So first, everybody thought that Iraq had WMD, or at least the capability of making them.
Then last week the CIA report said "Nope, they never had WMD; they haven’t had them in years and years.
Now today, CNN is reporting that the UN says that there’s a bunch of nuclear material missing from Iraq that **could ** be used to make WMD.
What the hell is really going on here? Did they or didn’t they have the capability of producing nuclear weapons? First the CIA said “yes, they do”, now the CIA says “no, they didn’t”, and now the UN is saying “they had all this stuff that could be used to make nuclear weapons, but now it’s gone and nobody knows where it is”.
So now just as I’ve come to accept the fact that Iraq couldn’t have had a WMD program when we invaded, we find out that maybe there was something there after all, and maybe the reason we couldn’t find it when we went in is that somebody took it down before we got there.
Reading the article, everybody knew that the stuff was there and it didn’t qualify as anything illegal even though it could be used to make weapons if it fell into the wrong hands. The site was closely monitored to make sure everything was above board. They’re saying everything was accounted for before the invasion, but in the aftermath of the war the site in question had been stripped and the equipment is now missing.
Why the materials and equipment in question weren’t under guard after the shooting stopped is what I’m curious about.
Saddam had a nuclear power and weapons program before Gulf War 1. Much of the equipment and infrastructure for that was destroyed in GW1, but the UN went through afterwards, collected what was left, and locked it up. Saddam did not restart his nuke program after the war, but the equipment was left in place under UN inspections. It was all safe, happy and secure there, until the US invaded, kicked the inspectors out, and didn’t bother guarding the sites.
“Having” WMD and “somewhere along the road to getting WMDs” are two different things.
Chemical weapons are easy as many useful and mundane products can be whipped together to make something quite deadly and the science is something that can be managed in a high school chem class. Making the stuff in quantity is not too hard.
Bio weapons are easy and hard at the same time. One might say an egg on a hot sidewalk in July is a potential bio weapon (taken to an absurd extreme). Growing something nasty is again in the realm of a high school biology class. The hard part is weaponizing it (so it is actually effective) and figuring out delivery systems.
Nuclear weapons are different. The science to build one is somewhat advanced but I think no great secret anymore. Certainly there are advanced nukes that are technically very difficult but a satisfying boom can be had with little trouble and modest technical know-how. The hard part in getting a nuke is making the material that goes boom. This is not something easily hidden as it requires nuclear reactors and advanced centrifuges and so on and is technically very demanding and not easy at all.
That Saddam sought any of those I think is beyond doubt. The Israelis bombed the Osiraq Reactor in Iraq in 1981 to stop Saddam from the ability to make nuclear material. The Israelis were soundly criticized at the time but should probably be thanked for that.
Thing is nuclear material goes through several phases on its way to weapons grade material. So, Iraq may well have had stuff that given more processing could have become weapons grade nuclear material. That does not make it a WMD…just makes it a step on the road to a nuke. This step is common for pretty much any country that has nuclear reactors and is what North Korea has recently been on about (they kicked out the monitors, removed the waste material and claim they will reprocess it into weapons grade material).
So no, Iraq did not have the capacity to make nuclear bombs in this century and I think everyone knew it. That he would have loved to get one is almost certain. That he had programs to try that at some point is almost certain. That he had components necessary for a nuke is certain but then household cleaner may be considered a component for a chemical weapon. Estimates say he was anywhere from 2-10 years away from achieving it (before Osiraq) depending who you ask.
I understand the difference. That, I believe, is part of what caused the “problem” to begin with.
The UN inspectors claimed that the Iraqi nuclear program had nothing to do with weapons. The problem was (from the Bush administration point of view) that Saddam was preventing the inspectors from inspecting thoroughly. That, along with other intelligence, made the administration think that there was more going on that just peaceful research.
So we invade, and we find nothing. Absolutely nothing. And now we find out that the “nuclear material” is still there, but all of the equipment, even the buildings used to house them, have vanished.
So the facilities and equipment were there before the US invaded. They appear to have been purposefully dismantled, not torn apart and looted. And now the equipment, along with any evidence that it might have given concerning it intend purpose, is gone. Who would have reason to dismantle and remove the equipment and the buildings that once housed it? If it were terrorists or some other group who were interested in creating nuclear weapons, then I could certainly see them stealing the equipment. But why would they bother to dismantle the buildings? The only reason I can come up with for tearing down the buildings is to prevent someone from finding out what they were and what they were being used for.
I’m not saying this proved Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. There is still no evidence supporting that claim. But the fact that these facilities, which might have provided evidence one way or the other, have completely disappeared just makes me wonder.
[QUOTE=Suburban Plankton]
Who would have reason to dismantle and remove the equipment and the buildings that once housed it?
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Scavengers? In a post-war Iraq, people could be desperate enough to dismantle anything in sight, and sell whatever they can’t use for themselves. “Scrap metal for sale! I have no idea what this is, but whatever you’re willing to pay, I’ll take it!”
There were reports of post-war Iraqis using 50-gallon drums to hold water for bathing and washing. No one cared that the drums were previously used to store nuclear materials… :eek: