Wilson/Plame/CIA: Something's Rotten

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/281pokap.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/266weygj.asp
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/244chpdw.asp

"Yet Wilson claims he went around Washington trying to get "the administration" to take note of it. Why would they, if Plame and the CIA didn't think it important?"

It's just one more hole in his story. But the media never fact-check anything that Wilson says. Nor do they examine it for coherence or probability.

Take one small matter: Wilson claimed he interviewed "dozens" of people during his investigation. I would very much like to know who those "dozens" of people were, whether Wilson took any notes, and whether any notes were turned over to the CIA. Wilson was there only eight days, he was also engaged in personal business, so I question how many people he actually interviewed, and in what depth.

I've been involved in hiring processes, and it takes a long time just to schedule interviews with dozens of people, not to mention doing the interviews themselves. Was it humanly possible to do "dozens" of bona fide interviews in the available time? And why would Wilson or the CIA think you could get any good information by doing this kind of an investigation? What incentive would people have to talk to Wilson? These are fundamental, basic questions, and to my knowledge, NO ONE in the media has ever asked them.

In my opinion, the prima facie evidence is that Wilson conducted a token, half-assed investigation that provided no solid information about anything, which is why his report died in the CIA bureaucracy and never even got to Cheney. And who were all these people in Washington that Wilson claims he talked to, pleading to read his report? Has anyone ever checked that out? Have any of these people been identified? Not to my knowledge.

It's very possible that to protect Wilson, Kristof invented the other source, and that all the info actually came from Wilson.

UN PISSED OF THE USA REMOVED 500 TONS OF YELLOW CAKE TO THE USA.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

UN 500 tons of yellow cake removed from IRAQ
The UNs nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was very upset last week that the US had shipped about 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium and other radioactive material out of Iraq for disposition in the US.

In addition to the nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium secured by the US, Site C was home to an additional 500 tons of yellowcake uranium.

Department of Energy officials estimated that the two tons of low-enriched uranium shipped to the US, given further refinement, is enough to produce one nuclear bomb. The number of bombs that could be made from the over 500 tons of yellowcake is frightening, and, had the coalition not attacked Iraq, Saddam’s nuclear bomb stockpile may have become reality.

The UN, Al-Tuwaitha, and Nukes
Front Page Magazine ^ | 20 July 2005 | Douglas Hanson
Posted on 07/31/2005 8:06:49 PM CDT by Lorianne
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was very upset last week that the US had shipped about 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium and other radioactive material out of Iraq for disposition in the US. One would think that the IAEA would have appreciated our work in assisting them in the implementation of the provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in this particularly volatile region of the world. But one would be wrong.

The actions, or more appropriately, the inactions of the IAEA regarding Iraq since the end of Gulf War I, betray the agency’s true agenda. Rather than inspect, report, and implement restrictions in accordance with the provisions in the treaty, the agency has in effect become an enabler of rogue nations who are attempting, or who have already succeeded in developing or acquiring special nuclear material and equipment. In other words, the IAEA is simply a reflection of its parent organization, which routinely delays and obfuscates the efforts of the US and the UK in controlling banned substances and delivery systems.
Time after time, the agency has either intentionally or naively bought into the lies and deceptions contrived by nations of the Axis of Evil during IAEA visits and inspections. In most cases, the IAEA avoids confrontation like the plague in order to maintain access to the facilities. If they are booted out, as was the case with North Korea, their impotence is on display for all to see. In other cases, the agency joins in the deception, thereby allowing these rogue states to level the nuclear playing field with the West and Russia. Their reaction to the shipment of nuclear material out of Saddam’s nuclear research center at Al-Tuwaitha is a perfect example of this tactic.

The nuclear research center of Al-Tuwaitha is a 23,000 acre site located about 20 kilometers south-southeast of Baghdad. Most reports of the transfer of the low-enriched uranium out of the country correctly refer to the source location of the uranium as at Tuwaitha Site C. But there is much more material stored at this huge site, and there are more facilities at Tuwaitha that have contributed significantly to the overall capabilities of the research center. These key facilities are, of course, generally ignored in major press reports.

Site C is a relatively small site as compared to the rest of the reservation, but the amount of material stored there is not insignificant. In addition to the nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium secured by the US, Site C was home to an additional 500 tons of yellowcake uranium,* This is a conservative estimate as initially reported by Coalition personnel from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Ironically, this initial figure is backed up by, of all organizations, Greenpeace.

Yellowcake is uranium ore that has been milled to produce a pure form of the substance known as Uranium Oxide. Further processes, such as conversion and enrichment, are required to make the yellowcake suitable for use as nuclear fuel in a reactor or for use in a nuclear weapon. Interestingly, a quantity of depleted uranium was also found at Tuwaitha. This implies that some enrichment processes occurred on-site, as depleted uranium is the natural byproduct of the enrichment process.

In addition to the yellowcake, approximately 300 tons of radioisotopes for industrial and medical uses were stored at primarily Site B. These materials, numbering over 1000 radioactive items retrieved from the site, included Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60. Both are extremely radioactive substances that are ideal for use in Radiological Dispersal Devices (RDD), or “dirty bombs.”

There are also three key facilities on the Al-Tuwaitha reservation that are rarely mentioned in media accounts of the transfer. First, there is the French reactor at Site B, better known as Osirak, which was destroyed by the Israelis in 1981 in Operation Opera. The second facility is the Russian built reactor at Site A, destroyed by the US in Gulf War I in 1991. The third facility is a fuel fabrication plant at Site D, also destroyed in 1991. All three facilities have never been rebuilt. All spent fuel or fresh fuel was sent back to the country of origin after Gulf War I.

Now, the IAEA complains that the Department of Energy (DOE) shipped the radioactive materials to the US without UN permission. The agency’s rationale is that there was
some concern about the legality of the U.S. transfer because the nuclear material belonged to Iraq and was under the control and supervision of the IAEA.

The material at Tuwaitha is also characterized as being “under IAEA seal and control.” The article states that only two tons of yellowcake remained at Al-Tuwaitha after Gulf War I. This is simply incorrect, according to my own sources. Either the AP, the IAEA, or both, are misrepresenting the facts.

All of this begs the question: why did the IAEA allow Iraq to retain such massive amounts of nuclear material, when its three nuclear facilities had been destroyed over 12 years ago, and have never been repaired? In fact, the Russian reactor is so hot, it would take years to clean up the facility; it’s a total write off. Iraq had no legitimate reason to have possessed the yellowcake.
And speaking of the storage and accountability of the radioactive material, who maintained those seals, anyway? Let’s see the paperwork.

And why didn’t the UN ship the yellowcake and the low-enriched uranium out of the country 12 years ago? Wouldn’t the UN be interested in denying Saddam the nuclear raw materials, in case he decided to conduct enrichment by calutron at facilities such as Tarmiya and al-Fajar?
It appears the IAEA is not really interested in non-proliferation at all; otherwise this material would have long ago been safeguarded in another country. Thankfully, this overdue evacuation of a dangerous stockpile has finally been started by the DOE, even if much more remains to be done.

Department of Energy officials estimated that the two tons of low-enriched uranium shipped to the US, given further refinement, is enough to produce one nuclear bomb. The number of bombs that could be made from the over 500 tons of yellowcake is frightening, and, had the coalition not attacked Iraq, Saddam’s nuclear bomb stockpile may have become reality. The IAEA would have us believe that the massive amount of yellowcake on-site and the depleted uranium find were just due to the Iraqis pursuing enrichment techniques in order to provide fuel for two destroyed reactors. This is what the UN views as nuclear research for “peaceful purposes.” Simply put, Saddam had retained a nuclear weapons regeneration capability in the same way he did for biological and chemical weapons production.

The IAEA chief, Mohamed El-Baradei is distraught at the secretive nature of the US transfer of nuclear materials out of Iraq. He also continues to opine about the US confronting Tehran about its 18 year effort to conceal its nuclear weapon activities. Most analysts say the mullahs will produce a bomb in short order. El-Baradei said that he didn’t want to take the Iran issue before the UN Security Council because

You are running the risk that the Security Council might not act and therefore the situation would exacerbate. And you run the risk that Iran might opt out of the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and you have another North Korea.

In other words, the chief of the UN nuclear watchdog agency doesn’t want to notify the member nations of the UN Security Council of the Iranian breach of treaty provisions, because the council might then institute economic sanctions, and then Iran might opt out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and then expel UN inspectors, and then some big US city is blown to smithereens -- well, you get the idea.

The UN and its so-called nuclear watchdog agency have proven again that they are not about preventing the proliferation of WMD, but in reality, unwittingly or intentionally, assist rogue nations’ nuclear weapons programs. Their track record over the last decade includes abject failure in North Korea, allowing a sadistic dictator to keep nuclear materials to fuel non-operational reactors, and now they are afraid to truthfully report the critical situation in Iran to the Security Council.

Keep in mind that John Kerry wants to entrust our national security to these same people.

All I have to say is, thank God for the Coalition and George W. Bush.

*

Critics of President Bush, who carped about the so-called fabricated intelligence about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa (Niger), would be wise to wait for a full analysis of the source of the materials that were flown to the US, and the materials that remain at Tuwaitha.

Douglas Hanson was the Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Science and Technology for the Coalition Provisional Authority during the Summer of 2003. As then, the Iraqi-controlled ministry today has oversight of Al-Tuwaitha and its 3000 scientists and engineers of the now-disbanded Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission

UN Admits Saddam Had WMD july 2005

« Read This and Smile | Main | Office Conflicts »
Tuesday, 13 July 2004

Yet another under-reported story that masks reality: last week the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) -- that group of Inspector Clouseaus who were stumbling around Iraq before the war while losing the game of hide-and-seek with Saddam's henchmen -- gave a briefing to the U.N. Security Council about the movement of Iraqi WMD out of the country before, during and after the war.

Demetrius Perricos told the Council, "The removal of these materials from Iraq raises concerns with regard to proliferation risks," and said inspectors found Iraqi WMD and missile components shipped abroad that still contained UN inspection tags.

The World Tribune reported on Perricos's briefing. "He said the Iraqi facilities were dismantled and sent both to Europe and around the Middle East at the rate of about 1,000 tons of metal a month... The Baghdad missile site contained a range of WMD and dual-use components, UN officials said. They included missile components, reactor vessel and fermenters ... required for the production of chemical and biological warheads. 'It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for,' Perricos's spokesman, said. 'You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter. You can also use it to breed anthrax.'"

Finally, the U.N. admits what the rest of the world (minus the loony left) has known for a year. Prohibited missiles, equipment that would make a bio-terrorist's heart leap, and yellow cake. Tons of yellowcake.

Summing up:
· We know that the infamous "16 words" were true, verified by both British and French intelligence.
· The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report declared that the administration did not seek to "coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

· We know that Iraq had at least 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium and roughly 1,000 highly radioactive sources -- because we now have them stored in Tennessee! Materials that could have been used to manufacture a ?dirty? radiological bomb or even support a nuclear weapons program.

· Way back in January, another U.N. entity, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), discovered 5 pounds of radioactive uranium oxide in a shipment of scrap metal at Rotterdam harbor. The metal came from Iraq via a dealer in Jordan.

· Last month, an IAEA spokesman said the IAEA had work to do in Iraq ?because we know they still have the know-how? to make weapons of mass destruction.

· In May, Candian Prime Minister Paul Martin told a crowd of about 700 university researchers and business leaders in Montreal, "The fact is that there is now, we know well, a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and that many weapons that Saddam Hussein had, we don't know where they are. That means terrorists have access to all of that."

· The UNMOVIC report admits that there were "a number of sites in Iraq containing equipment and materials that could be used to produce illicit weapons. Further, ?recent satellite imagery? from commercial sources (i.e., it doesn't take super-secret high-tech CIA spy satellites to see the obvious) shows that some of these sites ?have been either cleaned out or destroyed?; and that there has been ?extensive removal of equipment and, in some instances?entire buildings? from Iraqi nuclear facilities.

· We know that missile engines used in both Iraq?s SA-2 surface-to-air missiles and its prohibited surface-to-surface al Samoud missiles have been discovered in Europe.
· Inspectors believe at least some of these engines have also reached Turkey and hope to search Turkish ports in the near future.

· Twenty engines from banned Iraqi missiles [SA-2] were found in a Jordanian scrap yard with other equipment ["dual use"] that could be used for weapons of mass destruction.

· The report said the U.N. inspectors also found papers showing illegal contracts by Iraq for a missile guidance system, laser ring gyroscopes and a variety of production and testing equipment not previously disclosed (there's a shocker).

· Additionally, Iraq acquired ?a variety of dual-use? items and materials for possible use in biological or chemical weapons programs, but there is ?no evidence? that Iraq actually used the materials for weapons purposes.

Although some of these items were acquired through illicit channels, Iraq eventually declared most of them to UNMOVIC. Some of these declarations, however, were ?misleading,? the report says. [Please remember that Resolution 1441 gave Iraq a "final opportunity" to produce "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems".]

· The U.N. team also discovered some processing equipment with U.N. tags ? which show that it was being monitored ? including heat exchangers, and a solid propellant mixer bowl to make missile fuel, he said. It also discovered "a large number of other processing equipment without tags, in very good condition." [Without tags, i.e., hidden from inspectors, secreted about the country, undeclared, undisclosed, and in violation of 1441!]

· The New York Times admits that while many of the items "bear tags placed by United Nations inspectors as suspect dual-use materials having capabilities for creating harmless consumer products as well as unconventional weapons" [unconventional weapons is the new PC way of not saying chemical and bio weapons], some items were not known to the U.N. (i.e., undisclosed, in violation of 1441).
This equipment included fermenters, a freeze drier, distillation columns, parts of missiles and a reactor vessel - all tools suitable for making biological or chemical weapons.

"It raises the question of what happened to the dual-use equipment, where is it now and what is it being used for," Mr. Buchanan said. He said that a fermenter was a good example of a dual-use item that was potentially dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands. "You can make all kinds of pharmaceutical and medicinal products with a fermenter," he said. "You can also use it to breed anthrax." [That's right -- undisclosed, hidden equipment capable of breeding anthrax!]

· We know that 20 tons of chemicals that were to be used in an attack on Jordan, and that although they were coming across the Syria-Jordan border, Syria does not have the capability to produce chemical weapons on that kind of scale. But they took money from Saddam to hide WMD.

· And of course, everyone knows about the ammo cannisters that contain mustard and sarin gas. You know, the cannisters they couldn't account for destroying -- because they didn't destroy them!

If Saddam was still in power and this information were released today, it would be a solid case for going to war, liberating Iraq, and removing these materials from the control of an America-hating madman.

Once again, although the mainstream media is reporting this story in bits and pieces, it refuses to connect the dots.
Too busy connecting dots to show that Kerry's foul-mouthed Hollywood friends are "the heart and soul of America". Or that polls show a nation more divided than ever (which is bull -- study up on Rosevelt. Or the Civil War.)

.Just like they are too busy showing the bad in Iraq and ignoring the many successes.

And strangely enough, this briefing is not on the UNMOVIC web site. Huh! I wonder why? Afraid it will be one more proof that America was right and that the U.N. was protecting the largest corruption ring in history?
One last point. Many on the left are no doubt lambasting the U.S. for not protecting this geographically dispersed nuclear compounds, missile sites and ammo dumps. Yet no one seems to be lambasting the U.N. for not stepping up and helping us out by providing troops that didn't have to do anything except sit on their butts protecting these sites [the one duty they seem to do well] while coalition solders were off quelling hot-spots and hunting foreign terrorists.
Posted by AlphaPatriot on Tuesday, 13 July 2004 at 07:35 PM in category War, Terrorism,& the Military

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Rock

"In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged"

This is interesting. Wilson has admitted he was Kristof's source for this. But it is not clear that he had seen or knew anything about the forged documents in February, 2002.

You may want to check this out.

bump

According to the Weekly Standard (kristol's mag), we didn't even obtain those forged documents until nearly eight months after Wilson's trip. Also, Wilson is not a document expert, but he pretended that he had actually analyzed the forgeries, before admitting that he hadn't.

It may be a "consortium" but the French control the uranium mines in Niger. The original Brit sourcing for their intelligence about Iraqi-Nigerien yellowcake "contacts" (not PURCHASE, which the press willfully refuses to correct in its reporting) was most likely one of their expats in the mining industry familiar with African mines.

It's feasible the Iraqis were looking to Niger and the French (who built the Iraqi nuc weapons program at Osirak in the 1970's) for the long term (several years out) to ensure a yellowcake purchase. The French could easily have arranged a deal with shipment of the product to a 3rd party, to provide deniability it would end up in Iraq. With Iraq's existing yellowcake under UN IAEA seal, Iraq would have needed a new yellowcake supply to provide fuel for a future nuc facility.

Our State department pooh-poohed the above as unlikely. Surely any Nigerien sale of yellowcake to Iraq would be stopped by the French or detected by the West ....SARC

The very FACT that the MSM is NOT asking the questions you raise is cause for suspicion and ultimately that the ANSWERS would hurt & expose the Dims/Wilson/Plame and their CIA enablers.

You can bet that if this were a Dim admisistration under attack these question would have been the VERY FIRST you heard from the MSM.

He got most of it from Niger. This and other radioactive materials were stored under UN seal in the laboratory in Iraq. He had tons of this stuff all inventoried by the UN and described in public papers.

This was one reason that the idea that he would be trying to get more from Niger was eminently believable.

"It's very possible that to protect Wilson, Kristof invented the other source, and that all the info actually came from Wilson."

Sure it's possible. Or we could take Wilson and Kristof at their word, that he knew the docs were forged in Feb 02. Wilson later said he "misspoke", is Kristof lying?

I have read that Niger also supplied yellowcake to Libya. That should not be hard to corroborate. Add to that French participation in spreading these forged documents around, and I think you have more than adequate reason to be suspicious of the French.

The way the trip came about is pretty standard. Wilson was not an employee of the agency. He was a source. I would assume he had already been a source given his other foreign travel and dealings with Saddam, etc.

It sounds like it happened in the standard way--a reports officer was given the information and interviewed him after his trip. It would then be up to the reports officer to write the report and "grade" the value of the information, then disseminate it to the proper analysts, agencies, whatever would be appropriate.

The reports officer apparently testified that the info was pretty ho-hum and it received a routine distribution, i.e., not to Cheney's office directly. An analyst probably took the info and filed it for further use in his/her work.

I think it's a big sidetrack to argue about whether his wife sent him or not (though Wilson did lie about that). I don't think Wilson originally said that Cheney SENT him. He said that Cheney had to know about his report because his office wanted the info. Wilson's point being that Cheney knew he reported that the intel was bogus and Cheney still had that put into the SOTU.

It doesn't matter who sent him so much as it matters that Cheney did not see the report afterward, as alleged by Wilson, and the fact that the report actually supported the intel that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake from Niger.

"It doesn't matter who sent him so much as it matters that Cheney did not see the report afterward, as alleged by Wilson,"

You're one of the few who gets to the real issue here. A lot of time is wasted on the point of whether Cheney did or didn't send Wilson to Niger, and whether Wilson ever claimed that. (On some occasions Wilson specifically DENIED that Cheney sent him; it is a false issue, a diversion.) The crucial point, as you say, is that Wilson and the media were falsely claiming that Cheney saw the report debunking the Niger uranium story, tried to suppress or ignore it, and then tried to punish Wilson for going public with the truth. That whole scenario, which forms the basis of the whole "outing" myth, is false in every respect.

Just to finish my point, regardless of what Wilson said, some media accounts said or implied that Cheney sent Wilson to Niger, making his purported squelching of the report seem more unprincipled and sinister. On the other side, people who say that Wilson himself claimed Cheney sent him might have a hard time proving that, and might therefore lose a misplaced argument.

Your questions are very insightful and should give pause to Dums that want an all out war on the Administration. In the background lurks the THING and the THINGS wife, one being the BJ Pres that loved to brag about his close ties to the CIA when MENA was in op. When this child-man was made President by his shrew wife and had access to ALL the secrets (especially the Aldrich Ames reports), HE knew she was a spook. Wonder if that got Joe and Val the invitation to the WH Dinner.

It is obvious by all of the open secrets about this issue that Joe/Val/and other moles in the CIA were running a "get the Bush op". Your points about non-disclosure are important. Did the WH approve the op....NOOOOO. Did Tenet approve the op...Does anyone know?

My investigation would go directly to the CIA to see if they were infact attempting to shape American Government policy to protect interests that might be on the Saddamn payroll.

ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY

I've spent a lot of time searching for a quote that shows Wilson said Cheney sent him. I can't find it.

I won't rule out the possibility that Wilson was running his mouth with reporters early in the game and made that allegation off-the-record, though. Andrea Mitchell indicated that he was making that claim, but it's possible she doesn't actually remember the original allegation and is a victim of the media incorrectly repeating this over and over again.

I think it's a waste to use who sent Wilson in the "Wilson lied" argument because he did say publicly that the CIA sent him, not Cheney. The CIA is the one agency where nepotism is okay--better someone you've already cleared than someone you don't know. There was nothing inherently wrong with Plame recommending him--the only reason he seems to keep denying it is because he lied about it in the first place. He should have said, "Yeah, so?" and it wouldn't be an issue.

It needs to be hammered home that the whole reason Wilson was speaking out was that he claimed Cheney knew about his trip and his supposed findings. THAT's the big lie and the lie that needs to be debunked because it's the most damaging.