US removes uranium from Iraq

[Rage]

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.

I thought this was rather interesting... wait... There are no WMD's... there never were...

The rest is found here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_yellowcake_mission;_ylt=AvgcZeplpI.DTCFh0Snzj Yas0NUE).

[micfranklin]

How much you wanna bet we'll be using that uranium in the near future?

[heyjude]

Doesn't sound to me like anyone was especially concerned about something that had been laying around since the '80s. We still had no reason to attack Iraq. Except Bush/Cheneys diesire to enrich their friends and themselves. Give me a break. It this was considered a WMD, the Bushies would be howling it from the rooftops.

[Rage]

Doesn't sound to me like anyone was especially concerned about something that had been laying around since the '80s. We still had no reason to attack Iraq. Except Bush/Cheneys diesire to enrich their friends and themselves. Give me a break. It this was considered a WMD, the Bushies would be howling it from the rooftops.

How are bush/cheney's friends enriched by this 'war'? If you knew anything about Iraq's history under Hussein you would agree that something needed to be done, whether by us or someone else. If you are going to make accusations like that, make sure its in a hyperlink to a credible news source. Don't tell me about their 401K either, because everyone that has a 401k has investments in XOM.

[suedanim]

How are bush/cheney's friends enriched by this 'war'? If you knew anything about Iraq's history under Hussein you would agree that something needed to be done, whether by us or someone else. If you are going to make accusations like that, make sure its in a hyperlink to a credible news source. Don't tell me about their 401K either, because everyone that has a 401k has investments in XOM.

"Something needed to be done." Right... intensive diplomacy, containment, humanitarian aid... Major war... no. Who do you think we are? If something needed to be done... we should be also doing it in Sudan, The Congo, Zimbabwe, North Korea... I guess the list is pretty long.

Hussein was no threat. That was a done deal. He'd been neutered and his people dying from our sanctions by the thousands. Sure, he was a horrid brute, but major war resulting in the deaths and woundings in the hundreds of thousands and the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure was just an excuse to display to the world.... we could and we would.

This uranium report is about the most lame, ridiculous attempt to make it appear there were attempts at wmd's yet. Iraq possessed no equipment needed for the purification process.

In addition... the yellow cake was well documented, contained and monitered. No surprises, no nuclear capability, all well known.


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.


Of course they were using the barrels for water because we, the US, had destroyed their water supplies. These people had running water... like us... before we invaded.

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.

Our intelligence before the invasion proved Iraq possessed no such sophisticated equipment. Perhaps the smarter move would have been the removal of the old, long stored yellow cake Iraq had stored in those barrels since 1981. duh...


At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers — some leaking or weakened by corrosion — and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.


whoa... Those were ancient barrels. Its been known all along those barrels were there. Something should have been done years ago to clean up that mess.


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.


I dunno. Can we REALLY trust those crazy Canadians? Maybe its for peaceful, energy purposes, maybe not. After all THEY have facilities for processing!

[Rage]

I think we are America, thats who I think we are. Since we are superior, we should be taking care of these things, or at least thats what every foreigner thinks. The fact remains undenyable, is that it could have been used to make a bomb.

A dirty bomb is a suitcase bomb, small and deadly, usually when you think of the dirty bomb you think of the Russians because I think the invented it.

If you deny that it could have been a potential weapon, I can give you a detailed list of instructions of how to make a nuke if you like.

If someone should have done something about it, it would have been your beloved clinton.

[suedanim]

How are bush/cheney's friends enriched by this 'war'?




The Iraq War Was About Oil, All Along (http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/90509/)

By Bill Moyers (http://www.alternet.org/authors/4498/?ses=64625c515dbdf4fd03cfbfc944b8d7ba) and Michael Winship (http://www.alternet.org/authors/6126/?ses=64625c515dbdf4fd03cfbfc944b8d7ba), Bill Moyers Journal (http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html). Posted July 5, 2008 (http://www.alternet.org/ts/archives/?date[F]=07&date[Y]=2008&date[d]=05&act=Go/&ses=64625c515dbdf4fd03cfbfc944b8d7ba).

Here's a recent headline in The New York Times: "Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back." Read on: "Four western companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power."

There you have it. After a long exile, Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP are back in Iraq. And on the wings of no-bid contracts -- that's right, sweetheart deals like those given Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater. The kind of deals you get only if you have friends in high places. And these war profiteers have friends in very high places.

Let's go back a few years to the 1990's, when private citizen Dick Cheney was running Halliburton, the big energy supplier. That's when he told the oil industry that, "By 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Fast forward to Cheney's first heady days in the White House. The oil industry and other energy conglomerates were handed backdoor keys to the White House, and their CEO's and lobbyists were trooping in and out for meetings with their old pal, now Vice President Cheney. The meetings were secret, conducted under tight security, but as we reported five years ago, among the documents that turned up from some of those meetings were maps of oil fields in Iraq -- and a list of companies who wanted access to them. The conservative group Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club filed suit to try to find out who attended the meetings and what was discussed, but the White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to keep the press and public from learning the whole truth.

Think about it. These secret meetings took place six months before 9/11, two years before Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq. We still don't know what they were about. What we know is that this is the oil industry that's enjoying swollen profits these days.

[Rage]

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q316/NatalyaAF/PicardFacepalm.jpg

Where is our oil? How come I have to pay 5 dollars at the gas station for gas? If we wanted to start a war for oil, why didn't we just invade Kuwait, Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia?

Their swollen profits that you are talking about have swollen taxes, 40% is our corporate tax rate right? Number 1 in the world?

You actually quoted something from the new york times, and an article that quotes them?

[ptif219]

How much you wanna bet we'll be using that uranium in the near future?

It was sold to Canada for use at a power plant.

I thought dems said Saddam seeking yellow cake was a lie and that he had no nuclear program.

[suedanim]

I think we are America, thats who I think we are. Since we are superior, we should be taking care of these things, or at least thats what every foreigner thinks. The fact remains undenyable, is that it could have been used to make a bomb.

A dirty bomb is a suitcase bomb, small and deadly, usually when you think of the dirty bomb you think of the Russians because I think the invented it.

If you deny that it could have been a potential weapon, I can give you a detailed list of instructions of how to make a nuke if you like.

If someone should have done something about it, it would have been your beloved clinton.

Wisely... he didn't. There was no need since it was heavily monitered and contained. Moreover.... you people scream "b-b-b-but Clinton!"... while your beloved guy, George Bush the biggest fuckup of all time, worst President in US history, had six fuckn years to do something about it and is JUST NOW getting it out of there. Whats been the hold up? Oh yeah... it WAS NOT A THREAT and it hasn't been since Clinton and UN inspectors kept their finger on it.

The biggest threat Iraq posed was to its own citizens and Saddam's rapid loss of the control he formerly had. Robert Mugabe should be removed from power by the US based on those criteria.

As has already been said... if this had been considered a WMD or even Saddam's capability to constitute a WMD... the United States would have proudly proclaimed it so. Instead.... the United States OWN inspectors have declared ... no WMD's found, no ability to make WMD's found.

Having yellow cake alone, is a bit like having peanut butter and jelly, but no bread, knife or kitchen.

David Kay: Exclusive interview (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4066462/)

Chemical, biological, nuclear programs ‘rudimentary’



DK: There were a lot of small activities. Now, in the missile field it’s quite different. There were actually large, purposeful programs going on in that area. But in chemical, biological and nuke, it was rudimentary.

TB: David, as you know the vice president of the United States and Secretary of State Powell say, “We still don’t know the end result. We could still find these weapons.”

DK: Well, Tom, let me explain how we came — how I came to a different conclusion. If there weren’t stockpiles of weapons, there must have been a production process which required plants, required people and would have produced documentation. But we have seen nothing that would indicate large-scale production.

TB: And no scientist who testified to that.

DK: No scientist, no documentation nor physical evidence of the production plants.

TB: Intelligence report says ... "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with range in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked it probably will have a nuclear weapon within this decade."

DK: Well, I think it’s got elements that we have certainly seen are true. The area that it’s probably more seriously wrong in is in the nuclear area.

TB: But as you know, the vice president and, to a lesser degree, the president of the United States, raised the nuclear threat as a reason that the United States had to go to war against Iraq.

DK: I think the weight of the evidence — was not great.

[suedanim]

Where is our oil? How come I have to pay 5 dollars at the gas station for gas? If we wanted to start a war for oil, why didn't we just invade Kuwait, Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia?

Their swollen profits that you are talking about have swollen taxes, 40% is our corporate tax rate right? Number 1 in the world?

You actually quoted something from the new york times, and an article that quotes them?

We don't invade those countries you mentioned because 1) location and 2) oil supply.

Iraq's location is central to the protection of Israel and Arab nations friendly to the US, Saddam's history (which we, the US, had been integral in helping him create), Iraq had a bare bones military we could easily snuff AND sitting on the largest untapped oil reserve in the world! The reasoning was compelling and with a warhawk pro-Israeli cabal in power along with Cheney and Bush... the mission, developed in the '90's by these people WOULD be put into play.

Keep up with the news? The US couldn't just walk in a take it.. Pretense! There had to be the pretense of ... liberating the people of Iraq. Instead, we were liberating the oil from its nationalized status. Who gave a DAMN about the Iraqi people? No.. kill as many as possible, run the millions off into neighboring countries, the rest can suffer the abuses of occupation. How does ANYONE imagine 200,000 occupying troops is a good thing for a country!?

So... the US government was forced to wait for those "benchmarks" it set for Iraq to accomplish.... Iraq setting up its own government...was key... so that then the Iraqi legislature... could give the US and other world oil companies permission to give it to 'em hard from behind. They had little choice but to comply with US demands. The intense pressure on the Iraqi legislature to capitulate is well known. In the end, it became an offer Iraq could not refuse that would make any good Godfather proud.

The whole issue of Iraqi oil, Iraq's money, the US government's hold on and manipulation of those two combined with Iraq's security... is seriously... a whole other topic and deserves its own thread.

[G.B.]

Another take on this agrument can be found here:

Why Iraq Was Inevitable (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/why-iraq-was-inevitable-11456)

Also quite conveniently ignored by the MSM is the testimony of former Iraqi Air Force General Georges Sada in his book "Saddam's Secrets" where he says that many of the WMD program components were smuggled out of Iraq and flown to Syria during the weeks and months leading up to the invasion.

[suedanim]

It was sold to Canada for use at a power plant.

Thats what Canada SAYS. :lmao:

I thought dems said Saddam seeking yellow cake was a lie and that he had no nuclear program.

It was a lie. They were not "seeking" it.

David Kay laid it out for you. What more do you need? The facts speak for themselves. These barrels of yellow cake have long been documented, therefore there were no hidden wmd's or even a nuclear program.

I mean, if you can prove there were wmd's present or programs and facilities actively building those weapons, then please do provide that information with links of course!

[ptif219]

Thats what Canada SAYS. :lmao:



It was a lie. They were not "seeking" it.

David Kay laid it out for you. What more do you need? The facts speak for themselves. These barrels of yellow cake have long been documented, therefore there were no hidden wmd's or even a nuclear program.

I mean, if you can prove there were wmd's present or programs and facilities actively building those weapons, then please do provide that information with links of course!

Thats what the AP article says.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080706/D91O8E100.html

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp. (CCJ), 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



They were not seeking it then how did we find all this yellow cake and where did it come from.

David Kay thats funny thats not what british intelligence said.

[suedanim]

Thats what the AP article says.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080706/D91O8E100.html

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp. (CCJ), 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



They were not seeking it then how did we find all this yellow cake and where did it come from.

David Kay thats funny thats not what british intelligence said.

We didn't JUST find it... Are you really so.... uninformed? Hint: The information you need to discuss this topic is IN this thread.

Do you even know who David Kay is?

No they were not seeking it. Those barrels referenced now, dated back to being documented by the IAEA and closely monitered had been in storage since, at least 1991. Israel had bombed that site as far back as 1981. So.... these particular barrels of yellow cake are very old.. and had nothing to do with the faked Niger intel.

Geez... read will ya! :sadly:

[ptif219]

We didn't JUST find it... Are you really so.... uninformed? Hint: The information you need to discuss this topic is IN this thread.

Do you even know who David Kay is?

No they were not seeking it. Those barrels referenced now, dated back to being documented by the IAEA and closely monitered had been in storage since, at least 1991. Israel had bombed that site as far back as 1981. So.... these particular barrels of yellow cake are very old.. and had nothing to do with the faked Niger intel.

Geez... read will ya! :sadly:

If you say so

David kay you mean how he said programs were hid from the UN



http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=F166868D-DD5F-4510-9858-F4489FC796E5

[Rage]

We don't invade those countries you mentioned because 1) location and 2) oil supply.

Iraq's location is central to the protection of Israel and Arab nations friendly to the US, Saddam's history (which we, the US, had been integral in helping him create), Iraq had a bare bones military we could easily snuff AND sitting on the largest untapped oil reserve in the world! The reasoning was compelling and with a warhawk pro-Israeli cabal in power along with Cheney and Bush... the mission, developed in the '90's by these people WOULD be put into play.

Keep up with the news? The US couldn't just walk in a take it.. Pretense! There had to be the pretense of ... liberating the people of Iraq. Instead, we were liberating the oil from its nationalized status. Who gave a DAMN about the Iraqi people? No.. kill as many as possible, run the millions off into neighboring countries, the rest can suffer the abuses of occupation. How does ANYONE imagine 200,000 occupying troops is a good thing for a country!?

So... the US government was forced to wait for those "benchmarks" it set for Iraq to accomplish.... Iraq setting up its own government...was key... so that then the Iraqi legislature... could give the US and other world oil companies permission to give it to 'em hard from behind. They had little choice but to comply with US demands. The intense pressure on the Iraqi legislature to capitulate is well known. In the end, it became an offer Iraq could not refuse that would make any good Godfather proud.

The whole issue of Iraqi oil, Iraq's money, the US government's hold on and manipulation of those two combined with Iraq's security... is seriously... a whole other topic and deserves its own thread.

I listed those other countries because they have more oil than Iraq. Specially Kuwait. Location has nothing to do with it, its not like we are walking to these countries.

But as for your current post, could you please post a link that backs this theory up. If you can't I will take it on speculation on your part.

Also, its not like you care about this either. Anything to try to make either america or the bush administration look bad. Do you honestly care about the country? I don't, but I knew it to be the right thing to do, and most Iraqi people believe this.

Still I would like you to answer my previous question, if you can.

Where is our oil?