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Secret U.S. mission hauls ('yellowcake') uranium from Iraq
7/05/08

Posted on 07/05/2008 6:00:55 PM PDT by Libloather

Link only


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: apstory; armitage; dncnocomment; energy; freescooterlibby; iraq; plame; prewarintelligence; proliferation; secret; uranium; wilson; yellowcake
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To: musicman

Reminds me of Wacky Packs from the '70's

41 posted on 07/05/2008 9:33:56 PM PDT by BreezyDog
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To: zeestephen
He also was allowed to keep the explosives used to detonate his nuclear device. And TONS of that stockpile went missing at the Iraqi nuclear warehouse when the IAEA showed up in 2003 before the war.
42 posted on 07/05/2008 9:41:06 PM PDT by endthematrix (Congress, Get Off Your Gas, And Drill!)
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To: zeestephen

Why did Bush Sr. not go after the troublemaker who invaded Kuwait?

GHWB is the one responsible for his son’s predicament. I also believe the terrorism of the 1990’s wouldn’t have happened.

Not going after Saddam and his gang was a dumb-ass thing to do. imho


43 posted on 07/05/2008 9:47:19 PM PDT by Finalapproach29er (Democrats still want to Impeach Pres. Bush and/or VP Cheney; keep your eye on these House hearings.)
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To: Libloather

Bookmark for all the arguments I’m going to start tomorrow with every liberal I see.


44 posted on 07/05/2008 10:59:36 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: SERKIT
Joe was too busy drinking sweet mint tea and being fed BS from the Niger government stooges.

Never send an ambassador to do a spy's job.

45 posted on 07/05/2008 11:00:40 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: Libloather

So, when Valerie Plame sent her low-level diplomat husband, Joe Wilson, to go have cocktails with other low-level diplomats in Niger and they told him that Iraq was not seeking to buy yellowcake uranium, he believed them?

LOL, what a chump!


46 posted on 07/05/2008 11:11:48 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: tobyhill
Contrary to Wilson’s notion, President Bush only claimed British Intelligence claimed Saddam sought uranium from Niger.

IIRC, Wilson actually confirmed Bush's claim that the uranium was sought. He simply denied that the sale had actually taken place. But Bush never said it did.

47 posted on 07/05/2008 11:13:52 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: ETL

Great post!

It only underscores what a weak coward Bush is when it comes to standing up for himself (and thereby standing up for the rest of us who voted for him twice). Those quotes should have been included in at least twenty of his Saturday radio addresses, and repeated in hundreds of White House press releases.

But no - - most of us will only read those quotes, and this story about the recovered yellowcake, here at Free Republic.

Glad I checked in and stumbled onto this headline.


48 posted on 07/05/2008 11:18:40 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: BreezyDog
"Reminds me of Wacky Packs from the '70's"

Wacky Packs

49 posted on 07/06/2008 4:57:17 AM PDT by musicman
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To: Lancey Howard
and this story about the recovered yellowcake...

As others have pointed out the recovered yellowcake was apparently known about for decades.

See:
"This is not remarkable news- I believe this material was from Tuwaitha and the stockpile there dated back to the late 1970’s when Iraq bought Nigerien yellowcake to produce fuel for its Osirak facility - which Israel destroyed in 1979(?) After DESERT STORM The UN had the Tuwaitha stockpile pretty much under its observation, if not outright control."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2041287/posts?page=31#31

50 posted on 07/06/2008 5:17:13 AM PDT by ETL (Plenty of REAL smoking-gun evidence on the demonRats at my FR home page)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; Allegra

ping


51 posted on 07/06/2008 5:26:34 AM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: Libloather

Gonna hurt the argument that Bush Lied and this was a war for oil eh?
How come they never say they were wrong????
I just saw yet another post somewhere this morning that was in caps “bush lied” so I replied in like. “Like hell he did” and linked this. Thanks for the information!


52 posted on 07/06/2008 8:21:52 AM PDT by Munz (Infiltrate Interrogate Eradicate NEXT!)
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To: Libloather

Funny how the MSM Kansas City Star put the article on page 11. of the A-section.

I guess the Media does not want to be honest with American.

The Iraqi Gov eve got paid to give up the material which will be converted to clean electricty.

But the MSM won’t ever tell us there was Uranium found in Iraq unless you turn to page 11.


53 posted on 07/06/2008 9:40:35 AM PDT by ncfool (Hopefully we will see the birth certificate. Obama the Manchurian Candidate .)
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Please post on what page of your local liberal rag that the article was posted on. As noted above. Kansas City Star it was page 9. oa the A section.


54 posted on 07/06/2008 9:47:52 AM PDT by ncfool (Hopefully we will see the birth certificate. Obama the Manchurian Candidate .)
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To: Libloather

I didn't want to say this. The m-----f----- bought yellow cake. All right! From Africa. He went to Africa and bought some yellow cake.
News Reporter: Are you sure?
Yes! I'm sure, bitch!

55 posted on 07/06/2008 9:58:18 AM PDT by dfwgator ( This tag blank until football season.)
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To: All
This is fantastic news for the Bush Administration and the McCain camp but it's now up to the them to wave this in front of the face of anyone who spouts this lie about no WMDs in Iraq. We shall see.
56 posted on 07/06/2008 10:33:25 AM PDT by McGruff (This is not the [insert name here] I knew.)
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To: Libloather
Yahoo News has 162 links for yellowcake.

Associated pap is peddling doom & gloom. Americans' unhappy birthday: 'Too much wrong'

NYT: Maybe Greenland Isn't Melting After All

Science & the NY Times try to bury that story. Makes me want to go hmmm.

57 posted on 07/06/2008 3:02:43 PM PDT by neverdem (I'm praying for a Divine Intervention.)
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To: dfwgator

very good


58 posted on 07/06/2008 4:26:49 PM PDT by easternsky
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To: silverleaf
After DESERT STORM The UN had the Tuwaitha stockpile pretty much under its observation, if not outright control.

What kind of control did the UN have after UNSCOM inspectors were removed from Iraq in 1998?

59 posted on 07/06/2008 6:44:00 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin '36 Olympics for murdering regimes Beijing '08)
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To: McGruff; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Libloather; SE Mom
This is fantastic news for the Bush Administration and the McCain camp...

Sadly, the general public does not care anymore. So goes the saying, "You can't beat a dead horse." This horse is not going to get back up and run.

A FReeper correctly stated above, this is in part, Old news; and the public didn't care back then; if in fact, they even read about any of it.

CLIP APNEWS

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site - surrounded by huge sand berms - following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.

But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers - some leaking or weakened by corrosion - and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites. The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.

Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."

Now, how about those gas prices? That's all Americans can lock mind-set and "sob" about. How often do you even hear mention that drilling for oil within the US is (shouts): A National Security Issue???..oh, and let's not forget about Global Warming, Living Green and a mess of the Economy. WMD's might be found on... Page 11.

60 posted on 07/06/2008 7:04:44 PM PDT by fight_truth_decay
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