Social Sciences Talk

Fred the Red Shirt · Guest

Regarding:

http://www.rightsidenews.com/200807071366/editorial/-president-bush-exonerated-of-misleading-statements-leading-to-iraq-war.html
See:

http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/factsheet.html

Far from exonerating him, the 550 tons of yellowcake proves the
stupidity and arrogance of the lies. With more than 500 tonnes stored
at Tuwaitha for more than twenty years, the last thing that Saddam
Hussein needed was MORE yellowcake. In fact, Iraq Sold yellowcake on
the world market during the 1990s, just a couple of years before the
time teh Bush administration alleged they were trying to buy more. Yet
the press bought the story without checking, well, anything.

From the information made public by UNSCOM, UNMOVIC
and the IAEA the facts below may be trivially confirmed.

In summary: The yellowcake in question was declared
material, openly and legally possessed by Iraq. It was
not secret, nor EVER a violation of any sanctions.
Next to the unprocessed ore itself, yellowcake is the
crudest form of natural uranium, unusable for weapons
or reactor fuel. The activity is even too low to be
suitable for a radiological dispersion weapon--e.g.
a 'dirty' bomb.

The 'yellowcake' documents submitted to the IAEA
by the Bush administration were forged. In my book,
that is lying. Rather obviously, the last thing Iraq
needed to make a nuclear weapon was more yellowcake!

Even if Iraq really had been conspiring to import more
yellowcake, the documents were still forgeries, of that
fact, there is no doubt. One letter in the package was
addressed to the President of Niger and also signed by
the President of Niger. Another was signed by an
official who left office years before the date on the letter.
Within some of the documents the calendar dates did
not agree with the day of the week. Others had the
wrong stamps on them. In one case the 'seal' was drawn
on with a ball-point pen!

Additionally, the Bush administration was told by
centrifuge experts that the the 81mm Medusa missile
tubes were not suitable for uranium enrichment, yet
they 'leaked' a story claiming they were, then
officially announced the same while citing the
story they themselves had leaked as 'confirmation'.
Their excuse is that some people who were consulted
concluded that the tubes could hve been used for
centrifuges. In other words, after the people who
knew what they were talking about told them something
they didn't want, they deliberately sought out less
competent people in order to get the statements
they wanted. Calling that 'a mistake' is as bad a lie
as lie the Bush administration told about the tubes.

Oh, and the magnets were also unsuitable for uranium
enrichment centrifuges.

All lies.

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2003/ebsp2003n006.shtml

A brief chronology of the Iraqi yellowcake

http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Invo/factsheet.html

From the information made public by UNSCOM, UNMOVIC
and the IAEA the facts below may be trivially confirmed.

In the late 1970's and early 1980s while building its Osirak
nuclear power plant at Tuwaitha Iraq bought more than 500
tonnes of yellowcake from Niger and Portugal, as well as
between 2 and 3 tonnes of low-enriched Uranium reactor
fuel from Italy. That material was declared to, and inspected
regularly by, the IAEA.

During the 1990's, with the permission and under the
supervision of the IAEA, Iraq sold some its yellowcake
on the world market.

In 1998, when inspectors left Iraq the material was stored
at Tuwaitha under IAEA seal. In 2002, when IAEA inspectors
returned to Iraq, they found all 550 tonnes of yellowcake
as well as all of the other materials, still stored at Tuwaitha
under IAEA seal.

During the invasion of 2003, the US did not want to deal with
POWs and so advised the Iraqi military to desert their
posts and go home rather than surrender. The guards at
Tuwaitha complied, leaving the site unguarded. Over the
period of several weeks that elapsed between "Mission
Accomplished" and the first visit by US forced to the Iraqi
nuclear site Tuwaitha was looted. The blue plastic barrels
used to store the Yellowcake were stolen. The yellowcake
was simply dumped out on site. That's right, looters stole
the barrels and left the yellowcake.

The US called upon the IAEA for assistance in cleaning up
the site. After recovering and re-inventorying the
yellowcake the IAEA determined that it had virtually all
been recovered.

In short. None of the Iraqi yellowcake was diverted to
weapons use, or for that matter, any use. None went
missing.

Just weeks ago, it was delivered to a company in Canada,
sold to them by the Iraqi government.

I will not accuse Mr Gioia of being an active or malicious
participant in the campaign of lies, deception and intimidation
used by the Bush administration to pervert the reporting of the '
UN inspections program in Iraq, and the subsequent war, but
at best he is one of it's many willful victims. Regardless, his
editorial illustrates a far greater problem than lying
politicians.
His work is exemplar of journalists, or at any rate, commentators
who go about their work with near complete disregard of, if not
outright contempt for, fact.

Please do not trust me. Go to the IAEA and UNMOVIC websites and
search their archives for reports from 2003 to confirm this for
yourselves.

Finally, I want to thank Rightsidenews for this opportunity to post.

--

FF