Posted on 03/10/2010 8:47:12 AM PST by reaganwasright1980
At the time of the 1990 offer, Iraq was embarked in a crash program to develop nuclear weapons in the face of a threatened U.S.-led attack over its occupation of Kuwait. By that date, Iraqi scientists had acquired a limited amount of weapons-grade enriched uranium but lacked several key components, including a workable design for a small nuclear warhead.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldthreats.com ...
Very, very old news. It is well known that Iraq had a nuclear program in 1990. Nobody disputes that. It is equally well known now that it did not have one by the late 1990s. Hans Blix was right.....but, of course, his critics will never apologize.
I don’t know if it is a smoking gun, but it’s great watching the clips from 2002 as Democrat after Democrat assured us that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Of course he did. COMMON SENSE alone tells you that a guy like Hussein would NOT just say “oh well, I’ll just forget it...”
There is a REAL world out there. With REAL bad guys. They don’t just stop.
And the 550 TONS of uranium were for office lighting?
I think it was over 500 tons.
Saddam’s defense team wonders why the WP is reporting this today, if it is such old news? From the WP:
“But the newly uncovered documents suggest that Khan’s offer of nuclear assistance was more comprehensive than previously known. A 1990 letter attributed to a Khan business associate offered Iraq a chance to leap past technical hurdles to acquire weapons capability.”
As the Iraq study group concluded, no effort was made by Saddam after 1991 to restart the nuclear program.
In other words, the existence of this yellowcake did not constitute ANY evidence that Saddam had a nuclear program at the time of Gulf War II. The buried 1992 drums were not disturbed. Again, Hans Blix was right but his critics lack the grace and humility to admit it.
Here is a pretty good back and forth discussion on this non-issue.
bm
Sure you can believe the Iraq Study Group on Saddam’s intentions. Uh huh. The very fact that they a) existed in Iraq; that b) no one could PREVENT him from accessing them at any point means that c) he “had” them and “had” WMDs any time he needed them.
Bush's invasion was the act of a criminally negligent imbecile...
And folks say your boy Ron Paul and his followers are the same as the anti war lefty kooks...
I just can't see how they come to that conclusion...
Name calling and pounding your fist is apparently the only response you can make. Please note that you fail to address any of the specific points I raised e.g. the fact the yellowcake was not disturbed after the post Gulf War I inspectors left.
Dontcha know that Saddam was just “holding on” to all that uranium and really had no evil intentions and those wonderful, trustworthy weapons inspectors (who, it seems, always had a group of Iraqi “assistants” with them) can be counted on to inform us as to what the reliable and sane dictator Mr. Hussein was going to do. So of course Ron Paul knows that the war was “unnecessary.”
Is that your best shot? Word games? Are you claiming that Saddam was working on WMD at the time of Gulf War II. If you evidence, put up or shut up.
The evidence is there. 500 tons of it. In Saddam’s possession. Not yours, not Ron Pauls, not the UN’s. Saddam’s. And THAT’S your best shot???? lame.
We get it, you Paul folks are against the war. So is code pink and the left.
The company you keep...
Oh...please enlighten the benighted. You apparently believe Saddam had a WMD program in the late 1990s and early 200s. Right? Okay, let’s see your evidence.
It has become obvious at this point that each of Ron Paul's 'followers' has seized upon a handful of his observations and compliants, and extrapolated from them to their own bizzare beliefs, thus the 'Real' Ron Paul is nothing but a spray of projections that his so-called followers find satisfying, even though untested.
2)You have no evidence whatsoever that anyone, anywhere, anyhow could resist Saddam taking whatever he wanted in Iraq and doing whatever he wanted with it.
Slam dunk.
When you then combine that with the fact that at any minute he could "nationalize" that, hand it to al-Quaeda or whomever, without one other cause, that alone made the war worth it and necessary.
And....none of this yellowcake was a secret in 2002, all of it was identifed post Gulf War I by inspectors, all of it is in undisturbed 1992 drums, none of it disturbed by Saddam after the inspectors left, and Bush didn't even think it worthwhile to emphasize the existence of said yellowcake. Which one of these points do you dispute? Give us your best shot. You must be able to do better than this!?
Here is some evidence:
http://www.globalpolitician.com/21610-iraq-syria-wmd
It is rarely discussed with seriousness but why is it not seriously considered that WMD were moved to Syria.
We are all supposed to look the other way when Israel bombs a nuclear facility in 2007. So the Syrian Baathist were building WMD and Nuclear weapons but of course the allied iraqi Baathist were not.
Saddam wanted the world to think he had the weapons and was willing to use them. It was an established part of his international persona. The continued effort to refashion Saddam into a neutered cooperative global citizen is immoral.
It is so annoying that the Left and the Right collaborate on this inhumane project.
Shifting the topic eh? Let’s stick with this one for awhile. What specific evidence do you (or anyone else) have the Saddam was using this yellowcake in a post Gulf War WMD project?
You think the yellow cake was there as party favors to Saddam's guests?
There have been years of posts that the assessments were either incomplete or tampered with.
The only folks who buy the party line from the UN are folks in the left.
I thought you were trying to get away from that charge leveled at you and the other Paulistinians...
You’re not supposed to use the word “restarted” anymore!
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/57506/sec_id/57506
http://davidbellavia.com/2010/new-english-review-article-on-british-iraq-inquiry-must-read/
Article unpacks the recent formal hearings the British held over their participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom:
The Worst of Intentions
Saddam wanted to keep his surge-production abilities in BW as well as in CW. As Duelfer described, a “break-out production capability” in BW existed at one site, the State Company for Drug Industries and Medical Appliances, SDI, at Samarra. ISG judged that Saddam could surge production of Anthrax spores within four months if he so desired. Let us assume that four months is not exactly a safe timeframe for our intelligence community to both detect and disrupt the anthrax threat before a hand-off to the terrorist group. To put it mildly.
Maybe this is why Dr. David Kay, Duelfer’s predecessor at ISG, reported to Congress in October 2003 that one scientist was ordered to conceal reference strains of BW organisms like anthrax, ricin and Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever in his own refrigerator, which he turned over to ISG. The scientist knew of the location of other, much larger seed stockpiles, but these were unsurprisingly missing when ISG investigators showed up to collect them. Similarly, most of the hard drives, written reports, and lab samples suspected of being BW in refrigerators were deliberately and selectively vandalized and destroyed shortly before the coalition forces arrived, according to Dr. Kay.
Keep in mind: the real danger to Americans was not that Saddam would use chemical weapons in a final battle against American forces invading his country. Our forces can protect themselves against nearly every unconventional weapon with the gear and supplies they’re trained to use. The real danger was that Saddam would hand over smaller quantities (not battlefield quantities) of his anthrax spores to the next Mohammed Atta, who would then rent a crop-duster plane in Cedar Rapids and spray the good stuff all over Des Moines at rush hour. That was the danger we went to war over. It doesn’t take much more than one 155 millimeter shell filled with mustard gas to dump into the HEVAC system of the NBC Building in Chicago. Shortly before OIF, Hans Blix, of all people, found fourteen of these 155 mm shells filled with mustard gas, which totaled approximately 49 liters and was still at high purity (more than 90% concentrate). Blix’s UNMOVIC also found, among other things:
Approximately 500 ml of thiodiglycol
Some 122 mm chemical warheads
Some chemical equipment
224.6 kg of expired growth media
50 Al-Samoud II missiles
It's their world of imagination, let ‘em live in it.
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/id/218878
4 part cspan testimony of Tony Blair in recent months....
They are still smarting from Saddam and Son's deaths because the financed targeting of Israeli women and children on buses and in the marketplace has ended.
But they still have Iran...notice how they now protect that nut job.
Geroges Sada reports that 56 sorties flew yellow cake, chemicals and other stuff after June 2002.
I don’t need to do anything. You’ve already lost this one. You admit that you had TONS of uranium in Saddam’s hands, that there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could so about it, short of invading. Thank you Pres. Bush. Lame, dude. It’s a lame argument on your part. You are required to show that Saddam could NOT have accessed this.
http://www.freerepublic.com/~jveritas/
:}
We both know the truth and your failure to address my points proves it. To sum it up: The yellowcake was identified by inspectors post Gulf War I, sequestered, and not disturbed by Saddam. In short, Saddam did NOT have a nuclear program after Gulf War I. Your silence on that point says it all.
We both know the truth, and you have not addressed the truth at all. Again, two simple points. Saddam had 500 TONS (get it? TONS) of uranium in his possession, and neither you nor Ron Paul nor the UN nor anyone else could have stopped him from using it however he chose (short of an invasion). Your silence on THAT shows you’ve lost, big time, and your little arguments are lame and beyond silly. Saying the UN inspectors knew where it was is is beyond comment.
I am elated that Saddam and his henchmen have been executed. I also am elated that his two sons were blasted by a TOW missile from a unit attached to the 101st Abn.
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