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To: TigersEye

People see WMD and they think “nuclear bomb”. Nukes take centrifuges. Bombs require testing that can be detected. If we discovered gas centrifuges or recorded a blast test I’ve never seen it reported. It’s not in your list of links.

What Saddam had was poison gas like sarin and sulfur mustard. He had used it on Iran and on the Kurds. The WMDs we found were artillery shells filled with poison gas and they may well have dated back before the first Gulf War.


23 posted on 05/27/2015 12:29:03 AM PDT by Pelham (The refusal to deport is defacto amnesty)
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To: Pelham
Iraq imported large quantities of raw materials and components required for the manufacture of centrifuges to produce enriched uranium, sufficient to produce a few thousand centrifuges. The main items included: special aluminum alloy extrusions for the manufacture of centrifuge vacuum housings; ferrite magnets and other components used in the stator of centrifuge motors; and special equipment needed to fix the stator components in place. Iraq also obtained: 100 tons of special high strength steel (maraging steel) for centrifuge rotors and rotor fittings; and several thousand aluminum forgings for vacuum housing flanges. The quantities involved would have sufficed for the manufacture of several thousand centrifuges. Iraq's centrifuge enrichment program had not progressed to a point where they could have started a sizeable production of centrifuges, although given time, they would have been successful. The program had developed to a point, however, where the material necessary for certain key components had been identified. This enabled the procurement of materials as opportunities became available even though the centrifuge design had not been completely finalized nor the manufacturing process fully implemented. The operation of a production scale uranium-enrichment centrifuge cascade, given the state of Iraqi centrifuge technology when work stopped, would have required the foreign procurement of large numbers of finished components. Iraq was constructing a facility deemed by experts as being capable of producing a few thousand centrifuge machines a year. [IAEA April 1992]

You didn't read my link.

24 posted on 05/27/2015 1:13:53 AM PDT by TigersEye (If You Are Ignorant, Don't Vote!)
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To: Pelham
People see WMD and they think “nuclear bomb”.

Do they? Is that why there's such a fuss about Iran?
They have a bomb now?

25 posted on 05/27/2015 1:24:35 AM PDT by TigersEye (If You Are Ignorant, Don't Vote!)
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To: Pelham
Nukes take centrifuges.

Centrifuges are only one of several ways to enrich uranium and there is also plutonium separation.

Iraq pursued them all.

Iraq's Nuclear Weapon Program

26 posted on 05/27/2015 1:39:11 AM PDT by TigersEye (If You Are Ignorant, Don't Vote!)
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