Disconfirmations Disconfirmed: Saddam Had Nuke Program

American Thinker ^ | July 06, 2008 | Randall Hoven

[neverdem]

The media have been telling us for years that Saddam had no WMD, so "Bush's War": was based on a "lie." And those who believed Saddam did have WMD or WMD programs were delusional or worse.

But today, on July 6, 2008, the Associated Press that:

• Saddam Hussein had a nuclear program
• At the Tuwaitha nuclear complex just south of Baghdad
• Which included 550 metric tons (over 1.2 million pounds) of "yellowcake", or concentrated uranium
• And multiple devices that could be used in a nuclear weapon. 

The AP does not say alleged nuclear program.  It does not add "according to military experts."  It simply says "Saddam Hussein's nuclear program."

That's pretty big news, isn't it?

For about five years now, those of us who thought Saddam Hussein probably had at least WMD programs, if not WMD themselves, have been called not only wrong, but illogical and insane.

One example was an article by Sharon Begley in the Wall Street Journal  titled People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views Even if It's Clearly False  .  (Her article series is called, without irony, the "Science Journal".)  Ms. Begley reported that "six months after the invasion, one-third of Americans believed WMDs had been found, even though every such tentative claim was discomfirmed [sic]."  She cited psychologists to explain this strange behavior.  They used terms like "world views" and "mental models."

Jim Lobe at CommonDreams.org (Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community)  reported that "Three out of four self-described supporters of President George W. Bush still believe that pre-war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or active programs to produce them."  He went on to quote the director of the polling company as saying

"To support the president and to accept that he took the U.S. to war based on mistaken assumptions likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about pre-war Iraq."

These findings on people's beliefs were based on a survey that asked people if they believed Saddam had WMD or WMD programs .  Apparently, Sharon Begley, Jim Lobe and a whole lot of other people not only believed Saddam had no WMD programs, but that anyone who did believe such a thing was clearly illogical or insane.  In fact, the only interesting question to them was what is wrong with our minds.

World views.  Mental models.  Cognitive dissonance.  Suppressed awareness.

Fast forward to today.  Now we hear from the Associated Press that "The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program -- a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium -- reached a Canadian port."  That last "remnant" was 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium.  That is over 1.2 million pounds of yellowcake!  Also, the military had previously withdrawn "four devices for controlled radiation exposure ... that could potentially be used in a weapon."  All this was located at "the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad."

The AP even reminds us that

"Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger -- and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims -- led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration."

By the way, is it illogical or insane to think that Saddam could not possibly obtain yellowcake, and did not even try to, because one former ambassador went to one country in Africa and said he couldn't find it there?  What about after they found over a million pounds of it just south of Baghdad?  Is it now considered reality-based to think Saddam "sought" yellowcake, just as President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address ?

Should psychologists study Sharon Begley's brain now that the disconfirmations have been "discomfirmed"?  Should the CIA send Joe Wilson to Canada to monitor the destruction of the yellowcake he could not find in Africa?

[lepton]

Sorry, I missunderstood you. I don’t like hit and run posters though.

No problem...and me neither.

[swmobuffalo]

Bump

[Chgogal]

See Post #95.

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

You say IAEA seal and inspection as if it means something. Who inspected the thousands of tons of yellowcake left under Saddam’s control when the inspectors were expelled from the country for five years?

[Strategerist]

The whole point is this particular yellowcake, and the previous 2 tons or so of low-enriched uranium, are not any sort of in-your-face discovery. They’re remnants of the pre-1991 program, that were well known, and were not a particular issue for the UN or the United States. Any other aspects of the Iraqi post-1991 program are a separate issue.

[smithone]

He doesn’t have to back up the claim.

Yes he does and so do you. You and he can't post this information with absolutely no proof. Put up or shut up.

[fhayek]

Nice how they try to slide this in on a holiday weekend. I’m not saying that Bush is a great president, but the facts, and history will prove that he will be better than 7 of the last 8 presidents. I will take a George W. Bush in most elections, and God, I wish we had one now.

[Jo Nuvark]

I have issues with the assertion that all the yellow cake
was tagged in 1991 and then subsequently “monitored” by
the IAEA. The amounts are in dispute. I’ve read articles
that say 330 tons were tagged and sealed, yet 550 tons
are reported to have been shipped to Canada (Islams new
staging area for invasion of and nuclear threat to the United
States).

I’m just sayin’...

[TFMcGuire]

I think it had a great deal to do with justification for the war.

I am uncertain whether we knew of the existence of the isotope. Its possession, however, is sufficient cause to depose Hussein (Sadam, not Barak).

A UN agency, two years ago fond that Iraq did indeed possess these weapons. It was news at the time, but not from any major source.

George Bush and the world’s leading intelligence agencies present more credibility to me than those who have not even answered the probable explanation that Iraq divested itself of WMD in the months of posturings before we attacked.

George Bush has come under continuous attack from the left-wing groups just as Ronald Reagan did. Left wingers cannot stand decisiveness, masculinity, or nationalism.

most radiccal liberals lie as readily as Islamists.

[Friendofgeorge]

Brit might make mention of it on the Grape Vine

[neverdem]

I’ve read articles that say 330 tons were tagged and sealed...

I tried "330 tons of yellowcake in 1991 iaea" on Google and Yahoo, and with variations just using some of those words, no luck. Maybe you can backtrack to find it?

[ETL]

Thanks! That youtube video you posted was great. I just now got around to viewing it. It's like that list of pre-war quotes from democrats that I posted earlier, except you actually see them saying it. For anyone who didn't catch it, here it is again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1q9Q0OtJ4g

[Jo Nuvark]

I backtracked for a couple of hours, then I read
all of my saved text docs since 9/11, bud nada.
I think it may have to do with Iran’s fissionable
material. All I know for sure is that I read it
today on the internet.

Thanks for searching for me.

[RandallFlagg]

*A-hem*
RandallFlagg: WMDs = Cheese ^
*cough*

[NorthernRight]

CTV.ca

Yellowcake in Montreal

06/07/2008 11:11:52 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A load of nuclear material has arrived in Montreal, two weeks after the secret shipment left Iraq.

A load of nuclear material has arrived in Montreal, two weeks after the secret shipment left Iraq.

The uranium's next destination is Ontario, where it will be processed into fuel for nuclear power plants.

550 metric tonnes of uranium was trucked out of Baghdad, put aboard 37 cargo flights to a remote island in the Indian ocean, then loaded onto a Montreal-bound freighter.

The operation was kept secret out of fears someone might attack the shipments.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. wanted secrecy in uranium deal: Cameco

CTV.ca News Staff

Updated: Sun. Jul. 6 2008 5:08 PM ET

A Canadian company that acquired a reported 550 tonnes of yellowcake uranium from Iraq says that the U.S. military wanted the deal to be kept quiet.

"We were following the request of the U.S. government,'' Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp. spokesperson Lyle Krahn told The Canadian Press of the clandestine route the material took to get out of Baghdad and to Canada.

The yellowcake has been described as the last remnant of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's nuclear program.

The material arrived in Montreal by ship Saturday and is scheduled to be transported by truck to the company's facilities in Ontario.

"We will be completing the transaction in the third quarter of this year, the shipment is in Canada at this point and we will be completing it by the fall,'' Krahn said.

"We are sending it to Port Hope and Blind River,'' he added, referring to the Ontario nuclear facilities.

Yellowcake is milled uranium ore. Doug Brugge of Tufts University told CTV Newsnet that in its current state it could not be used in a weapon.

It can be processed "into higher levels of refinement for making nuclear fuel -- either for weapons or power plants," Brugge said.

The material is considered harmful to the environment, however.

"Yellowcake is comprised mostly of uranium and uranium is a toxic chemical -- I would put it in a similar category to lead and mercury," Brugge said. "They are environmental contaminates of considerable concern.

"It's not something you would want to breathe in or ingest."

However, if properly sealed and transported it is not considered much of a risk.

Nuclear watchdogs questioned why the U.S. wanted the shipment kept secret.

"If it's yellowcake, then why would it be top secret? It's not weapons usable material per se,'' Gordon Edwards who heads Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, told The Canadian Press.

"But why is there this secrecy surrounding it,'' Edwards said. "That's the real question here.''

Brugge said the purchase was a good one for Cameco.

"Mining of uranium has caused so much devastation around the world that probably reprocessing some of this yellowcake . . . is a good thing rather then opening up new mines," he said.

Canada is the world's leading uranium producer.

With files from The Canadian Press
© 2008 All Rights Reserved.
_________________

[ETL]

"Liberalism is a mental disorder - Socialism is a mental illness!"

And Communism is a total mental breakdown! (great tagline, btw)

Bill Ayers TODAY (April 6, 2008), from his own red communist star-headed website, begging to debate communism vs capitalism with Sean Hannity and STILL calling for revolution!

"Imperialism. I’m against it, and if Sean Hannity and others were honest, this is the ground they would fight me on. Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good —must win.

We begin by releasing our most hopeful dreams and our most radical imaginations: a better world is both possible and necessary.

Source: http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/04/page/2/

'Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country,' he [Ayers] said."
August 2001, Chicago Magazine (article: No Regrets)
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2001/No-Regrets/

"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==

[CyberAnt]

It’s already been on FOX - and it was FOX who actually interviewed a former intel person (Timmerman I think) who revealed the info about the nuke facility right before we went to war in Iraq - or shortly after.

[1035rep]

“Bush interrupted Saddam’s comeback on the world stage.”

bttt

[Darkwolf377]

This story was on Yahoo when I signed into my email an hour ago, and now it's gone.

Shouldn't this be the top story in every paper, on every TV show?

I know, I know, but seriously--what kind of coverage is this story getting?

[neverdem]

Shouldn't this be the top story in every paper, on every TV show?

I know, I know, but seriously--what kind of coverage is this story getting?

I heard it on the radio, WABC-AM in NYC, twice. LA & NY Times & WaPo posted the AP version. Check the links in comment# 1.