Posted on 11/02/2006 8:01:04 PM PST by RDTF
Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.
But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”
Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.
The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Starnews~~U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer
You don't need a password to read the Times article at this website.
The New York Times Strikes (Out) Again
Senator Santorum Comments on Release of Valuable Information in Pre-War Documents Discovered in Iraq
Saddam Closer To Bomb Than Anyone Thought
Shocker: New York Times Confirms Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Program
JVERITAS Responds to the 11/3 NYT Article Regarding Iraq Nuclear Program.
Iran - CIA 'gave bomb plan to Tehran' (Clinton Legacy - Nuclear weapons)
I completely agree with you. Furthermore, for all their screaming (Bush lied, war for oil, etc) it was Clinton that authorized the war in 1998.
I'll have to see if I can find the speech he gave when he was launching missile raids in Iraq, you'd think he and Pres. Bush had the same speech writers.
"It pisses me off that we didn't think that maybe advanced nuclear diagrams on the internet might not be so hot of an idea."
Did you know that only about 5 percent of the documents have been translated? The documents have been put out in large volumes. The probability of anyone knowing before the fact that these were nuke weapons documents is almost nil. The probablilty that they were put out because we do not have nearly enough Arab/English translators, and were not dangerous is a very high probablity.
I don't think these were translated before being put out.
"the fact that they retained technical knowledge is no surprise. this isn't a smoking gun"
Why hold onto the design docs for a nuke weapon that were supposed to be turned over, unless Saddam was planning on using them at a later date?
"The posting of these documents on the net seems fairly trivial to me too. Well, not trivial, but still nothing to get too worked up about."
Then what was the reference to 2002 about?
"My guess is that it refers to the 1990's or before the first Gulf War."
Did you know that there were a total of 10 years during the nineties? Did you know that the first Gulf war was in 1991?
"The NYT had no interest in translating captured Iraqi documents because they were concerned about revealing weapons secrets??? Right…"
After reading this, I have to wonder. You are correct that the DBM has done nothing to translate any documents, but suddenly they found one to bash the President with. Did someone tell them exactly where to look and what to look for?
Bush Was Right!
Click and enjoy.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=9029110643266711356&sourceid=zeitgeist
Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.
It's poorly written, but when you parse it in light of established fact you realize that "at the time" refers to the time of the Persian Gulf war. It's not news that Saddam was as close as a year away from a nuke at that time. The Times is giving no new information here. Furthermore, the fact that Iraq had written reports to the UN in the 1990s and 2002 about the abandonment of its unconventional weapons programs doesn't come close to proving that it had a near-weapon-producing nuclear program at these times (Do you really think that Iraq was a year away from producing a nuke in 2002? I mean really.) We all want a smoking gun but this isn't it.
"It's poorly written, but when you parse it in light of established fact you realize that "at the time" refers to the time of the Persian Gulf war. It's not news that Saddam was as close as a year away from a nuke at that time. The Times is giving no new information here. Furthermore, the fact that Iraq had written reports to the UN in the 1990s and 2002 about the abandonment of its unconventional weapons programs doesn't come close to proving that it had a near-weapon-producing nuclear program at these times (Do you really think that Iraq was a year away from producing a nuke in 2002? I mean really.) We all want a smoking gun but this isn't it."
First of all, thank you for a clear answer.
Second, yes it is written very poorly.
Third, the way I see it, and maybe you do too, the article indicates that the information given in 2002 was the same as what was given sometime during the 1990s. In other words, Saddam did not give any new information or make any changes from what he had been doing. It means he did not turn over all the copies of the information he had. To me that is not a smoking gun regarding WMDs, but it is a justification for the war. Saddam, again showed that he was defiant to the world and was not going to start over in his research. It tells me his intent was to someday restart his WMD program.
Good point. Jveritas has spent untold hours pouring over these documents to find key pieces of evidence. I bet the IAEA did the NYT a favor.
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