The AP does the heavy lifting for Jacques Baute. Jacques Baute, for those unfamiliar with the name, is France's representative to the IAEA, and he is also, coincidentally, the official who determined that the Niger documents were forgeries. He's now saying that this claim in the SOTU was false:
"'Our intelligence sources tell us that (President Saddam Hussein) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production,' Bush said. "
Why is it false? Spinning cylinders made of aluminum can be used for inferior models of enrichment centrifuges, which separate out bomb uranium. But the Iraqis by 1990 had advanced to a much more productive design using carbon fiber tubes.
Oh I see. We said they are trying to reconstitute their nuclear weapons program, we offer one piece of evidence, and the refutation is that the Iraqis were using a more advanced version. Why do I not see the refutation there? And never mind that gas centrifuge that was dug up in the scientist's backyard, under a rose bush.
Posted by: William McKinley
(a Freeper)