These Degussa furnaces were the focus of intensive investigation of the German firm who sold them to Iraq in the 1980’s and the German firm admitted that they did not know that Iraq was going to use it for its nuclear program. The Degussa furnaces were not meant to bake cookies and for the Iraqi Atomic Energy Organization to personally ask Saddam Hussein permission to use it and Saddam approval means a lot.
Right, the furnaces aren't used to bake cookies, they are used to melt metal. Someone from the "Military-Industrial Complex" needs a furnace to melt metal to manufacture artillery shells or whatever. He remembers these two big furnaces, so he writes a letter to the head of the Atomic Energy Commission asking if he can use them. The AEC guy checks with Saddam and responds, saying the military guy can use the furnaces.
I always try to think like "the opposition" when reading any of these letters, and these two can be viewed as completely innocent. One explanation of these letters is that since the furnaces were no longer able to be used for a nuclear weapons program due to UN sanctions, they were reallocated to the Iraqi military to assist in manufacturing conventional weapons. And that's probably why these letters won't show up in any MSM stories either. But they do add to a nice overall body of evidence.