Nuke component unearthed in Baghdad back yard

CNN ^ | 25 June 2003 | From David Ensor

[July 4th]

WASHINGTON (CNN) --The CIA has in its hands the critical parts of a key piece of Iraqi nuclear technology -- parts needed to develop a bomb program -- that were dug up in a back yard in Baghdad, CNN has learned.

[Darksheare]

The voices he's hearing.
That's where he gets the imminent threat talk.
Too bad for him, they're all on my side. / joke.

He at least admits to being naive.

[alnick]

If this is not a smoking gun then what the hell is, a vaporized U.S. city?

And at that point they'll whine and moan that the Bush admin should have done something to prevent it.

[Cael]

Again, I'm not historian about what the purpose of SOTU addresses are, but I'm sure that a main function of them is to tell the people what's going on and why. Somehow, I don't think the international community or Saddam much cares about the intracacies of his tax proposal as it concerns small businesses. Or the marriage penalty. Yet all of these were at the top of the SOTU this year.

If you're going to say that this was all just to talk to Congress, then you didn't read the text of the speech (nor are proposals pushed through Congress by speech...usually it takes a volume of papers). Here is the speech for your conveneince:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

Anyway, this is just a moot tangent to be following. If you listened to that speech and your support for the war, as an American citizen, did not grow after hearing it, then you must have not been listening to the same speech.

[VRWC_minion]

you're post about Bush/SOTU was exactly what Rush said around October of last year after Congress voted.

And if France, Germany and Russia also talked tough this regime change could have taken place with no lives at stake. Bush's rhetoric could have saved lives on both sides. Instead his haters are attempting to rewrite and pervert history so they can support their hatred for the man.

They instead should be commending him for the effort he made time after time warning Saddam that his time was up and he needed to comply and begin cooperating. That was the message that I heard at the SOU speech. It certainly wasn't Bush making a case for war because that was a given. I even recall the commentators making it a point that this was a message to saddam at the time.

[VRWC_minion]

Could you please show us examples of "all the imminent threat talk"?

Here is what Blair said in early February about the threat.

Blair, who was facing a studio audience of people opposed to a war, acknowledged that Iraq did not present an immediate threat to Britain but claimed the country could not afford to allow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to develop weapons of mass destruction.

[Cael]

Could you please show us examples of "all the imminent threat talk"?

Ah, you are right and I apologize. Bush's correct words were, "a serious and mounting threat to our country." But again, a buried barrel of plans and parts that hadn't been touched (apparently) for a decade isn't exactly "mounting" or "serious"...but I don't really know how long it takes to build an apparatus to enrich uranium, of course.

[alnick]

2. Whether Bush will eventually chop off the limb they are all sitting on ?

Oh, I want a front-row seat for that.

[VRWC_minion]

So, you admit Bush already had support to wage the war. Then you must admit that whatever he said at the SOTU speech had no effect on whether we went to war and you must retract your foolish statements that it he lied in order to entice the American people into an unwanted war.

[leftiesareloonie]

But that's not the point Bush was making. He made the case that Iraq was a "grave and gathering" danger.

Cheney said that they KNEW that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program.

What seems to be emerging is proof of something more benign. Iraq had no CURRENT production facilities on line, no CURRENT programs, little if any ongoing RESEARCH.

I don't know. This is beginnig to look like a smoking gun pointing right at Bush's mendacious justification of this war to me.

[TomB]

Ah, you are right and I apologize. Bush's correct words were, "a serious and mounting threat to our country." But again, a buried barrel of plans and parts that hadn't been touched (apparently) for a decade isn't exactly "mounting" or "serious"...but I don't really know how long it takes to build an apparatus to enrich uranium, of course.

You haven't been right about a whole lot today, have you?

Let me ask you this, since just about every world agency, world leader, and the UN all said that Iraq had or was developing WMDs, who else should Bush have listened to?

[VRWC_minion]

Ah, you are right and I apologize. Bush's correct words were, "a serious and mounting threat to our country." But again, a buried barrel of plans and parts that hadn't been touched (apparently) for a decade isn't exactly "mounting" or "serious"...but I don't really know how long it takes to build an apparatus to enrich uranium, of course.

Is a rifle that is in several parts any less dangerous than one all put together ?

[HassanBenSobar]

Read Saddam's Bombmaker before you conclude that Iraq dismantled its various weapons programs after the first gulf war. Then re-read Cheney's statements.

[TomB]

This is beginnig to look like a smoking gun pointing right at Bush's mendacious justification of this war to me.

...and pretty much ONLY to you.

[Cael]

NOW... the mere fact that the centrifuge was there is a violation of your precious UN resolutions. I'm getting the distinct feeling that you didn't want us in Iraq at all.

Sorry, not a fan of the UN or of the Iraqi regime. But if I were you, I wouldn't be mocking their "precious" resolutions, considering we used them (rightfully, I might add) to justify the war.

btw, I think we all know that Iraq was called to disarm after Desert Storm, as I think we expected to find more than a barrel of ragtag parts of an old nuclear program. I'm hoping we find more than that, so I'm going to save my celebration for when we find the real motherlode.

[leftiesareloonie]

It's not true that every agency etc said that Iraq was developing WMD.

The Russians expclitly stated several time that they were not convinced that Iraq possessed any WMD, that their own intelligence supported no such conclusion.

Moreover, most nations in the world did not believe that Iraq was a "grave and gathering threat." All members of the security council except Spain, Britian and the US were prepared to let inspectors go for as long as they needed.

NONE of them flat out asserted that Iraq possessed active WMD programs or stockpiles

So QUIT saying such clear falsehoods.

I know you don't want to believe that Bush lied. I don't really want to believe it either.

But I think these so-called "finds" reported today are almost a smoking gun revealing the depth of Bush's mendaciousness.

[jwalsh07]

OK, here's what we know. We know Hussein had at least one scientist bury the booty in his rose garden. From that we can reasonablly infer that he had other scientists do the same, specifically those involved with biological weapons.

So two questions:

Who's rose garden is the anthrax buried in and how much anthrax would it take to cause grave harm to an American city?

[TomB]

Read Saddam's Bombmaker before you conclude that Iraq dismantled its various weapons programs after the first gulf war. Then re-read Cheney's statements.

It won't matter to these people. We could roll out a fully functional atomic weapon and they'd whine that it probably wouldn't have worked.

It is becoming apparent that the people who are complaining here don't understand that there are many facets to a nuclear weapons development program, i.e. the difference between construction of the device and enrichment of the fuel. One does not necessarily follow from the other.

[leftiesareloonie]

Well, we'll see Mr TomB.

Let's see how this story looks in a couple of days. You don't find it striking that even the adminstration, which is desparate to justify it's mendacious pre-war rhetoric isn't calling this a smoking gun.

Anyway, we'll see. I trust my independent instincts more than the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude of certain posters on this board.

[Calpernia]

CO may have 'disappeared'; but a new sign on came in as soon as CO left.

[Cael]

So, you admit Bush already had support to wage the war. Then you must admit that whatever he said at the SOTU speech had no effect on whether we went to war and you must retract your foolish statements that it he lied in order to entice the American people into an unwanted war.

Oh, so now I accused Bush of lying? Get off the hashpipe. I said that THIS find alone does not satisfy his claims, as some of you in here are so quick to celebrate.

Speeches are used to convince and rally people. Just because there wasn't an ESPN voting poll held after it doesn't mean that his speech had no rhetorical value to the very people (Americans) that he addressed it to. Can you tell me what the point of all this bickering is? Are you trying to say that Bush was being deceptive in his SOTU and that if he was, he shouldn't be accountable since it was just aimed at Saddam? Maybe you are the one who is calling Bush a liar.