My god! Who knows how many more rose bushes the Iraqis had? They may have been shipped to Syria or Libya, or sold to terrorists, or buried somewhere in the desert!
Apos was quoting Bob Somersby’s Daily Howler, which was discussing a piece in The New Republic. TNR was, I believe, referring to Cheney’s March 16, 2003 appearance on Meet the Press (here’s the transcript), where Cheney says, in part
But was that what Cheney really believed? Later in the same transcript, he says
So did Cheney think Iraq had nuclear weapons on March 16, or not? He did say it, but I suggest that he meant to say "we believe [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted a nuclear weapons program.
The CIA link I posted above is now broken. Alternative source:
http://www.nti.org/e_research/official_docs/cia/12-02CIA.pdf
(warning, PDF)
Two points:
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It’s obviously not a complete centrifuge, just a couple of components.
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I don’t know whether “hundreds” or “a few tens of thousands” of centrifuges are required, but it does look like the bar is being lowered again.
CNN–which seems to have become quite the lapdog for the Bushies in recent months–was reporting this morning that they also discovered hundreds of sacks of castor beans in an abandoned auto parts factory. Castor beans, they darkly informed us, can be used to make the deadly poisin ricin.
Of course, castor beans are also used to make castor oil, which has all kinds of industrial uses: http://newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/500-599/nb503.htm
Here’s the killer.
Most of the details of Iraq’s centrifuge program became public knowledge during the 1994 trial in Germany of a number of people from H+H Metalform GmbH.
Details here: Iraq’s Acquisition of Gas Centrifuge Technology Part I: H+H Metalform – Funnel for the Iraqi Gas Centrifuge Program
In parts II and III, full details are given of the bearings that were under development. Bottom line: Iraq never had a working centrifuge, all they got were a couple of bits.
All of this was known prior to the discovery of these “bits”, and the accompanying plans, under a rose bush.
This does not constitute any kind of proof that Iraq was hiding shit from the inspectors. The inspectors, it would be safe to assume, already knew about this stuff. It’s public knowledge.
How come no one has mentioned that the same report says that the man has many other hidden components, which he has not revealed yet, and that the U.S. has found millions of documents about Iraq’s wmd programs, including detailed instructions on how to pack and bury these materials and keep them in good shape. And they say that many of these documents are quite recent.
I remember when Sam Stone was talking about actual weapons than could be used to hit the UK/US. That’s why war was needed now. Now it “programs” that are the issue. Could these programs have been found without the war. I think they could have. Don’t you?
With the minor caveat that hiding stuff under rose bushes does count as hiding shit from inspectors. They were supposed to destroy the stuff.
What was that you were saying about how this would be turned into a search for “documents,” elucidator?
I suppose you all have an innocent reason why it was necessary to hide this under a rose bush.
How much more obvious does this all need to be? Saddam had no intention of abiding by the cease-fire disarmament agreements. He was waiting for the rest of the world to get tired of enforcing sanctions. Then he was going to dig up his centrifuges, get some fissionable material from the French, build some nukes, and start blackmailing.
I can’t believe you people. Evidence of a program to build effing NUKES isn’t even enough.
Would the inspectors ever have found this? They weren’t going around digging up scientist’s backyards. The only reason the scrientist is giving information is because saddam is gone.
I don’t know how bout you go 'head and mention 'em?
Ideally, when you mention them you should provide a cite so that others can research the report.
Shodan please show me anyone saying that they shouldn’t have been stopped doing that. That’s what the UN were trying to do. The argument was WHY WAR NOW. Not WHY WAR AT ALL. If there was proof of this were was it? This has been found after the war. There was evidence of weaponised WMD we were told. Where are they? Where is that evidence.
This isn’t about whether Saddam needed a good kicking, this isn’t about if his regime needed dealing with. This is about the lies that led to a war for reasons other than the ones given to the public.
What effing program would that be Shodan? The one that was dismantled 12 years ago? The one that international sanctions have prevented from doing anything at all for the last 12 years?
Nobody has ever disputed that Saddam wanted nukes. But your guys kept saying he was actively developing them, smuggling Bad Shit in from foreign countries, mere months away from blowing the crap out of New York City or some such bullshit. Where’s the effing evidence of anything remotely resembling that, Shodan?
In what way do these bits and pieces provide evidence that Iraq had an effing NUKE program ? The use of gas centrifuges in civilian nuclear power programs is well known. Iraq had such a program, at least until the Israelis bombed the reactor.
Components of a single centrifuge when a “few tens of thousands” of complete centrifuges doesn’t seem to an obvious enough threat to justify the deaths of American soldiers to me. YMMV depending on how great a value you assign to the lives of our military personel.
How subtle and small does anything have to be to be seen as a threat to the US to you?
Cite, please.
Cite, please.
You take a piece of a 12-year-old centrifuge, a couple of trailers, some castor beans, a bunch of documents, and MacGyver and presto… nuclear bomb! Geez, don’t you guys know anything?
Although I was against this war, I actually believed that Saddam had WMDs. Pfft. This just goes from bad to worse to inane.
And I can’t believe that you think this is sufficient evidence, even when our own government is saying it’s not. Spin, spin, sugar.
Oh, and BrightNShiny… you forgot the duct tape. They can do wonders with duct tape. 
Was Shodan being sarcastic?