Did Iraq seek to buy African uranium?

Great Debates
1

On other threads we have debated what Bush or Blair ought to have said, how Bush and Democrats and the media are handling this question, the political impact on Bush and Blair. These are interesting and important, but now I would like to go back the original issue:* Did Iraq seek to buy African uranium?*

The British say they did.

The Wall Street Journal has some excerts from the National Intelligence Estimate, which is meant to be the best summary judgment of the intelligence community. Evidently they were given some leaked information from this confidential report.

BTW if Collounsbury reads this, I have a question. You said on another thread that Gabon was the only potential African source of uranium, other than Niger. The quote above mentions Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Do these two countries also have uranium? Are they potential sources as well?

These snippets make it sound as if the NIE’s intelligence concensus was that Iraq did attempt to buy African uranium. However, we cannot properly evaluate the NIE’s conclusions without reading the full report.

Anyhow, what do you think is the likelihood that Iraq really did seek to buy African uranium?

2

Well, I have here apparently more thorough information than that which I originally relied upon.

The universe of potential African sources remains limited.

[ul]
* Congo, Democratic Republic of the
* Gabon
* Malawi
* Namibia
* Niger
* South Africa
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe
[/ul]

but more expansive than the list I originaly relied on.

See here http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/uoafr.html

This is part of this site: http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/

A problematic source might be in reality Congo, see http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/uproj.html#SHINKOLOBWE

Where Somalia comes from, I don’t know. Never read of Uranium production there.

The reality remains, the universe of potential sites is small. The coyness about the tries, in the context of fabrication of evidence, suggestive that the evidence is not all that hot.

3

But we knew from UNSCOM that Iraq had no meaningful means of enriching the uranium – and none at all after UNSCOM had destroyed the kit – let alone a full enrichment programme that would turn it into viable material (what is that, 80-90% enriched?).

Then there was the small matter – of which UNSCOM was also fully aware and reported - of Iraq not having any kind of nuclear programme to apply the uranium to . . At all.

So , even if the African connection does firm up - which it isn’t going to, IMHO, it means nothing in terms of the alleged reasons for the acquisition of Iraq.

Logically, why would Saddam want unenriched uranium; what’s he going to do with it ?

4

It is possible Sadaam was sniffing around in the context of a long term plan for eventual revival of his nuclear program.

Indeed, I consider that likely. However, that’s not something to have been pissing ones pants over like certain parties were.

5

Sure, but that’s like shopping for Goodyears when you’re not going to have an engine for 10 years.

6

You know what my nagging issue is here ? It’s a worry that the CIA set the whole African thing up and British Intelligence bought it hook, line and sinker. I thought I’d just mention why I’m a little sensitive . . .

7

Is it possible a british or CIA operative might have posed as a uranium dealer and Iraq nibbled on the bait. And they used the false French report to keep from blowing the secret operatives cover. Remember this is spy work. We are not going to be told the whole story.

8

Apparently there was little, if any, and none recently. There is uranium there and an attempt was made to exploit it in the 1980’s, but seems it never really got cranking before the whole country collapsed into disarray. If you check a little on your cite, you’ll note that like Vietnam and a few others it lists in situ resources, but zero production.

A brief blurb on Somali resources:

http://somalinet.com/library/somalia/?so=0084

This pdf of African mineral production 1997-2001, lists nothing coming out of Somalia but a tiny amount of gypsum and salt.

  • Tamerlane
9

Wasn’t this estimate supposed to have a series of critical fotnotes that revealed the caveats?

Where are the footnotes?

10

Yes, it is indeed spy work, good of you to notice that. Why it had not occured to anyone.

BTW, there’s no confirmation it is a “French” report so let’s keep the baseless smears to the minimum.

11

Actually, I heard it on the BBC last night that the Niger-Iraq reports were forged by some low-ranking Italian.

12

Let’s see…so far the French, Italians, and British have all beem implicated. How 'bout the President just comes out and says “Look, we’ve screwed this bit of intelligence up eight ways from Sunday. We have no idea what, if anything, SH tried to buy. We were wrong. I, as Chief Executive, take full responsibility for this.”

Sorry, I think I’ve been out in the sun a bit too long.

13

We won’t get to know what actually happened.
But several African countries can produce Uranium ore, and other African countries that are not themselves producers could trade for it. Iraq had significant amounts of capital with which it could buy Uranium ore.

Does anyone seriously believe that Iraq under S.H. would not buy the ore if it got the opportunity?

Though purification of the ore would be beyond Iraq’s capabilities for some time, how much work would be required to convert uranium ore into a substance suitable for use in so called “dirty bombs” ?

Would it be impossible for Iraq to have the Ore purified by a third party (Pakistan comes to mind) ?

14

Testimony from Iraqi defectors mentions several times that iraq was not moving on a number of different programs until the inspections and sanctions were over.

So, I think that Hussein would’ve pursued uranium when he had the chance; however, I don’t think that he thought he would have the chance until AFTER the inspections and sanctions ended.

Look just because Pakistan has deep running sympathies to the Taleban and al Qaeda in its military, political and intelligence groups, and just because Pakistan helped fund and found the Taleban, and just because Pakistan provided money, arms and training for Usama bin Laden and other high-ranking members of al Qaeda doesn’t mean that Pakistan is not as stalwart of an ally in the War on Terror as the Bush admin says it is.
Good grief. :wink:

15

Not sure why Pakistan would want to enrich uranium for Iraq to use at some unspecified date in the future for some as yet unspecific nuke programme. If Pakistan was keen for Iraq to have nukes (doesn’t sound too likely does it?) they already have some that they could just sell to them.

16

I’d be surprised if any country w/ enriched uranium came up off any of it.

17

Bippy:

So we went to war because IF he had the chance to but Uranium in the future he MIGHT have done it?

:smack:

18

Technical question for learned geeks: how much “yellowcake” would be required to produce any given amount of fissible material? My impression is that it is a mind-boggling amount of this shit, having read some history about the production of the first US bomb. And my understanding further emphasizes the enormous industrial facilities to take any advantage of possession of said “yellowcake” (the Oak Ridge TN uranium refining operation was big). Anybody got any real number?

Secondly, just to confuse the issue further…

It is reasonable to assume that the production and disbursement of uranium ore is one of those things that draws considerable scrutiny, international spy wise. This almost has to be taken as a given.

Hence, it follows that if Saddam bin Laden was plotting to obtain uranium ore (to do God only knows what) it would have to have been done surreptitiously. Considering the degree of scrutiny that has been lavished on Iraq these many years, I find it unlikely in the extreme that Saddam would have been buying uranium ore on the open market.

Now I’m a fairly bright fellow, but not an intelligence chap. But if this occurs to me, why in the hell did it not occur to him!

Further obfuscation: If one truly sought to unobtrusively obtain oodles of “yellowcake”, one obvious ploy would be to misrepresent oneself, yes? “Hi, my name’s Iraq, I don’t have my ID with me, but I’m here to pick up my 500 tons of yellowcake. That’s right, name’s Iraq, thats I…R…A…Q. Here’s the check.”

Knowing, of course, that the Americans would take it at face value, since it nestles so cozily within preconceptions.

So Belgium, in a fit of madness and spite, decides to build an A-bomb to avenge American chocolate tariffs. Step one: buy a humongous amount of uranium ore without the Yanks catching on. (I would be comforted if I thought that were difficult). What better ruse than using Iraq for a false front?

Or is this Tom Clancy with a tinfoil hat?

19

Why are you guys doing flips and twists to try to avoid the obvious conclusion?

I mean, the U.S. intelligence community believes that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa. The British intelligence service STILL stands by their assessment of same, despite immense pressure.

Given that, we can conclude the following:

  1. Saddam probably was trying to buy uranium from Africa
  2. Some other country was trying to buy uranium, using Iraq as a false front for some nefarious purpose.
  3. The CIA planted false information to fool British intelligence into believing that Saddam was buying uranium, so that the British would give the intelligence back to the CIA, which it would then give to the president so that the president could make a mistaken assertion and blame the CIA, causing the CIA to be discredited.
  4. Everyone in the British and U.S. intelligence agencies is lying!
20

Hey ‘luci, how ya doin’ ? This isn’t exactly what you’re looking for but provides fulll context and some valid info re enrichment.

Ma man Scott Ritter, inteviewed last year:

"Nuclear weapons

P: Five things generally draw the attention of the US government and the people interested in attacking Iraq. They are: 1) the potential for nuclear weapons; 2) the potential for chemical weapons; 3) the potential for biological weapons; 4) the potential for delivery systems that could reach the United States; and 5) possible connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks. I’d like to talk for a moment about Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme.

R: When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection programme ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100% eliminated. There’s no debate about that. All of their instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to monitor - both from vehicles and from the air - the gamma rays that accompany attempts to enrich uranium or plutonium. We never found anything. We can say unequivocally that the industrial infrastructure needed by Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been eliminated.

Even this, however, is not simple, because Iraq still had thousands of scientists who had been dedicated to this nuclear weaponisation effort. The scientists were organised in a very specific manner, with different sub-elements focused on different technologies of interest. Even though the physical infrastructure had been eliminated, the Iraqis chose to retain the organisational structure of the scientists. This means that Iraq has thousands of nuclear scientists - along with their knowledge and expertise - still organised in the same manner as when Iraq had a nuclear weapons programme and its infrastructure. Those scientists are today involved in legitimate tasks. These jobs aren’t illegal per se, but they do allow these scientists to work in fields similar to those in which they had worked where they were, in fact, carrying out a nuclear weapons programme.

There is concern, then, that the Iraqis might intend in the long run to re-establish or reconstitute a nuclear weapons programme. **But this concern must be tempered by reality. That is not something that could happen overnight. For Iraq to reacquire nuclear weapons capability, they would have to build enrichment and weaponisation capabilities that would cost tens of billions of dollars. Nuclear weapons cannot be created in a basement or cave. They require modern industrial infrastructures that in turn require massive amounts of electricity and highly controlled technologies not readily available on the open market. **

P: Like neutron reflectors, tampers…

R: Iraq could design and build these itself. I’m talking more about flash cameras and the centrifuges needed to enrich uranium. There are also specific chemicals required. None of this can be done on the cheap. **It’s very expensive, and readily detectable. **

The vice-president has been saying that Iraq might be two years away from building a nuclear bomb. Unless he knows something we don’t, that’s nonsense. And it doesn’t appear that he does, because whenever you press the vice-president or other Bush administration officials on these claims, they fall back on testimony by Richard Butler, my former boss, an Australian diplomat, and Khidir Hamza, an Iraqi defector who claims to be Saddam’s bomb-maker. And of course, that’s not good enough, especially when we have the UN record of Iraqi disarmament from 1991 to 1998. That record is without dispute. It is well documented. We eliminated the nuclear programme, and for Iraq to have reconstituted it would require undertaking activities eminently detectable by intelligence services.

P: Because these claims by the Vice President are important to the debate, I want to be clear. Are you saying that Iraq could not hide, for example, gas centrifuge facilities, because of the energy the facilities would require and the heat they would emit?

R: It is not just heat. Centrifuge facilities emit gamma radiation, as well as many other frequencies. It is detectable. Iraq could not get around this. "