Have "smoking gun" nuclear documents been found?

[Composed Thinker]

I caught the beginning of "Hannity & Colmes" before, where once again, former Sec. of State Haig was on. Hannity was once again whining about liberals. He said a bunch of things have been found--mass graves, evidence of torture, and so on. He also said that the piece of equipment found under the bush was evidence that the conservatives were right.

And then he said that a large amount of documents showing Iraq's nuclear plans/powers were found and would be made available in the next month.

Is he right on the last two counts? Did that piece of equipment mean anything? And have such nuclear documents been found?

[Terwilliger]

1. no...stop trying to turn a spent cartridge into Bush/Dem justification

They knew there were no WMD's....and they SURE AS HELL KNEW Saddam posed no real threat.

[Composed Thinker]

2. Hey now

I am not trying to justify anything. I was simply asking in case I missed something. And while it's clear Saddam had something there, I think the threat was exaggerated.

[Stephanie]

3. You really want to know about nukes in Iraq?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. - G. Bush, 10/7/02


http://www.sierrasun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030718/OPINION/307180301
July 18, 2003
Bush's actions don't match the rhetoric
Guest Column by Kirk Caraway

<snip>Turn back the clock to the before the war. You "know" your enemy has 100-500 tons of chemical weapons, and you know where he is likely hiding them. Wouldn't you try to secure those sites as quickly as possible? After all, these chemical weapons posed a major threat to our advancing troops, and the big danger, they said, was if these fall into the hands of terrorists.

So why wasn't this done? Special Forces teams were flown into Iraq to secure the oil fields, but not the weapons. That speaks volumes about what the real reason for the war is.

And those weapons are still missing. Rumsfeld claims they are doing their best to search all those sites, but this is disconcerting. How many days have his 150,000 soldiers had to search the sites they already know about?

And what about the nukes? If Bush and his people really thought that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program, why did the military wait for more than a week after taking over the region to even visit the country's main nuclear research facilities at Tuwaitha?

Why did they wait even longer to visit the neighboring Baghdad Nuclear Research Facility? Both sites were heavily looted, so if there were plans for a nuclear bomb or even some weapons-grade material, it would be long gone by now.<more>


http://www.counterpunch.org/schwarz07172003.html
July 17, 2003
Bush's Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine
The Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs
By MARTIN SCHWARZ

<snip>Bush's use of the specter of nuclear threat to legitimate his intimidation policy can also been seen as just another excuse if reports from occupied post-war Iraq are taken into account. When the reports about massive looting in Iraq's biggest nuclear facility Al-Tuwaitha emerged after the war, the U.S. administration rejected the IAEA's request to send inspectors to that facility for more than a month. El-Baradei didn't even get an answer to his letters to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Meanwhile, strange things must have happened in Al-Tuwaitha: The IAEA in Vienna received several phone calls from U.S. soldiers based at the facility to secure it, who didn't know what to do with nuclear material they had found.<more>



http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030716_192.html
U.N. in Dark About Looted Iraq Dirty Bomb Material
July 16
By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday it had accounted for most of the low-grade uranium lost during looting at Iraq's main nuclear facility, but had no information about more dangerous radioactive material.

<snip>But an IAEA spokeswoman said the agency had not been permitted by U.S. occupation authorities to check the status of Tuwaitha's stocks of highly-radioactive cesium-137, cobalt-160 and other materials which could be used in dirty bombs.

"There were around 400 of these radioactive sources stored at Tuwaitha," IAEA's Melissa Fleming said.

Witnesses have said that villagers near Tuwaitha, especially children, have shown symptoms of radiation sickness.

"Any case of radiation sickness would probably be from these highly-radioactive sources, not from the low-grade natural uranium at Location C," Fleming said.<more>




http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6068775.htm
Looting of Iraqi nuclear facility indicts U.S. goals
If we feared the loss of radioactive materials, why not guard them?
TRUDY RUBIN
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Posted on Thu, Jun. 12, 2003

TUWAITHA, Iraq - On a dusty road, just outside of Baghdad, lies one of the great mysteries of the Iraq war.

<snip>The administration knew full well what was stored at Tuwaitha. So how is it possible that the U.S. military failed to secure the nuclear facility until weeks after the war started? This left looters free to ransack the barrels, dump their contents, and sell them to villagers for storage.

How is it possible that, according to Iraqi nuclear scientists, looters are still stealing radioactive isotopes?

The Tuwaitha story makes a mockery of the administration's vaunted concern with weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. military hastened to secure the Ministry of Oil in Baghdad from looters. But Iraq's main nuclear facility was apparently not important enough to get similar protection.

<snip>And why, in facilities other than Location C, is the looting apparently continuing?

Hisham Abdel Malik, a Iraqi nuclear scientist who lives near Tuwaitha and has been inside the complex, told me that in buildings "where there are radioactive isotopes, there is looting every day." He says the isotopes, which are in bright silver containers, "are sold in the black market or kept in homes." According to IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming, such radioactive sources can kill on contact or pollute whole neighborhoods.

How could an administration that had hyped the danger of Saddam handing off nuclear materials to terrorists let Tuwaitha be looted? Maybe the hype was just hype ... or maybe the Pentagon didn't send enough troops to Iraq to do the job right.

Either answer is damning.<more>

[Composed Thinker]

5. Oh Wow

I'd give you a big, wet, sloppy kiss if that wouldn't be so very awkward. Thanks a great deal!

[never cry wolf]

11. OH MY GOD .........

Stephanie, you ROCK!!!! how the heck could you come up with all of that in less than 5 minutes??? do you need a job perchance???

thanks!!! :wow:

[Stephanie]

12. Yes! I'm ready for a new job! :^)

I have a stash of these and post them periodically - want more? These are a little older. Tuwaitha is PROOF that the Bush Mob never gave a damn about Iraqi nukes.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/912073.asp
WMDs for the Taking?
While U.S. troops pushed on to Baghdad, Iraqis were looting radioactive materials from once protected sites
By Rod Nordland
NEWSWEEK

May 19 issue — From the very start, one of the top U.S. priorities in Iraq has been the search for weapons of mass destruction. Weren’t WMDs supposed to be what the war was about? Even so, no one has yet produced conclusive evidence that Iraq was maintaining a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) arsenal.

<snip>

Some of the lapses are frightening. The well-known Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, had nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes, when International Atomic Energy Agency officials made their last visit in January. By the time U.S. troops arrived in early April, armed guards were holding off looters—but the Americans only disarmed the guards, Al Tuwaitha department heads told NEWSWEEK. “We told them, ‘This site is out of control. You have to take care of it’,” says Munther Ibrahim, Al Tuwaitha’s head of plasma physics. “The soldiers said, ‘We are a small group. We cannot take control of this site’.” As soon as the Americans left, looters broke in. The staff fled; when they returned, the containment vaults’ seals had been broken, and radioactive material was everywhere.

U.S. officers say the center had already been ransacked before their troops arrived. They didn’t try to stop the looting, says Colonel Madere, because “there was no directive that said do not allow anyone in and out of this place.” Last week American troops finally went back to secure the site. Al Tuwaitha’s scientists still can’t fully assess the damage; some areas are too badly contaminated to inspect. “I saw empty uranium-oxide barrels lying around, and children playing with them,” says Fadil Mohsen Abed, head of the medical-isotopes department. Stainless-steel uranium canisters had been stolen. Some were later found in local markets and in villagers’ homes. “We saw people using them for milking cows and carrying drinking water,” says Ibrahim. The looted materials could not make a nuclear bomb, but IAEA officials worry that terrorists could build plenty of dirty bombs with some of the isotopes that may have gone missing. Last week NEWSWEEK visited a total of eight sites on U.N. weapons-inspection lists. Two were guarded by U.S. troops. Armed looters were swarming through two others. Another was evidently destroyed many years ago. American forces had not yet searched the remaining three.


http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-iraqnuke22may22001423,0,1600144.story

May 22, 2003
Dangerous Loot South of Baghdad
Iraqis close to a nuclear research site become ill after materials are pilfered. Doctor says symptoms point to acute radiation syndrome.
By John Hendren, Times Staff Writer

Since early April, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has repeatedly requested that the U.S. secure nuclear material at Tuwaitha. This week, the Bush administration agreed to make arrangements to allow the IAEA to return to Iraq to inspect the site.

American troops are now guarding the research center, but the looting has continued, and scientists are worried that missing nuclear material could result in a slew of safety and health problems.

"We're concerned about the health and safety of these people, and then we're also concerned about environmental contamination and we're also concerned that this material could be used for illicit use — a 'dirty bomb,' or even a nuclear bomb," said IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky in a telephone interview from Vienna.

<snip>

Inside a 10-foot-high chain-link fence, a platoon of U.S. troops guards the remains of the nuclear reactor destroyed by the Israelis.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Gasman says his job is to keep looters out, but with a platoon of just 40 men and a fence that runs as far as the eye can see, he admits it's a losing battle. Looters break through nightly; they are often released within a few hours of being caught.

"There's no way we can catch them all," said Gasman, from the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade. "For all I know, there are looters back there now."<more>


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/159/nation/For_neighbors_atom_plant_may_inflict_scars+.shtml">Boston Globe
THE NUCLEAR FALLOUT
For neighbors, atom plant may inflict scars
By Ellen Barry, Globe Staff,
6/8/2003

<snip>As the US invasion approached, the security measures frayed. The Iraqi soldiers left their guardposts around March 10, and by March 20, the civilian guards were gone as well. On April 7, two days before Baghdad fell, US Marines arrived, a senior military official said in a background briefing last week.

Local youths described the looting as riotous. Malik Rumaydeh, who attended three years of school, tossed the spongy bricks back and forth playfully with his friends, and estimates that he spent six hours inside the warehouse. To people with little access to fresh water, the barrels were a useful find.

<snip>

A US Army spokesman, Colonel Richard Thomas, said yesterday that the looting of the warehouse ceased as soon as US Marines arrived on April 7. He warned against exaggerating the ill effects of the looting, and reported that in the case of the National Museum, losses were far less than initially thought.

In last week's background briefing, a senior military official said that the Americans had arrived to find the locks broken and the warehouse ''in the condition that it's in.''

But a group of local villagers argued yesterday that Americans had permitted the looting, even cutting the locks on the doors. Inad, the shopkeeper, said Americans had encouraged looters to take the material.

''They allowed children to go inside,'' Inad said. ''Then they said it might cause radiation, but that was one month later.''<more>

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/02/wevian02.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/06/02/ixportaltop.html">Chirac defies Bush at G8 summit
By Benedict Brogan and Toby Harnden in Evian
(Filed: 02/06/2003)

France poured cold water last night on an American and British proposal to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction as Tony Blair and George W Bush sought to outflank Jacques Chirac at the opening of the G8 summit.

While M Chirac, the host, sought to emphasise his vision of a multipolar world, Mr Blair and Mr Bush joined forces with other members of the Iraq coalition to try to force him to make combating terrorism a central agenda item of the gathering of industrialised nations.

Downing Street and White House aides said the "action plan" would help to stop terrorists detonating a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a western capital.<more>

[punpirate]

4. The hardware under the rose bush...

... only indicates that they had a development program prior to 1991. It did not indicate anything afterwards, and did not ever suggest that the development program was successful.

The documentation has already been called into question. Some researchers who have looked at it say it is full of errors that would have slowed down any development program.

Cheers.

[Composed Thinker]

7. Right

And also, it's not as if one piece really indicates anything? It's sort of like funding a muffler and claiming that someone is building a car, right?

Can you give me a link so I can bookmark it, by the way?

[opiate69]

10. Actually...

The way I understand it, it's like finding a handful of turbine fan-blades, and claiming that someone is planning to build a fleet of 747s..the site www.whatreallyhappened.com had a really good visual presentation right when these components were first "discovered"..

[punpirate]

13. I'd have to dig around for it....

I read a lot more than I save bookmarks.... *sigh*

Cheers.

[salin]

6. "In my hand... I have a list"

-Joe McCarthy.

Not sure why this popped into my head...

[never cry wolf]

8. no, all you missed was the truth by listening to H & C

evidence of torture, no doubt. the buried equipment has been buried since gulf war I, meaning that the capabilities were, um, buried and dirty and full of worms. from what i understand it was also a very minor component that was inoperative.

if documents have been found only the ditto-heads are releasing it. there very well could be documents but if there are i will warrant that they also date from pre-gulf war I. if they exist i am sure they will be release when rove deems it the most politically expedient.

as to you later comment that surely sadaam had something there, i am not convinced that ANYTHING was there. CERTAINLY nothing that posed an immediate threat that could not have waited 8 more week for the inspectors to find. gee, wouldn't it have been nice to HAVE the backing of the un??

[Composed Thinker]

14. LOL

"no, all you missed was the truth by listening to H & C"

That was the best laugh I've had all freaking day.

[Rick Myers]

9. Elect Haig NOW!

We've waited for Armegeddon LONG ENOUGH!!!

[salin]

16. Besides... he's in control!

lol

[goddess40]

15. Nuclear "plans"

I would think all countries have plans for all kinds of things that have not been carried out and will never be carried out. How long has Bush pushed his "plans" for an anti-missile shield? How many people have made "plans" they have never carried out? Seems to me these nuclear plans they are talking about were written prior to 1991. You can't bomb with "plans." If they find plans for Iraqi weapons it means nothing. They were touting WMD not plans for these weapons.

[bowens43]

17. A document is not

a weapon of mass destruction, nor is it an imminent threat. The bushies murdered thousands of Iraqis to protect and enhance US oil interests.

[TacticalPeek]

18. And whenever insHannity throws out that damn rosebush story,

think just a little past where his pea-brain stops and realize:

that PROVES they were WRONG! NO THREAT from that guy's rose garden!

And that was a part for ONE centrifuge. I understand it would take hundreds or even thousands of these for an enrichment program. Nuclear weapons production is Big Time, requiring huge facilities like that in the picture Bush flashed when Blair visited last year, saying "What more proof do you need?". Dimwit. Today we know you could go have a church picnic at that place, no prob.

insHannity: "But there are thousands of houses and backyards in Baghdad and Iraq. There could be lots more we haven't found!"

Yea, fool, and when you do, you will have found MORE PROOF that there was NO THREAT!

Similarly, "Iraq sought to obtain yellocake blah blah" is PROOF that there was NO THREAT, that containment worked, because they never actually OBTAINED any! I have not heard even the most depraved RW apologist claim that they actually OBTAINED any.

(Some of the more spittlespewer types do try to run by with "we know they obtained some in the past", like twenty years ago, but THAT was safely under UN seal and monitoring until we barged in as noted above. I also note that they try this "Everybody admits he had WMD, no experts question that." What baloney! What intellectual dishonesty! Just a damn word game like their "This is not a budget cut, it's just reducing the increase" drivel. To play their game, you wind up discussing the GD meaning of "had". Then, "had had". Cripes.

In short: you recognize lame excuses when you see them, right?