Replies

"Calling
a pile of yellowcake a stockpile of WMDs is like calling a
pile of Hematite a stockpile of assault rifles."

Ok I'll volunteer to ask this.

If the 500 tons of uranium and the 18. tons taht had already been weaponized isn't proof enough for you that Saddam was doing his best to keep an active WMD program;

Is there ANYTHING that will ever be enough "proof" for you?

Since the invasion, no one has found 18 tons of weaponized
anything in Iraq, let alone 18 tons of 'weaponized Uranium'.

_Weapons grade_ uranium is high purity U-235. Kilogram
quantitites were found in the 1990s, as were gram
quantities of Plutonium and both were removed from Iraq.

How was the program active when he had no centrifuges,
calutrons or diffussers, the raw materials were
declared more than a decade ago and have been
locked under IAEA seal ever since?

All that was found to be left of the Iraqi nuclear
weapons program were a small number of old components
buried in someone's yard, blueprints, raw or weakly
enriched Uranium that had been declared to UNSCOM,
and the desire to resume the program when possible.

That is hardly an active program.

No one ever claimed that Iraq would not resume WMD
production if it could, that was one of Bush's lies.
No one ever claimed that Saddam Hussein could be
trusted, that was another of Bush's lies.

But it is clear that the UN sanctions and inspections
program had completely shut down the Iraqi nuclear
program.

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FF

Did you consider reading the 1997 IAEA report?

a. Low enriched uranium

In 1982 Iraq imported from Italy 1,767 kg of uranium enriched to 2.6% in U-235 in the form of UO2 powder. The material has been verified and fully accounted for and remains in Iraq, under the control of the IAEA, at Location C (a storage complex close to Tuwaitha), in the same form as it was received. "

I provided the link, here it is again:

http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/s-1997-779-att-1.htm

IIRC, 2.6% U-235 is about right for reactor fuel rods
and is a long ways short of weapons grade.

Here, you can read up on the UNSCOM, UNMOVIC and
IAEA reports:

http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/

It is far from being the only place to find them online.
In this day and age what excuse can anyone posibly have
for not checking the UN reports on Iraqi WMD programs
befor writing about them?

--

FF

Is there ANYTHING that will ever be enough "proof" for you?

“Proof” would have to consist of several warehouses full of weaponized (loaded into shells, mines and bombs ready to go) poison gas, biological agents and nuclear weapons. All would have to be clearly labeled in Arabic, French and English “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and have Saddam’s signature on each one. Each would have to have a clear manufacturing date to show they were made after Operation Desert Storm.