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We Drove Saddam’s Yellowcake to the Baghdad Airport
FrontPage Magazine ^ | November 3, 2014 | Carter Andress

Posted on 11/03/2014 8:51:11 AM PST by SJackson

As someone who led the company that transported 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium—enough to make fourteen Hiroshima-size bombs—from Saddam’s nuclear complex in the Iraq War’s notorious “Triangle of Death” for air shipment out of the country, I know Baathist Iraq’s WMD potential existed. In early 2008, we secretly moved over several nights 140 truckloads carrying 5500 barrels of extremely heavy radioactive material provided to Iraq as part of the French-supplied Osiraq reactor destroyed by Israeli fighter bombers in 1981. The virulently anti-Semitic Saddam had announced “here begins the Arab bomb” and the Israelis took him at his word.

The recent article in the New York Times, however, caught us all by surprise. Random caches of old chemical weapons found post-invasion were old news, but not “roughly 5,000” warheads and bombs, many filled with still active, nerve agent. That’s an enormous quantity even if evidently left over from the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. Just “antiques,” as the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung quaintly put it at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum on Iraq.

At the least, this shocker (after so many years of repetitious “Bush lied [about WMD], people died”) further points to the world’s inability to trust that the UN inspectors could ever realistically certify Saddam clean of his nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. He had to be deposed, and the only way to do it was for us to invade and overthrow his dictatorship. Here was a genocidal, expansionist tyrant who had used chemical weapons on his own people and that of a neighboring nation (Iran), publically celebrated 9/11, and allowed a chemical weapons laboratory affiliated with al-Qaeda to operate within his security forces’ reach inside his country’s borders in contested Kurdistan (Khurmal).

The article in the Times references the Duelfer Report that summed up the official American investigation of Iraq’s WMD as definitive in that there were no ongoing WMD programs pre-invasion, yet fails to mention that every section of the report on the different types of weapons of mass destruction concluded that the evidence gathered by investigators clearly indicated that once sanctions were removed Saddam would reinstate his WMD programs. In addition, the article mentions that the chemical weapons program was not active for over ten years, but not the biological weapons program, which extended into 1996 and was only discovered because Saddam’s son-in-law defected, even after five years of aggressive UN inspections.

There’s no question in my mind, Saddamist Iraq would have reconstituted its WMD programs once UN sanctions faded away—a push Security Council veto-wielding members Russia and France were actively working toward because of oil field opportunities. (Petroleum companies from both countries signed huge, new contracts with Saddam pre-invasion.) And given the yellowcake inventory, nuclear weapons with available Pakistani and North Korean technology might not have been far off. After over ten years in effect, the sanctions system was actively degrading with banned flights landing in Baghdad, the Oil for Food program corrupted, and, as a result, would have collapsed if we had not invaded—thus leaving Saddam free to threaten the world again with WMD.

The greater problem, however, of significant quantities of chemical weapons hidden at some date prior to the US invasion points to a current and growing threat. The leader of the neo-Saddamists allied now with ISIS is Izzat al-Douri, a former Iraqi army general and last member of the senior Baathist leadership not executed or imprisoned. There is a distinct possibility that Saddam’s minions hid these munitions with the intention of disinterring them for deterrent use once again. And in fact, this is why Saddam’s military and secret police leaders never ceased to believe Iraq possessed WMD and could therefore project terror onto the Kurds and the rest of the region (Israel and Iran, specifically) until the end because Iraq did possess WMD, even after the dictator’s death by hanging. The Iraqi army and security services did not handle “special” weapons without the knowledge of the regime’s leaders. So to think that Saddam and his immediate circle, including al-Douri, did not know the locations of the WMD discussed in the Times article begs credulity.

Much of the area where the “antique,” yet still potentially potent chemical weapons discovered by US forces is now in the hands of ISIS, the forces of al-Douri, and their allied Sunni Arab tribes undergirding the “caliphate” occupying almost a third of Iraq. With hundreds of Western passport holders fighting in Syria and Iraq, the most immediate threat to the United States is the spread of jihadi terrorism to Europe now that ISIS has a border with Turkey, a gateway to the EU.

Can one even imagine the impact of a weaponized sarin-gas attack in Paris?


TOPICS: News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: iraqwmd; obama; sadamhussein; saddamhussein; wmd
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Having been assured there was none of this stuff there.

I'm sure he's talking about.

140 truckloads, lot of cake.

1 posted on 11/03/2014 8:51:11 AM PST by SJackson
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

2 posted on 11/03/2014 8:53:38 AM PST by SJackson (incompetent and feckless..the story of the Obama presidency. No hand on the f***ing tiller, Hillary)
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To: SJackson

The LSM was too busy fawning over their new messiah, Obama, to notice.


3 posted on 11/03/2014 8:54:32 AM PST by Blood of Tyrants (The cure has become worse than the disease. Support an end to the WOD now.)
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To: SJackson

Thanks for the article/link. It is sad the media is SO biased that the “Bush lied” lie remains as a truth in the minds of the people, because they kept this stuff quiet while repeating lies. Further it is sad the people just keep listening to, and believing the same media liars.


4 posted on 11/03/2014 8:58:05 AM PST by Prophet2520
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To: SJackson

Yup.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/iraq.uranium/


5 posted on 11/03/2014 8:59:17 AM PST by 1066AD
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To: SJackson

The Democrat Party owns every terrorist attack from now on. The Democrat Party Leaders knew all about this, but winning elections was more important to them than the safety of their fellow citizens. The Democrats had to win the elections so they would have access to the public treasuries in order to loot them.


6 posted on 11/03/2014 9:03:39 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: SJackson
According to FACTCHECK.ORG :

Q: Was it recently revealed that the U.S. found uranium in Iraq after the invasion in 2003?

A: No. Uranium recently shipped from Iraq to Canada was left over from Saddam Hussein’s defunct nuclear weapons program and had been in sealed containers, under guard, since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. Claims that this material is "vindication" for President Bush’s WMD claims in 2003 are completely false.



CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

7 posted on 11/03/2014 9:12:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: SJackson; All
Joe Wilson Yellow Cake photo Yellowcake.jpg

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8 posted on 11/03/2014 9:14:36 AM PST by musicman (Until I see the REAL Long Form Vault BC, he's just "PRES__ENT" Obama = Without "ID")
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To: SJackson

Karl “the architect” Rove says, “sssssssssshhhhhh...nothing to see here”


9 posted on 11/03/2014 9:15:44 AM PST by lormand (Inside every liberal is a dung slinging monkey)
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To: Prophet2520
According to FACTCHECK.ORG :

Q: Was it recently revealed that the U.S. found uranium in Iraq after the invasion in 2003?

A: No. Uranium recently shipped from Iraq to Canada was left over from Saddam Hussein’s defunct nuclear weapons program and had been in sealed containers, under guard, since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. Claims that this material is "vindication" for President Bush’s WMD claims in 2003 are completely false.



CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....


10 posted on 11/03/2014 9:15:57 AM PST by SeekAndFind (If at first you don't succeed, put it out for beta test.)
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To: SeekAndFind

WMDs are more than yellow cake. There have been verified cases of WMDs AND American soldiers injured from them. This was discussed in another recent freeper thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3215255/posts

BTW factcheck.org is a liberal tool which is only sometimes factual


11 posted on 11/03/2014 9:27:18 AM PST by Prophet2520
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To: Blood of Tyrants
"The LSM was too busy fawning over their new messiah, Obama, to notice."

And drinking sweet mint tea with Joe Wilson.

12 posted on 11/03/2014 9:49:27 AM PST by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: SJackson

Saddam indeed have the yellow cake and did have a nuclear program. He did kick out the UN thereby violating sanctions. I have read a report that he could have a nuclear bomb by 2008 unchecked. The fact check leaves out some important information.


13 posted on 11/03/2014 9:51:57 AM PST by Parley Baer
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To: SJackson

This is old news to them, even if they once denied it. There is NO LOW TOO LOW for the lamestream media and the democrat party. One is shocked over and again at the depth they continue to lower themselves to. There is a day of judgment coming...two of them, really. America is due her day, and then there’s the worst one...the day each of us faces God for our lives and what we did with them. Without the blood of Jesus to cover me, I know that I would more then tremble to face God on that day. Trouble is...the majority of people today refuse to even entertain the idea of judgment. Satan has blinded their eyes.


14 posted on 11/03/2014 9:57:16 AM PST by Shery (Pray for righteousness to be restored and for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: SJackson
Yellowcake is not important. It's a distraction to designed to take our minds off of the damage that the criminal Scooter did to dear, sweet Valerie:

Bad, Scooter!


15 posted on 11/03/2014 10:29:10 AM PST by GBA (Hick with a keyboard.)
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To: GBA
Any time I visit Santa Fe, NM ... which is on average once a year for the past five years Valerie Plame is either on the cover, or a prominent article is written about her in Santa Fe Magazine. She's obviously well liked in her very liberal adopted home of Santa Fe.
16 posted on 11/03/2014 10:42:40 AM PST by BluH2o
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To: SJackson
Just “antiques,” as the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung quaintly put it at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum on Iraq.

How many "antiques" are still exploding in Europe from WWII?

-PJ

17 posted on 11/03/2014 10:51:16 AM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: SeekAndFind
I don't think this invalidates Bush's claim.

If Saddam had been allowed to remain in power and to flout the UN, who would believe that he would not try to get his hands once again on the existing yellow cake?

I think the reason that Bush did not advertise the yellow cake was that he did not want people in the Middle East to become aware that it existed. The transferral to Canada was hightly secret because they needed to transport it out. They did not not want to have local militants trying to get hold of it while it was being transported.

18 posted on 11/03/2014 11:29:54 AM PST by what's up
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To: Prophet2520

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/#.VFfbb_nF9qA
This from NBC your heroes. Read the part where it says it was removed due to the fear of Insurgents or Loyalist to Saddam could get their hands on it. Factcheck is like Snopes, no credibility.


19 posted on 11/03/2014 11:45:47 AM PST by crazydad
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To: SeekAndFind

http://politicalvelcraft.org/2012/07/11/obama-bill-ayers-and-factcheck-org-all-have-ties-to-the-british-annenberg-brain-washing-foundation/

Fact Check and Snopes all have ties to Soros and Obama.


20 posted on 11/03/2014 7:18:21 PM PST by Kackikat (Two wrongs do NOT make a right.... unless you are a Democrat!)
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