SCOOTER! ZAT YOU?
I believe it is fairly obvious that our "own" CIA is running a covert operation against the Executive Branch. They are worried that Bush is going to shake up things there so much and heads are gonna roll and they will be embarassed because of their miss on 9/11 and Iraq intelligence.
About the lack of a non-disclosure agreement, I have heard the argument that it was not required because Wilson was not paid for taking the trip (he received only reimbursement for his travel expenses). Apparently, the claim is that, because Wilson was not a paid employee of the CIA or a paid consultant, he did not need to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This makes little sense to me, but I don't know how these things work.
Wilson wrote about not making a report in his book, which I found excerpts of at Amazon. (hehe)
Another aspect is that he insists he knows the process and how it all works, so he speculates that "Cheney's office said _____" or "the CIA did _____". It's all based on pure speculation on his part, not protocol or any policy he'd know, at all.
How would he know what is protocol or not? Why would Plame believe he was qualified to do "fact finding" about yellowcake, and her bosses agree (she didn't make the decision to recruit or send him on her own)?
My answer to those questions is that the CIA was doing a half-assed job of responding to Cheney's request for more info on Niger. When Plame nominated Wilson for the job - as an adjunct to a personal business trip he already had planned - the CIA jumped at the chance for an easy response to Cheney's request. So they demanded little of Wilson, paid for his trip, and, upon his return, allowed him to de-brief two CIA agents rather than write a report himself. The subsequent report was flimsy and contained little or no new information, and was so inconsequential that Cheney never even saw it. Months later, when the failure to find WMDs in Iraq was becoming a political issue, Wilson joined forces with the Democrats and began spinning and distorting his "findings" in such a way as to discredit the White House. Some elements in the CIA, for both CYA and anti-Bush motives, helped to facilitate Wilson in smearing the White House, and helped elevate Plame's eventual "outing" into a "scandal" worthy of a special prosecutor. That's my take.
A U.S. Airforce C-17 took off from Baghdad airport on July 14, 2003 with 2.5 tons of yellow cake (uranium hexafluoride), in route to the Savannah River nuke weapons plant.
I don't know where Saddam got the uranium, but he got it and processed it.
5.56mm
What is rotten is that the CIA is rotten to its rotten core and is betraying this country and the executive branch. It is out of control and needs to be crushed.
DEMS JUST THROWING THE KITCHEN SINK AT BUSH, HOPING SOMETHING HITS HIM.
CONSERVATIVES UNITE. TIME TO DESTROY THE DEM PARTY ONCE AND FOR ALL.
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
UN PISSED OF THE USA REMOVED 500 TONS OF YELLOW CAKE TO THE USA.
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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.
You may want to check this out.
bump
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.
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 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
Pray for W and Our Troops
bttt
Great points. The specific factual question that Porter Goss and John Negroponte should have asked long before now, the answer to which MUST be made public is this:
How many times in the past decade (or ever) has the CIA sent a non-employee on such a highly sensitive 'mission' with no non-disclosure signed, no written report submitted, and no agency control over the public dissemination of the supposed 'findings' of that mission???
I'd be willing to bet a healthy sum that nothing like it has ever happened before.... if the CIA has done any other informal missions with non-employees I'll bet they were very tightly controlled, but it's seriously doubtful that the CIA has ever operated in this way. Everything about Joe Wilson's mission stinks......