I thought Sadam didn't have a significant nuclear weapons program
Well, I guess that Saddam Hussein's nuclear program was real after all:
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions. . . .
Labels: Iraq
posted by John Lott at 8:16 PM
6 Comments:
Well, I guess that Saddam Hussein's nuclear program was real after all BEFORE 1991; as is reported in the FAUX News story you link to, this is nuclear fuel for nuclear reactors has been under the total control of the international nuclear arms anti-proliferation community since before 1991.
At no time after that did Sadam Hussein have or seek anything remotely resembling the capacity to produce nuclear-based weapons of any kind.
Statements to the contrary, such as yours, have been shown and proven to be intentionally misleading lies and government propaganda in support of pre-Inaugural plans to attack and occupy Iraq and its oil fields -- wrapping selected, created, and supportive intel (only) around these illegal administration plans.
Where these plans and the supportive lying propaganda has been revealed to the public they have met universal disdain and disgust.
Let's see -- England, Russia, Germany and France all thought Saddam had WMD's and an active WMD program, Saddam constantly thwarted the international community's efforts at investigating the issue of his possession of WMD's, Saddam openly supported terrorism through rewards for suicide bombers in Israel, Saddam hated the US for declawing his military and dethroning Iraq from its pinnacle position in the Middle East and now we had seriously dangerous terrorists in need of allies in their Jihad campaign against the US.
It's fun to play armchair quarterback after the fact but in real life, decisions must be made based on best evidence available and an assessment of risk.
Christopher Hitchens did an excellent investigative piece about Iraq seeking uranium that all the pacifist appeasement dems should read:
http://www.slate.com/id/2139609/
David
1. Yes, this was uranium held "under the total control of the international nuclear arms anti-proliferation community."
2. Perhaps you remember the son-in-law who defected in ...1995(?)... to reveal Saddam's secret nuclear program and was then executed when he was lured back to Iraq.
CSmith,
Actually what that son-in-law revealed was that Saddam had indeed stopped all his WMD programs, something that Saddam did not want the world to know as he was stupidly playing tough guy with the world. And our intel agencies stupidly refused to believe him. They thought he was fake, a plant sent by Saddam to fool us all into thinking he had stopped, which he had.
TIME Cover Date: March 9, 1998
Uncovering Iraqi Intrigue
By Michael S. Serrill/New York
...The SSO was handed the job of hiding the weapons programs at the end of the Gulf War, during the 15-day period when Iraq was ordered by the U.N. to list all its instruments of mass destruction. Over the next four years, the SSO did such an effective job of deception that by July 1995, UNSCOM was ready to declare its task done and close up shop. Then an extraordinary event happened: Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Lieut. General Hussein Kamel al-Majid, who had been in charge of Iraq's secret-weapons development, defected to Jordan, where he went public with details of the concealment program.
The Iraqi government tried to portray Kamel as a lone rogue who was himself concealing records; they thus led U.N. investigators to a Kamel-owned chicken farm, where they found more than a million pages of documents on Iraq's banned weapons programs. "The chicken-farm documents gave us a clear indication of how much we had missed," says UNSCOM deputy executive chairman Charles Duelfer.
Saddam used 18 chemical shells on the Kurds. We have found 500.
One binary chemical shell was found in about 2004. Saddam was not known to have any binary chemical weapons. It's origin is unknown.
To those who say that Saddam was only bluffing -- I am reminded of those who try to intimidate the police by pointing an unloaded gun. They always seem surprised when the police shoot them.
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