MSM Complicity and Enablement in the Lies of the Bush Administration

[Amianthus]

The weapons inspectors weren't tossed out by Saddam. We ordered them out.

They were tossed out several times by Saddam.

[Michael Tee]

<<They were tossed out several times by Saddam.>>

Whenever they crossed a line, and rightfully so.  I seem to recall that at one point, an inspector was proven by Saddam to have been an American spy.  The main point is that he let them back in and they were doing their job when Bush ordered them out.

[Xavier_Onassis]

BTW is is well accepted that Saddam had a large warehouse full of valuable Yellocake (partially refined Urainum) why didn't he sell it?

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Yellowcake is Uranium ore, not "partially refined Uranium". The refining process uses Fluorine, possibly one of the most corrosive elements made, and not at all easy to deal with.

It is NOT widely accepted by anyone except perhaps, you.
If he had it, where is it now? Did Juniorbush's agents spirit it away without a bit of propaganda advantage, to that nameless warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was stored in the Indiana Jones film? Please, we are not idiots. If there was yellowcake, it still has not been found.

Saddam did not want his neighbors (Turkey and Iran as well as Syria and even Israel) to know that he was buck-nekked as far as weaponry went, so he tried to keep up the illusion. That, or his flunkies told him that he still had weapons that he didn't have, for the same reason.

Suppose the US knew that its nukes had become inoperable, or that its B-2's melted in the rain, and the rest of the world did not know this. Do you not suppose that they would do everything in their power to keep this a secret?

Saddam was an expert at subterfuge and propaganda. That is how he had become so durable.

It was obvious to ME that Juniorbush, Rice, Cheney and Rumsfeld were all fulla crap, and that Powell was having his arm twisted mightily to agree with their lies. The entire leadup to the war was a total ruse.

[Amianthus]

Whenever they crossed a line, and rightfully so.  I seem to recall that at one point, an inspector was proven by Saddam to have been an American spy.

Where was the "line"? I thought that the surrender negotiated by the UN included weapons inspections "when ever and where ever" - would there be a line in that case?

Besides, the guy who provided the "proof" that there were American (and British, and Israeli, and German, etc) spies in the weapons inspection teams was later paid $400,000 (from UN Oil for Food coupons, no less) to make a movie about it. I don't think the movie ever got made...

The main point is that he let them back in and they were doing their job when Bush ordered them out.

Saddam was continuing to stonewall the inspection teams at the time they were ordered out. They were there, but he had refused to let them inspect some sites.

[Amianthus]

Yellowcake is Uranium ore, not "partially refined Uranium".

Yellowcakes (also called urania) are uranium concentrates obtained from leach solutions. They represent an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores. Typically yellowcakes are obtained through the milling and chemical processing of uranium ore forming a coarse powder which is insoluble in water and contains about 80% uranium oxide and which melts at approximately 2878?C.

Yellowcake

It is NOT widely accepted by anyone except perhaps, you.

And various scientists and engineers.

[Michael Tee]

<<Where was the "line"? I thought that the surrender negotiated by the UN included weapons inspections "when ever and where ever" - would there be a line in that case?>>

The line is espionage.  Inspectors go in under a mandate that spells out their duties, rights, and protocols.  Not having seen the mandate, I nevertheless assume that espionage for the Americans was not a part of it.  And I don't see anything to indicate that Iraq, which was still a sovereign state, did not have the right to protect itself against espionage.

<<Saddam was continuing to stonewall the inspection teams at the time they were ordered out. They were there, but he had refused to let them inspect some sites.>>

A procedural matter which the parties were still negotiating when Bush pulled them out, preferring the war he had already decided to wage to negotiation.

[Xavier_Onassis]

One would imagine that yellowcake would be easy to identify, as it is, well, yellow. And rather cakish as well, I have heard.

It takes a huge amount of processing to turn yellowcake into anything usable for nuclear power or a bomb. Basically, it is concentrated ore.

So what happened to the elusive Yellowcake? Where did it go?

[Michael Tee]

The only reference to yellowcake that I ever saw was to crudely forged letters allegedly from a Niger cabinet minister regarding negotiations to purchase yellow-cake uranium ore.  Problem with the letters, the Niger cabinet minister was not holding that Ministerial post as of the dates of the letters.  Which is why the documents are usually referred to as "crude forgeries," rather than as mere forgeries.  Even after the letters were exposed as forgeries, Bush continued to refer to them, most notably in his State of the Union address, as "proof" of Saddam's nukes.

I never heard until now that Saddam had a warehouse full of yellowcake.  IMHO, that's about as good as the rest of Bush's "evidence" that Saddam had WMD.

[Xavier_Onassis]

What are the odds that a extremely backward country like Niger would even have the facilities for turning Uranium ore into yellowcake? The technology to do this would have to have come from the French, I suppose, since Niger is essentially an economic protectorate of France.

Either Saddam had yellowcake, or he didn't.
If he had it, it has been discovered, or it hasn't. It seems the latter is true.
If it is no longer in Iraq, we can assume that it went somewhere else. Syria, perhaps?
Ifr it was hidden, we must assume that it was remarkably well hidden.

[Amianthus]

What are the odds that a extremely backward country like Niger would even have the facilities for turning Uranium ore into yellowcake? The technology to do this would have to have come from the French, I suppose, since Niger is essentially an economic protectorate of France.

The odds are pretty good, since yellowcake uranium is the single largest export from the country. Areva (French nuclear industry company, I have a friend who works for them) controls the two uranium mines in the country. They sub-license to a number of other countries, Canada, Australia, the US, Germany, India, etc.

Either Saddam had yellowcake, or he didn't.
If he had it, it has been discovered, or it hasn't. It seems the latter is true.
If it is no longer in Iraq, we can assume that it went somewhere else. Syria, perhaps?
Ifr it was hidden, we must assume that it was remarkably well hidden.

Guess you missed the stories in the press like this one.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Agence France Press?

How could I have missed that?

[Amianthus]

Agence France Press?

How could I have missed that?

That was just the first one I dug up. I read about it a number of times, in news stories from numerous countries.

[Plane]

    I remember reading about people who didn't know it was dangerous looting the Yellocake and dumping it out to get the storage containers during the period of lawlessness that followed the success of the invasion.

   Saddam had quite a lot of Yellow cake and a guy named Wilson found that he had agents in Africa looking for more.

    I am not surprised that you would not have heard about Saddams Uranium stash , there was no way to make President Bush look bad with it ,so the MSM was not very interested.

 

how could yellowcake deals proceed with nations that were already under restrictions established in the UN's Non?proliferation Treaty (NPT), and presumably under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)? 

The answer is simple: in 1972 the IAEA itself enacted changes to its own regulations that allowed certain nuclear materials to be maintained and traded even by countries known to be covertly developing a nuclear capability or who supported terrorist groups.

It is important to understand that yellowcake cannot be directly introduced to the enrichment process.  It must first be converted to uranium dioxide.  In its final report, the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG)  noted that Iraq had over 4,500kg of natural uranium dioxide that was under IAEA safeguards.  There was also over 6.5 tons of uranium dioxide that had not been declared to the IAEA and was therefore not monitored by the UN.  Saddam had a huge amount of material that given the proper equipment could have been immediately enriched to make nuclear fuel for a reactor or a nuclear weapon.

Then there was the problem of the 500 tons of yellowcake, some of which had slipped under the IAEA radar.  But a key notation appears on the ISG inventory next to all of the yellowcake finds at Al?Tuwaitha: not subject to safeguards according to INFCIRC/153 corrected. 

So, according to the ISG, the baseline material that is used to manufacture uranium dioxide, which is required to be under IAEA safeguards, is itself not subject to those same safeguards!  In other words, the UN has regulated a loophole to countries that might want to manufacture enriched nuclear fuel by allowing them to have the milled yellowcake to start the enrichment process.  The regulation explains ........."

http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/04/the_yellowcake_connection.html

[Michael Tee]

<<I am not surprised that you would not have heard about Saddams Uranium stash , there was no way to make President Bush look bad with it ,so the MSM was not very interested.>>

It still makes the "President" out to be a liar.  He said Iraq possessed WMD and wants us to believe that yellowcake is a WMD?  Bullshit.

[BT]

You do know that the whole affair plame was about the purchase of yellowcake.