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Sun Tzu · 07-08-2008, 01:16 AM

Is there anyone that carries the opinion that credabilty was sacrificed for the sole purpose of security. I'm hearing this more and more: the President withdrew his stance that Sadam had WMDs and admitted the it was an intelligence blunder to keep the Canadian purchase secure. I only know what I have briefly read about yellowcake, but from what I gather the process to convert it to weapon grade material was beyond Iraq's program. Still, it was purchased for a reason. The evolution of the story from five years ago to now is interesting.

July 8, 2003

Quote:

White House Admits WMD Error
Withdraws Claim That Iraq Tried To Buy Uranium From Africa

(CBS/AP) Amid questions about prewar intelligence, the White House is acknowledging that President Bush was incorrect when he said in his State of the Union address that Iraq recently had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

Claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction were a primary justification for the war, but U.S. forces have yet to find any such weapons. The House and Senate intelligence panels are looking into prewar intelligence on Iraq and how it was used by the Bush administration.

Mr. Bush said in his address to Congress in January that the British government had learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The president's statement in the State of the Union was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday.

"The president's statement was based on the predicate of the yellow cake" uranium "from Niger," Fleischer told reporters. "So given the fact that the report on the yellow cake did not turn out to be accurate, that is reflective of the president's broader statement."

Fleischer's remarks follow assertions by an envoy sent by the CIA to Africa to investigate allegations about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The envoy, Joseph Wilson, said Sunday that the Bush administration manipulated his findings, possibly to strengthen the rationale for war.

Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to the West African nation of Gabon, was dispatched in February 2002 to explore whether Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Writing in a New York Times op-ed piece, Wilson said it did not take him long "to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place."

In an interview on NBC, Wilson insisted his doubts about the purported Iraq-Niger connection reached the highest levels of government, including Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

In fact, he said, Cheney's office inquired about the purported Niger-Iraq link.

"The question was asked of the CIA by the office of the vice president. The office of the vice president, I am absolutely convinced, received a very specific response to the question it asked, and that response was based upon my trip out there," Wilson said.

Yet nearly a year after he had returned and briefed CIA officials, the assertion that Saddam was trying to obtain uranium from Africa was included in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address.

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the United Nations in March — after the State of the Union — that the information about the uranium procurement efforts was based on forged documents.

A British parliamentary committee concluded Monday that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government mishandled intelligence material on Iraqi weapons — and said key questions remain about the allegations of an attempted uranium deal with Nigeria.

The committee, however, cleared ministers of deliberately misleading lawmakers.

Blair said Tuesday he had made a valid case for military action.

"I refute any suggestion that we misled Parliament or the people," Blair told the House of Commons Liaison Committee, stressing he stands "totally" behind the case he made for war.

"I am quite sure we did the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein because not merely was he a threat…to the wider world but it was an appalling regime that the world is well rid of."

On Monday, the Foreign Affairs Committee said Blair "misrepresented" the status of a dossier published in January.

Blair had referred to it as "further intelligence," although he acknowledged later that it contained material from a graduate thesis published on the Internet.

The committee said that another dossier on Iraqi weapons, published in September, gave undue prominence to an uncorroborated claim that Iraq could deploy biological or chemical weapons within 45 minutes of an order being given. It also said the "jury is still out" on the accuracy of the information contained in the intelligence document.

"The jury is not out at all," Blair retorted Tuesday. "There is no doubt that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction."

Blair said Tuesday he had no doubts that evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs would be found in Iraq, but said his case would not be weakened if no weapons were found.

Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon that coalition forces needed at least another four months to search for banned arms in Iraq.

The weapons dispute is taking a toll on support for the war in Britain. The Times of London says a poll of 1,000 adults over the weekend find support for the war slipped from 64 percent in April to 47 percent now. Opposition rose from 24 percent in April to 45 percent now.

The poll also found Blair was deemed less trustworthy than rival political leaders.

The dispute is also affecting Australia's government, which will undergo a parliamentary inquiry on the matter next month.

The Australian Broadcasting Company reports Prime Minister John Howard, while continuing to express confidence in the prewar intelligence, is distancing himself from the data passed to him by the United States and Britain.

"I had discussions myself with senior figures in the intelligence community, very senior figures in both countries," Howard said. "I believe that they believed very strongly in their judgments…We had lots of material put to us over a period of months and it built a case, necessarily judgments had to be made by the agencies."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in562312.shtml

July. 5, 2008

Quote:

Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq
Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.
"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb" — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.
The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.
"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.
Secret mission
The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.
And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.
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.
Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.
Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site — surrounded by huge sand berms — following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.
Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.
"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334/

The bit of information I have not been able to find is if there were any pieces of evidence the Sadam had recently imported material just prior to the second invasion. I have read mixed reports that the yellowcake is material obtained in the late 80s and is nothing more than left over materials from an already destroyed nuclear weapons program. If that is the case they were left after Desert Storm.