Shocker: New York Times Confirms Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Program

NRO ^ | Jim Geraghty

[hipaatwo]

When I saw the headline on Drudge earlier tonight, that the New York Times had a big story coming out tomorrow that had something to do with Iraq and WMDs, I was ready for an October November Surprise.

Well, Drudge is giving us the scoop. And if it's meant to be a slam-Bush story, I think the Times team may have overthunk this:

U.S. POSTING OF IRAQ NUKE DOCS ON WEB COULD HAVE HELPED IRAN...

NYT REPORTING FRIDAY, SOURCES SAY: Federal government set up Web site — Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal — to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war; detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research; a 'basic guide to building an atom bomb'... Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency fear the information could help Iran develop nuclear arms... contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that the nuclear experts say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums...

Website now shut... Developing...

I'm sorry, did the New York Times just put on the front page that IRAQ HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM AND WAS PLOTTING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB?

What? Wait a minute. The entire mantra of the war critics has been  "no WMDs, no WMDs, no threat, no threat", for the past three years solid. Now we're being told that the Bush administration erred by making public information that could help any nation build an atomic bomb.

Let's go back and clarify: IRAQ HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS SO ADVANCED AND DETAILED THAT ANY COUNTRY COULD HAVE USED THEM.

I think the Times editors are counting on this being spun as a "Boy, did Bush screw up" meme; the problem is, to do it, they have to knock down the "there was no threat in Iraq" meme, once and for all. Because obviously, Saddam could have sold this information to anybody, any other state, or any well-funded terrorist group that had publicly pledged to kill millions of Americans and had expressed interest in nuclear arms. You know, like, oh... al-Qaeda.

The New York Times just tore the heart out of the antiwar argument, and they are apparently completely oblivous to it.

The antiwar crowd is going to have to argue that the information somehow wasn't dangerous in the hands of Saddam Hussein, but was dangerous posted on the Internet. It doesn't work. It can't be both no threat to America and yet also somehow a threat to America once it's in the hands of Iran. Game, set, and match.

[goodnesswins]

What it looks like to me is the Times has been exposed as saying it was "bad" that documents got put out on the internet....BUT, those documents show that Saddam was making plans to rebuild the nuclear/wmd stuff, and would have, had we not taken him out....that's my take on it....and I'd say a few others around here. FWIW. By the way, the Times interviewed Jveritas.....but ignored his research.

[tcrlaf]

These VERY SAME News organizations went out of thier way just a few short months ago to DENY that these Docs had anything of Importance in them, and there was NOTHING that could justify the War...

Read Scott Shane's Articles/Book on the subject.

IMO, we need to keep this as SIMPLE as possible, so it gets the largest possible distribution.

"NEW YORK TIMES MISTAKENLY VALIDATES BUSH'S REASONS FOR WAR IN IRAQ!"

There...
That should do it...

[Danette]

Here's a Reuters Story on this subject:

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-11-03T044918Z_01_N02171090_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-SECURITY-INTERNET-IRAQ.XML




"...in recent weeks, according to the Times, the site posted documents that weapons experts said contained detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research before the 1991 Gulf War that one diplomat called "a cookbook" for building an atom bomb."

[gb63]

For those thinking about the state of Irag development:


1981: Israel bombs Baghdad nuclear reactor
The Israelis have bombed a French-built nuclear plant near Iraq's capital, Baghdad, saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.

It is the world's first air strike against a nuclear plant.

An undisclosed number of F-15 interceptors and F-16 fighter bombers destroyed the Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad, on the orders of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The army command said all the Israeli planes returned safely.

The 70-megawatt uranium-powered reactor was near completion but had not been stocked with nuclear fuel so there was no danger of a leak, according to sources in the French atomic industry.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/7/newsid_3014000/3014623.stm

[janetjanet998]

well the Times will not print anything that looks good for Bush...I am taking the approach that i am ignorant about Jveritas research and just an average joe....to me that article is talking about pre-1991 programs that the Iraqi's gave the info too the UN in the 1990's and in 2002. not about an active program

it doesn;t really matter anyway...anyone that follows this knows saddam wanted WMD and had every intention of restarting his program If/when the UN left(its in the Kay report) he was also in violation of the cease fire acreement becuase he didn't reveal all his duel use stuff(again in the kay report)

But this is too complicated for the avergere Joe to piece together in part becuase of the dimwits spin...if there isn't a pile of nuclear bombs or chemicals weaopns with a sign on them that says "saddams WMD" ....they won't get it

[torchthemummy]

The way I read this is, "the incompetent Bush Administration" put documents on the internet telling people how to make a nuclear bomb. I think that's the point the slimes is trying to make. I don't think this is a good thing.

What's so wierd is that this is coming out now four days before election day. /sarc

The author makes a very valid counterpoint that, weapon or no weapon, to have such detailed plans was to have the ability to hand such information over to other hate-America countries/entities.

This will not play any better than anything else already tried. This certainly will not hurt GOP turnout so this is obviously to inspire more Dem voters. It won't.

This may be the opening play by the left to switch from the current Bush-Lied-People-Died to a more palpable and watered-down version of We-Won't Screw-The Pooch-Like-The-Pubbies for 2008. It's easier to blame incompetence than to prove malfeasance.

We are the less-silent majority. With academia, news, entertainment all skewed to the left we keep alot of our opinions to ourselves. It is just more often than not worth the energy to deal with their emotionally-charged and intellectually-bankrupt positions. So the Dems get over-represented in polls creating false hopes that cannot be fullfilled and crashing down they come.

Remember that embryonic stemcell research is not the only issue the Dems that is based on false hope; affirmative action, minimum wage, United nations, taxes, etc all are Dem positions that are applied in a manner that guarantees not only the status quo but can often make worse the very ill the solution was supposed to solve.

Democrats - The Party Of False Hopes

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1234720/posts?q=1&&page=151

#173

The last paragraph is the kicker IMO.

[goodnesswins]

I disagree.....if there is a "whiff" of Saddam had nukes.....average Joe WILL get it.....at least that's what I think. Average Joe doesn't care about 1991....because I believe average Joe believes if Saddam had them in 1991....he probably had them later too....they're not THAT stupid.

Nite all.

[Sen Jack S. Fogbound]

It may be that NYT may have rethought about having Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid running the House ang giving them the heebie jeebie! So they must have decided to tell the truth a bit........

[REDWOOD99]

"Experts say at that time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away." That's from the article. The one you claim refers to "pre-1991." Saddam was pursuing nuclear capability. He was very close to achieving it. The slimes just shot a hole in their "Bush lied" credo. You and Strategerist can put that in your pipes and smoke it.

[DrGunsforHands]

What I'm also worried about is that the rest of the documents will never get translated now and, much like the Ark of the Covenant in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", will just get stored away and forgotten. My other fear is that information on how to make different WMDs was on some of the documents and now terrorists and other crazies will be able to make the stuff and possibly use it against us.

I've read on the various threads on this story that this information was already available on the internet and other sources. Is this true and the Times piece is nothing but a lame attack piece, much like Qaqagate in 2004, or was this stuff not available (as the anonymous IAEA source says) on the internet and will the Times article not be able to be discredited as the Qaqagate article was?

[cynwoody]

It appears the Yahoo cache of the document site is available. E.g., site:70.168.46.200 uranium.

It's pretty tough going.

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Anybody rip a copy of the website before it went down?

[pawdoggie]

Not enough time before the election to get the facts straightened out from the Gray Lady's distortions. Is there enough time?

Short answer, yes. I don't know if it's been mentioned yet or not, but the was a similar last minute El Baradei story just before the 2004 election. I believe the subject was dangerous and/or nuke materials left unsecured in Iraq. This has become a habit with Hajii El Baradei. The people in the White House need to get their facts together, avoid panic, act confident (the MSM sharks will smell fear and "blood in the water", a calm and dispassionate explanation will throw the MSM bozos off their game plan). It will also help if they can advise all the usual GOP suspects (Warner, McCain, Specter, etc) to keep their powder dry until the circumstances are explained.

[CottShop]

Ah yes, but we can hire Indianna Jones to hunt for them for us- Start saving your nickels. And to the New York Times and other bonehead lying scandal rags- Iraq DID have WMD- there's PLENTY of testimony from eyewitnesses with first hand knowledge & the serin gas wasn't as old as you - N.Y.T made it out to be- it was still deadly.

Christian news and commentary at: sacredscoop.com ...

[Shelayne]

is the Times talking about those documents? no..

But in calling out these specific documents, that earlier they had brushed off as "old news" and not verifiable, they actually ARE giving credence to the rest of the docs. This, in turn, shines a light on the translations of our very own jveritas, who has been working on these for months and found extremely interesting documents.

These documents that they had no interest in before- jveritas was even interviewed by one of the contributing writers of this newest piece and basically disregarded what he had to say.

I think this is going to get very interesting.

[cynwoody]

An undisclosed number of F-15 interceptors and F-16 fighter bombers destroyed the Osirak reactor 18 miles south of Baghdad, on the orders of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

The army command said all the Israeli planes returned safely.

One of the pilots on that mission, Ilan Ramon, died on 1 February 2003, when the Columbia disintegrated over Texas. At his funeral, GWB reportedly assured Ramon's relatives that he would shortly finish the job Ramon started.

[GoLightly]

AQ Kahn learned enough while working in Europe to put together a workable bomb. Anyone think he's the only one?

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Nope,,,Sooner or later...

[CyberAnt]

Iran didn't need this info .. it had Russia and NK to supply them with all the technology they needed.