Posted on 11/18/2014 11:39:20 AM PST by SeekAndFind
After U.S. Central Command called on us to help transport, from Iraq, enough yellowcake uranium to make several atomic bombs stored at Saddam’s nuclear weapons complex, I realized why neither the Pentagon nor the White House advertised the presence of this WMD precursor: safety and security.
Before the U.S. military moved in to secure the facility after the 2003 invasion, looters had been there first. Even though the universally recognized yellow-and-black radioactivity warnings were posted on the bunkers, locals had ripped open the storage areas and stolen casks of yellowcake with many sickened as a result. More importantly, we did not want the insurgents alerted to the exposed stockpile as they might attack the facility.
This is also why the George W. Bush administration did not crow about the approximately 5,000 chemical munitions that U.S. forces uncovered throughout Iraq, as recently reported by the New York Times. That is a serious quantity of WMD, by any standard. Interestingly, the Bush team could have diluted near-uniform shock at the failure to find WMD by highlighting these discoveries instead of allowing the narrative we all know to solidify: “no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq found except a few dozen old, mustard-gas artillery shells left over from the 1980s Iran-Iraq War.” Yet President Bush and his advisors chose to protect the troops and the mission rather than score political points back on the war’s second front, the American body politic. (None of this, however, mitigates any unpreparedness by the Pentagon to treat service members exposed to chemical weapons.)
Before my company arrived to provide guards and to build and operate a base camp for U.S. Department of Energy scientists dissecting Saddam’s nuclear weapons facility, the American Army had occupied the site with almost a company of infantry. This was quite a bit of combat power tethered to a non-populated, static location when needed to actively defend the people against the elusive al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists and Iranian-allied militias rampant until early 2008 when the American Surge forces and the Sunni Arab “Awakening” had turned the tide delivering our victory in the Iraq War.
The limited number of combat troops available did not permit fixing them at every site where WMD were found or might be found. Hence the requirement to not advertise that Saddam had left thousands of chemical weapons lying around, potentially under any mound in mostly flat Iraq. That would have set off a dangerous treasure hunt—and if found, a tremendous threat to American troops and everyone in Iraq especially if weaponized nerve gas had ended up with al-Qaeda.
We were able to move the yellowcake successfully because of our proven relationships with the tribes along our supply line to the nuclear weapons facility, located at the center of an area known as the “Triangle of Death,” due to extensive U.S. combat fatalities suffered there. Because of our and other U.S. government contractors’ employment of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, we helped drain the swamp (or “sea” in Maoist terms) whence the al-Qaeda insurgency sprung. The uranium operation caused us, as usual, to rent trucks from the surrounding tribes with comprehensive war-loss insurance (meaning if a truck got blown up then the owner took the loss).
This in turn caused the tribes to look outwards on the convoy movements to protect their expensive tractor trailers instead of inwards—searching for a chance to attack. Doing business for the tribes with the American government, and then the Iraqi government, turned out to be safer than supporting the nihilistic, totalitarian jihadis and the traitorous Sadrists, minions of Iran.
Regardless of what position one takes on the U.S. invasion, the world could not abide by large quantities of nuclear weapons precursor in the hands of the genocidal tyrant in Baghdad. As we are seeing with the current, seemingly endless negotiations with Iran, the millionaire mullahs of Tehran are using the pretext of “peaceful” nuclear power generation in order to assert that the denial thereof is a direct assault on a nation’s sovereignty.
Consequently, the concept that we could have gotten the yellowcake removed from Iraq as a part of lifting the rapidly degrading sanctions and truly certifying the country clean of all chemical weapons without the overthrow of Saddam defies logic and experience. The continued possession by Iraq of approximately 5,000 chemical warheads undiscovered after almost eight years of aggressive UN inspections along with the existence of enough yellowcake uranium to make 14 or so nuclear bombs with technology that the Iranians and Libyans already possessed calls for a new coda to replace “Bush lied, people died.” Certainly, we should look to the reinstatement of a principle justification for the American invasion of Iraq.
- Carter Andress is president of AISG, Inc. (American-Iraqi Solutions Group) and the author, with Malcolm McConnell, of Victory Undone: The Defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Its Resurrection as ISIS (Regnery, October 2014). Present at the Company’s start-up in Baghdad in March 2004. After a year break in service, he returned to take over the Company in November 2006. Carter led the AISG team operations that won and successfully executed over 75 US & Iraqi government contracts representing more than $250 million in Iraq reconstruction work. Carter has run his own international trade and business consulting firm for fifteen years in the former Soviet Union and nationwide in the United States. As CEO and principal, he took a company public through the SEC. He is a former US Army Infantry officer and graduate of Ranger School (Airborne). Carter has a BA from the University of the South (Sewanee, TN), and an MA from American University in Washington, DC. Carter is fluent in Russian and conversational in Iraqi Arabic.
Or maybe because President Bush doesn’t need a sycophantic crowd constantly praising him for even the smallest action.
He did what he felt he needed to do, and not for some phantom “legacy”.
His legacy is meeting returning troops at airports and hosting wounded warrior bicycle rides.
Although I do wish he would slam this president for his actions a little more.
Give that man a ceegar; I think we should all remember the long lines of trucks headed for Syria after the ground war started.
bfl
My disagreement with the invasion was that we would get bogged down in the region and destabilize it. Saddam was a bad guy, there is no doubt about that. But he was in control. This stuff was going nowhere unless there was a power vacuum in the region.
There was no impending threat from them. The entire invasion was to put off Iran—they are the real problem. And now, Obama will let them get the bomb.
I am glad they found the WMD. But I am not sure it was worth the sh”t storm that was taken over Iraq and the entire area. Had we not invaded, my guess is that Egypt and Syria would have remained at the status quo.
But this is almost irrelevant. We are where we are. And it is more dangerous than ever. And Obama only makes it more dangerous.
No, your words not mine.
I consider myself a conservative Republican.
Lord knows I have been active in conservative causes for decades now.
Worked on RR’s first presidential campaign in 1976 when he ran against Ford.
No, that doesn’t make any sense either.
Presidents are not dictators. They are expected to inform American citizens - it is our country, not just his.
His false modesty, that he and his father are so proud of, is just elitism.
I was assigned to CENTCOM Forward in Qatar and later in Kuwait and Iraq. I signed a non-disclosure agreement as I am certain all officers in theater did. I had to assume that the information the US Govt wanted released was their business, at their level. So I pretty much expect other officers to do the same.
Of course Saddam had WMD- lots of open source info as depicted in the links, Canada processed the yellow cake a few years ago, no one argued that it came from IRQ.
I am longer in the Army ( retired, so I guess still on retainer pay) but I do honor my promises, even if the govt may/may not.
I was assigned to CENTCOM Forward in Qatar and later in Kuwait and Iraq during OIF ‘03-4 etc. I signed a non-disclosure agreement as I am certain all officers in theater did. I had to assume that the information the US Govt wanted released was their business, at their level. So I pretty much expect other officers to do the same.
Of course Saddam had WMD- lots of open source info as depicted in the links, Canada processed the yellow cake a few years ago, no one argued that it came from IRQ.
I am longer in the Army ( retired, so I guess still on retainer pay) but I do honor my promises, even if the govt may/may not.
That explanation seems to be logically sound. And note how this author did not get fooled by the ISIS was kicked out of All Qeada because they were too violent claptrap. ISIS is Al Qeada. And that Obama lie has been exposed because now ISIS and Al Qeada have magically joined forces. Nothing but newspeak comes out of DC.
Karl Rove told him there was nothing to gain by "relitigating" what he considered a dead issue.
And like an idiot Bush believed him. It's in Rove's book.
The fact is, there were stories about these materials being found at the time they were found. Some of those stories were posted here. Not much of a strategic secret. The rest of the world didn't know because the mass media simply censored the information.
But this guy has a book of his own to sell, so he has his own story.
I read a lot about Al Tuwatha at the time, it seemed like it qualified as WMD to me. The place was plundered by the surrounding natives and god knows who else before troops secured the area. Troops found people in the surrounding area with a lot of “hot” items, containers and barrels and the like using them for every day things like hauling water. The speculation was a bit of nuclear material was spirited away also. Then suddenly the reports ended just about the time the “no WMD” meme started to get traction.
Ahem...GW has not slammed this Puppet AT ALL.
I'm just not getting into it...
I’m not going to apologize for my objection here. The last thing I want to do is debate this; I don’t have the time or energy right now.
The fact is that I cannot condone a manic defense (old style respect) of someone so many hold up to be Conservative (he’s not) who’s content to sit on the sidelines and watch the country devolve into a Constitutional crisis of his successor’s own making (including his own contributions as well).
Conservatives are lacking leadership in this country and his inaction/silence condones his successor’s actions. I’ve quoted his own words at FR prior that state as much (he just doesn’t ‘believe in it’).
Condoning the Progressive actions of this Puppet by silence and inaction are itself Progressive. Period. An argument to the contrary is emotional, not logical.
On that basis, it automatically disqualifies any future Bush from that office (the article, IMHO, is written to lay the framework for Jeb running in 2016).
I’m also not getting into WMDs...I’m content with letting historians of another generation work that out.
The “world” DID know about the WMDs. Several different intelligence agencies had the same info. The lying media constructed the “no WMD” stories.
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