrorism. The advantage to paying with actual gold is that its value can be instantly transferred with no evidence of any financial transaction. You write a check, or cash a check, your name appears in databases.

See UT, there you go with that anti arab thing again. They could have just as well been on their way to buy milk for the orphanage. And cookies.

That's a lot of milk.

Yep, more wild assertions and casual logic from UT. Where are the facts??

lol.. sorry, I just couldn't resist.

How much gold is that? And how big is that tanker?
Gold is an extremely dense material, weighing 19.3 tonnes per cubic metre (that's 1205 pounds per cubic foot), while mineral oil weighs only 0.8 tonnes per cubic metre. So, my estimate would be that the tanker would be built to carry about 16 tonnes...

I don't know. I have a feeling that there's something fishy with that photo.

I think that's a really good point...

That pic has GOT to be in a storage container of some sort... It looks like a lot more than 16 tonnes of gold..

and at $350/oz (or whatever it is), if I were that guy, I'd sure as hell be walking out of there with one TEENY TINY LITTLE brick..


Sir.. Is that a gold bar in your pocket, or are you just happy to be working in iraq?

... Don't ask... don't tell!


hah.

There's another image on the linked story page that shows the outside of the truck, so it's defenitly a tanker truck. I'm still skeptical the bricks are pure gold. Judging the size of the tank from the outside picture it appears to be about 1/5th full and as Jaxxon says that'd wildly over load the truck.

However the soldiers moving the gold seem to be really struggling with each brick. Which they should considering a 1 litre(~1 quart) milk jug sized brick would weigh about 20 kilos

The tanker truck wasn't built like we build them in the US, with round or oval tanks. This one may even have been built special, disguised as a tanker, for moving heavy stuff like gold or uranium.

Quote:

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce The tanker truck wasn't built like we build them in the US, with round or oval tanks. This one may even have been built special, disguised as a tanker, for moving heavy stuff like gold or uranium.

No, not spent. Still capable of bada boom. Very, bada boom.:p

BIGGA BADA BOOM?

Uh huh. WOM, Bigga Badda Boom.