Posted on 11/15/2005 5:55:30 AM PST by conservativecorner
Bush officials have done such a poor job defending themselves against charges they lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that even their supporters seem to have forgotten about some of the most compelling WMD evidence.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, for instance, keeps apologizing for his speech to the United Nations on the eve of the Iraq war. But at least one chilling bit of evidence he introduced there has never been refuted.
Here's how Powell introduced his case on Feb. 5, 2003:
POWELL: Let me begin by playing a tape for you. What you're about to hear is a conversation that my government monitored. It takes place on November 26 [2002], on the day before United Nations teams resumed inspections in Iraq.
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The conversation involves two senior officers, a colonel and a brigadier general, from Iraq's elite military unit, the Republican Guard. TAPE TRANSCRIPT:
IRAQI COLONEL : About this committee that is coming with [U.N. nuclear weapons inspector] Mohamed ElBaradei.
IRAQI GENERAL : Yeah, yeah.
COL: We have this modified vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it?
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GEN: You didn't get a modified... You don't have a modified... COL: By God, I have one.
GEN: Which? From the workshop...?
COL: From the al-Kindi Company
GEN: Yeah, yeah. I'll come to you in the morning. I have some comments. I'm worried you all have something left.
COL: We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left. [END OF POWELL TAPE EXCERPT]
What type of "modified vehicle" do Iraq war critics think Saddam's general was worried about? A souped-up 1967 Mustang?
And what, pray tell, do they think Saddam's colonel was referring to when he said, "We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left"?
Quiet your own fantasy.
Forget the '16 words'. I could care less. I was thinking more along the laundry list that he listed at another point in the speech. You do remember don't you? Thousands of liters of one, thousands of another, tens of thousands of munitions to deliver said WMDs
It has recently come out that 500 tons of yellowcake was found inside Iraq
Haven't seen that. Do you have several valid sources other than Weakly Standard, World Nut Daily, or National Review?
look there was plenty of evidence that Saddam had nuclear weapons, by the way. That is not in dispute.
Okay, Carl gives us his opinion. Just because it's coming from a Democrat doesn't validate the Bush argument. They were both wrong
Isn't exactly that the subject of this post?
This is getting hilariously funny. And tedious.
Even old time Freepers, who should know better, seem unable to embrace that tiny intellectual leap...
Not finding them, and "they did not exist" are not synonimous.
Google this string: "500 tons" IAEA.
Here are a couple of hits from that search:
There are lots more. But, admittedly, Google, the IAEA, the BBC, and Science could well be in on the same dastardly conspiracy being promulgated by National Review and The Weekly Standard. (steely)
(steely)
well...this report from Centcom shorly after the war began, suggests that our troops found MORE yellowcake than was 'declared' to the IAEA by Iraq.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/06/mil-030605-dod01.htm
So let's see. I point out the inconsistency with your claim of 500 tons of known uranium and I'm the one out with 'the moon and the stars'. Right.
here is a small quantity of low-enriched and depleted uranium. Typically, the IAEA would conduct an NPT safeguards inspection at this location annually. The last inspection was conducted in December of 2002. Given the changed circumstances, the United States has determined it would be helpful to have the IAEA reinventory this location.
So in December of 2002, the IAEA knew of this material and had inventoried this material. So the article from June of 2003 was just that the material was missing, more than likely thrown out, as local Iraqis took the barrels for water usage.
Hmmmm, mysteriouser and mysteriouser....
And the only thing the report discusses as fact is that the barrels were missing and were being purchased back (using my tax dollars thank you very much). The rest are baseless assumptions. Heard any more about those have you?
Not sure what your point is. I guess you missed this:
"On the 12th of May, our Threat Reduction Agency personnel arrived in Iraq and began planning for its operation at Tuwaitha Charlie. And between the 15th and 20th of May, our task force disablement and elimination team conducted its technical assessment and an inventory of what was there. And from what we know at this time, the quantity of materials we have found at the site exceeds the quantity of materials that we had assessed would be present at the site."
In OTHER words, whatever information they were given by the IAEA WAS INCORRECT..THERE WAS MORE YELLOWCAKE AT THE FACILITY THAN HAD BEEN DECLARED BY IRAQ AND THE IAEA.
And "talk about it" we would. About how the Bush Administration planted it. About how we can't prove that it was Iraq's. About how we gave it to them. About how they were "contained". About how old and outdated they were. About how few there were. About how the Inspectors would have found them if given time. About how there was no proof that they were going to be used against us. And about how they were not an "imminent threat".
...And we would find a way to "talk about" how Karl Rove, Halliburton and "Big Oil" were right in the middle of it. Somehow.
I always knew there was a reason I liked leprechauns! :)
Are you telling me that Greenpeace was in Iraq DURING THE WAR running around The Tuwaitha site before our soldiers secured it? That sounds like absolute rubbish and I would love to see a credible news source for that claim. AS to your other observation, perhaps it was speculative on my part, but it stands to reason that the US military did have estimates on the amount of yellowcake likely present and they state very clearly that they found more than they anticipated.
From the DOD briefing:
"Q: The other part of the question was, what do you make of the fact that the IAEA inspected this facility in December 2002 and surveyed it and found less stuff than you-all have found now after it was looted?
Senior Military Official: Well, first of all I'd say I have not seen an official inventory. That's part of what this will be. But we had information from a number of sources as to what we thought was there, and we actually found more than what we thought was there. What we thought may not have been absolutely accurate, because we didn't have that official inventory. But it also probably wouldn't be useful to speculate about what might have -- how the additional stuff might have gotten there. We'll wait until the inventory is done."
It is stated in the presser that our troops secured the site on the 7th. The war had only started a few days before, as I recall. So if Greenpeace was running around Iraq during the war 'securing' these weapons sites.... That would indeed be unbelievable...lol
The canister -- the size of a small car -- contained significant quantities of radioactive yellowcake and had been left open and unattended for more than 20 days on a busy section of open ground near the Tuwaitha plant, Greenpeace said Tuesday.
Greenpeace Says "Frightening" Radioactivity in Iraqi Villages
Your article is dated June 24, 2003. Our troops arrived at the site on April 7th..a few short days after the fall of Saddam.
From the DOD presser:
According to reports from civilians in the area, on or about the 10th of March, Iraqi army forces who were guarding the site reportedly left their weapons -- some of their weapons with the local civilians -- and abandoned the site. We also believe, from talking to the local civilians, that on or about 20 March, the 20th of March, the civilians guarding the site abandoned it also. And, of course, we were conducting our attack across the Kuwaiti border on the 21st. On the 7th of April, U.S. Marines from our land component first arrived at Tuwaitha Site Charlie and assumed the security, and remained there until the 20th of April, when they turned over control of the facility to U.S. Army soldiers from another unit. And Tuwaitha Site Charlie has been secured and under the positive control of U.S. forces since the 7th of April. When the U.S. forces first arrived, they found the Tuwaitha site facility, Tuwaitha Charlie facility, in disarray. The front gate was open and unsecured, and the fence line and barrier wall on the back side of the facility had been breached. And the troops reported that there were no seals on the exterior doors of the buildings. But since taking control of Tuwaitha Site Charlie, no thieves or looters have been allowed inside the facility."
So Greenpeace came in long after the fall of Saddam and decided to blame the US and not the Iraqi's for abandoning the site to looters! I am sorry that some really dumb Iraqi's decided to use radioactive barrels to store their drinking water in(rolling eyes)..but it is hardly the fault of the US!
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