Strikes underway in Syria
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...g-islam/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.1256bfabba25
Not hard to find volunteers of that caliber when 50% of the people in your religious group think that death is the appropriate response for leaving the religion.
David Kay, i.e. the person in charge of the Iraq Survey Group and presumably your ex-BIL's ultimate boss, said there weren't any and the pre-war intel was fundamentally flawed (in his own words, we were all wrong). He worked for the Bush administration so he had all the incentive to justify the casus belli by finding actual WMD's: Here is his senate testimony transcript: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/kaytestimony.pdf
Relevant quote: "I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed, militarized chemical weapons there."
Note the final ISG report did not address the rumors of WMD's being shipped to neighboring countries, because they were exactly that, rumors and hearsay without the slightest bit of proof. Let's not resurrect decades-old tall tales to justify current events.
Assad already won this current war so he has no reason to use chemical weapons on anybody. The proof of Assad culpability presented to the public is literally non-existent. I for one refuse to buy the myth that the government has some secret knowledge that justifies these airstrikes. I have seen that stunt far too many times.
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I've got more than a few myself TxStetson, we should compare lists!
Do you have that guy up there? ^^^
QUIT IGNORING ME!
Hell I put 2 on from this thread.
dmancornell,
You, like any number of other self-impressed folks, presume too much. = Frank was at that time a COL/06 of USJAGC, was present to document Crimes Against Humanity/Crimes Against Peace & was immediately subordinate/reported directly to the Chairman of the JCS.
(He is now retired & "double-dipping" as a "Special Executive Assistant" to a senior Flag at DoD.)
While Frank & I are no particular fans of each other (He's never forgiven me for taking my kid sister's side in their "marital discord". ImVho, he often fits the description of a mean-spirited Sweet Old Boy. = Many people know that he's not a "good person to cross".), I've never known him to lie. = You can take what he said that he personally witnessed to the bank
yours, satx
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I am sorry, but your assertions on Iraq are so idiotic. Do you not recall there was even a UN program trying to rid Iraq of WMD's??? And the UN is hardly a US puppet.
Do you not know that Saddam used WMD's (chemical weapons) against not only Iran but also on his own people when they rose up against him? This is well documented even by the liberal media.
I will post some other info below.
'Dragon's Egg': Marines who guarded Saddam's mysterious bunker fear weapons unleashed
By FoxNews.com
Facebook Twitter livefyre Email Print
Former Marine Joshua Hartley believes a secret bunker in Iraq held chemical and biological weapons. He told FoxNews.com about his platoon finding unspent shells that he said contained chemical weapons.
The U.S. Marines who guarded the sprawling complex in northwest Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s 1980s war machine churned out some of the most deadly chemical and biological weapons known to man had a name for one especially mysterious bunker: The Dragon’s Egg.
Although the Americans assigned to the Al Muthanna facility until 2008 were forbidden by superiors from peering inside the bunker, they knew the larger complex’s history. From 1983 to 1990, the brutal dictator’s scientists worked there, developing mustard, sarin, VX and Tabun gases for use on Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds. And although it was under the control of U.S. and Iraqi military forces for most of the last decade, the entire facility - and whatever it held - is now firmly in the grasp of the Islamic State, the terrorist army that has claimed a vast swath of Iraq and Syria and allegedly used chemical weapons against Kurds this summer.
The X-shaped bunker, encased in cement and shrouded in mystery, was one of two that were handled differently from the many other bunkers that made up the facility, according to Lt. Joshua Hartley, who was stationed there in 2008. It was off-limits.
“We were made aware of a particular bunker on the north side [of Al Muthanna] which we were informed was sealed and remotely monitored,” Hartley, who served in the weapons company of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, told FoxNews.com. “We were not to approach, and definitely not to attempt to enter.”
An Iraqi Army outpost was positioned immediately next to the Dragon’s Egg bunker, which was under constant observation. It was an open secret that the bunker contained vast amounts of Hussein’s most dangerous nerve agents, according to Hartley.
“We were not to approach, and definitely not to attempt to enter.”
- Joshua Hartley, retired U.S. Marine lieutenant
“We became aware that there were two particular bunkers - one of which had reportedly been sealed up some time before - that held potentially devastating contents,” said Hartley, who went on to serve in Afghanistan and achieved the rank of captain before being discharged from the military. The Georgia native now lives in New York.
On Nov. 2, 2008, the Iraqi troops guarding the Dragon’s Egg were suddenly pulled from the outpost. Hartley’s platoon was ordered to clear the compound and members found 40 shells simply lying around outside of the bunker. They alerted superiors, but as they waited for specialized chemical weapons disposal units to arrive, Hartley recalled, one Marine “picked [a shell] up and could literally hear the liquid sloshing around inside of it.”
Marine Lance Cpl. Kevin Fanning, who served in Hartley’s platoon and corroborated the account, described other ominous discoveries made by the Marines as they cleared the area around the top-secret bunker.
“When we began searching, we discovered a huge stockpile of 105-millimeter artillery shells that were filled with mustard gas,” Fanning told FoxNews.com. “I have always wondered why it never became big news, as well as other incidents. I never doubted the existence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.”
Related Image
Expand / Contract
Hartley went on to serve in Afghanistan and achieved the rank of captain before being discharged from the military.
Their account was similar to a separate one reported by The New York Times earlier this week, in which U.S. service members guarding Al Muthanna said a toxic agent used in mustard gas leaked out of a shell when a soldier picked it up. According to the Times, more than a dozen U.S. soldiers were injured by chemical weapons but the incidents were not made public.
Gen. Jack Kean, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, former Army vice-chief of staff and a Fox News contributor, told Fox News’ ‘The Kelly File’ on Wednesday that it was known in high military circles that Hussein’s old weaponry was still around, although it was believed to be in poor condition.
“It was common knowledge in the chain of command that these storage sites existed and occasionally our soldiers would ‘bang into these things,’” Kean said.
Al Muthanna was known to be the nerve center of Hussein’s chemical weapons program, which was reportedly aided by western nations long before Operation Desert Storm. An October, 2000, report by the Federation of American Scientists identified it as a testing ground for Anthrax and Ricin. Although the chaos following the fall of Hussein in 2003 would seem to have made it essential that the secret bunker known as Dragon’s Egg be de-commissioned by specially-trained chemical weapons experts, it wasn’t until much later that international leaders took up the issue, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Discussions were held in November 2011, hosted by the U.S. in Aberdeen, Maryland, with 38 experts from around the world.
“All experts present during the roundtable agreed that bunker 13 at Al Muthanna represents a special case and that an entry into the bunker would expose personnel to explosive, chemical, and physical hazards,” the OPCW reported. “The potential for an explosion occurring is the most serious factor due to the presence of scattered fuses and warhead components.”
It is believed that the “bunker 13” referenced at the meeting is the one Hartley and his men called Dragon’s Egg.
A U.S. State Department report last February indicated that administration officials were fully aware of the potentially huge dangers the bunker and another one like it at Al Muthanna presented.
“The [Chemical Weapons] destruction plan is dependent on the assessment of the contents of the [Chemical Weapons Storage Facilities], bunkers 13 and 41 at Al Muthanna,” the State Department reported. But efforts to neutralize the bunkers appear not to have been carried out, and now Kean and Hartley fear it could be too late. Al Muthanna was overrun by Islamic State militants in July.
“Frankly, the weapons could be used by ISIS,” Kean said. “Our troops’ mission was not to clean this up; that was something the Iraqis were supposed to do, and obviously they didn’t do a very good job of it,” the general added. “I know from talking to people who were involved, that the Sunni insurgents used some of these weapons as IED’s against us.”
With reports that Islamic State fighters may have used chemical weapons to attack the Syrian city of Kobani earlier this summer, Hartley also wonders if the contents of the mysterious bunker known as Dragon’s Egg have been unleashed.
Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter @paul_alster and visit his website: www.paulalster.com.
By FoxNews.com
Facebook Twitter livefyre Email Print
Former Marine Joshua Hartley believes a secret bunker in Iraq held chemical and biological weapons. He told FoxNews.com about his platoon finding unspent shells that he said contained chemical weapons.
The U.S. Marines who guarded the sprawling complex in northwest Iraq where Saddam Hussein’s 1980s war machine churned out some of the most deadly chemical and biological weapons known to man had a name for one especially mysterious bunker: The Dragon’s Egg.
Although the Americans assigned to the Al Muthanna facility until 2008 were forbidden by superiors from peering inside the bunker, they knew the larger complex’s history. From 1983 to 1990, the brutal dictator’s scientists worked there, developing mustard, sarin, VX and Tabun gases for use on Iranian soldiers and Iraqi Kurds. And although it was under the control of U.S. and Iraqi military forces for most of the last decade, the entire facility - and whatever it held - is now firmly in the grasp of the Islamic State, the terrorist army that has claimed a vast swath of Iraq and Syria and allegedly used chemical weapons against Kurds this summer.
The X-shaped bunker, encased in cement and shrouded in mystery, was one of two that were handled differently from the many other bunkers that made up the facility, according to Lt. Joshua Hartley, who was stationed there in 2008. It was off-limits.
“We were made aware of a particular bunker on the north side [of Al Muthanna] which we were informed was sealed and remotely monitored,” Hartley, who served in the weapons company of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, told FoxNews.com. “We were not to approach, and definitely not to attempt to enter.”
An Iraqi Army outpost was positioned immediately next to the Dragon’s Egg bunker, which was under constant observation. It was an open secret that the bunker contained vast amounts of Hussein’s most dangerous nerve agents, according to Hartley.
“We were not to approach, and definitely not to attempt to enter.”
- Joshua Hartley, retired U.S. Marine lieutenant
“We became aware that there were two particular bunkers - one of which had reportedly been sealed up some time before - that held potentially devastating contents,” said Hartley, who went on to serve in Afghanistan and achieved the rank of captain before being discharged from the military. The Georgia native now lives in New York.
On Nov. 2, 2008, the Iraqi troops guarding the Dragon’s Egg were suddenly pulled from the outpost. Hartley’s platoon was ordered to clear the compound and members found 40 shells simply lying around outside of the bunker. They alerted superiors, but as they waited for specialized chemical weapons disposal units to arrive, Hartley recalled, one Marine “picked [a shell] up and could literally hear the liquid sloshing around inside of it.”
Marine Lance Cpl. Kevin Fanning, who served in Hartley’s platoon and corroborated the account, described other ominous discoveries made by the Marines as they cleared the area around the top-secret bunker.
“When we began searching, we discovered a huge stockpile of 105-millimeter artillery shells that were filled with mustard gas,” Fanning told FoxNews.com. “I have always wondered why it never became big news, as well as other incidents. I never doubted the existence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.”
Related Image
Hartley went on to serve in Afghanistan and achieved the rank of captain before being discharged from the military.
Their account was similar to a separate one reported by The New York Times earlier this week, in which U.S. service members guarding Al Muthanna said a toxic agent used in mustard gas leaked out of a shell when a soldier picked it up. According to the Times, more than a dozen U.S. soldiers were injured by chemical weapons but the incidents were not made public.
Gen. Jack Kean, chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, former Army vice-chief of staff and a Fox News contributor, told Fox News’ ‘The Kelly File’ on Wednesday that it was known in high military circles that Hussein’s old weaponry was still around, although it was believed to be in poor condition.
“It was common knowledge in the chain of command that these storage sites existed and occasionally our soldiers would ‘bang into these things,’” Kean said.
Al Muthanna was known to be the nerve center of Hussein’s chemical weapons program, which was reportedly aided by western nations long before Operation Desert Storm. An October, 2000, report by the Federation of American Scientists identified it as a testing ground for Anthrax and Ricin. Although the chaos following the fall of Hussein in 2003 would seem to have made it essential that the secret bunker known as Dragon’s Egg be de-commissioned by specially-trained chemical weapons experts, it wasn’t until much later that international leaders took up the issue, according to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Discussions were held in November 2011, hosted by the U.S. in Aberdeen, Maryland, with 38 experts from around the world.
“All experts present during the roundtable agreed that bunker 13 at Al Muthanna represents a special case and that an entry into the bunker would expose personnel to explosive, chemical, and physical hazards,” the OPCW reported. “The potential for an explosion occurring is the most serious factor due to the presence of scattered fuses and warhead components.”
It is believed that the “bunker 13” referenced at the meeting is the one Hartley and his men called Dragon’s Egg.
A U.S. State Department report last February indicated that administration officials were fully aware of the potentially huge dangers the bunker and another one like it at Al Muthanna presented.
“The [Chemical Weapons] destruction plan is dependent on the assessment of the contents of the [Chemical Weapons Storage Facilities], bunkers 13 and 41 at Al Muthanna,” the State Department reported. But efforts to neutralize the bunkers appear not to have been carried out, and now Kean and Hartley fear it could be too late. Al Muthanna was overrun by Islamic State militants in July.
“Frankly, the weapons could be used by ISIS,” Kean said. “Our troops’ mission was not to clean this up; that was something the Iraqis were supposed to do, and obviously they didn’t do a very good job of it,” the general added. “I know from talking to people who were involved, that the Sunni insurgents used some of these weapons as IED’s against us.”
With reports that Islamic State fighters may have used chemical weapons to attack the Syrian city of Kobani earlier this summer, Hartley also wonders if the contents of the mysterious bunker known as Dragon’s Egg have been unleashed.
Paul Alster is an Israel-based journalist. Follow him on Twitter @paul_alster and visit his website: www.paulalster.com.
Christopher Hitchens, writing in the Sept. 5, 2005, issue of the Weekly Standard:
“You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in al Qaeda. . . . Blah, blah, pants on fire.” I have had many opportunities to tire of this mantra. It takes ten seconds to intone the said mantra. It would take me, on my most eloquent C-SPAN day, at the very least five minutes to say that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; that Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam’s senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of nuclear physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; that Saddam’s agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negotiating to purchase missiles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the great Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting with Tariq Aziz. And these eye-catching examples would by no means exhaust my repertoire, or empty my quiver. Yes, it must be admitted that Bush and Blair made a hash of a good case, largely because they preferred to scare people rather than enlighten them or reason with them. Still, the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem.
“You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in al Qaeda. . . . Blah, blah, pants on fire.” I have had many opportunities to tire of this mantra. It takes ten seconds to intone the said mantra. It would take me, on my most eloquent C-SPAN day, at the very least five minutes to say that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; that Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam’s senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of nuclear physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; that Saddam’s agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negotiating to purchase missiles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the great Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting with Tariq Aziz. And these eye-catching examples would by no means exhaust my repertoire, or empty my quiver. Yes, it must be admitted that Bush and Blair made a hash of a good case, largely because they preferred to scare people rather than enlighten them or reason with them. Still, the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem.
Secret U.S. mission hauls uranium from Iraq
Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada
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.
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.
"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
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.
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.
"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.
Advertise
Secret mission
The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.
And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.
Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger — and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims — led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.
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.
Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.
"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Hurdles ahead of hauling yellowcake
Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.
Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.
An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.
But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.
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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.
In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.
On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.
The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.
Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.
Saddam's stockpile
The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.
Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.
But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."
The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.
A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.
A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Hide more text
Last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts arrives in Canada
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.
The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.
What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.
"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.
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.
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.
"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.
Advertise
Secret mission
The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.
And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.
Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger — and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims — led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.
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.
Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.
"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.
Hurdles ahead of hauling yellowcake
Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.
Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.
An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.
But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.
Advertise
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.
In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.
On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.
The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.
Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.
Saddam's stockpile
The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.
Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.
But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."
The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the war for Washington.
A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.
A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Hide more text
I attribute truth or falsehood to claims based on evidence, not based on a claimant's military rank or personality. Bush directed the US government to fund David Kay and ISG to find the WMD's after the regular intelligence agencies failed to do so, and he came up nothing.
Self-impressed? Nah, just skeptical. Besides the lack of evidence, I just can't come up with a good reason that Bush would instruct the ISG to hide evidence of WMD's in Iraq when it would result in a massive political victory for the administration, especially in 2007 when popular support for the Iraq war was flagging.
Sorry, none of your posts constitute evidence of the existence of a WMD program.
You have a story written based on a personal anecdote on liquid filled artillery shells, without chemical analysis, a responsibility which ISG is charged with (and they testified to have found no active WMD program). Next, a quote by Christopher Hitchens, whom I respect as a potent polemicist but even he admitted the WMD program argument was a dead end and instead argued in favor of the war as a the proper response to politicized Islam (see his updated defense of the invasion here: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2008/03/how_did_i_get_iraq_wrong_11.html). And finally, a story on yellowcake, which cannot be weaponized without a reactor, which Iraq never has never operated, and none were found to be operating in secret after the war.
Feel free to post more. I am pointing out that US intelligence agencies came to an absolutely wrong conclusion the last time they were asked to justify a war, and it would be wise to demand more proof before this nation makes any more decisions based on their claims.
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Wow. Talking about an amazing denial of reality.
You deny that Iraq used chemical weapons on Iran and on its own people?
And what use is yellowcake if you have no nuclear weapons ambition? I suppose you believe this was for peaceful research?
You deny that mustard artillery shells were found being used as WMD's?
I can post many more independent reports, but that would be wasted given your state of denial. I would hate to confuse you with more facts.
oldag,
"Dave" wouldn't believe that he's been LIED TO, played for a dunce & that he has swallowed the Moron Left's BRAVO SIERRA "hook, line & sinker" if he personally was present & SAW the poison gas. = Such people believe whatever they are told by the "main-SLIME press" & the "self-appointed experts", regardless of documented FACTS. = YELLOW RAIN (which was one of the "otherwise unidentified" lethal chemical agents that I mentioned earlier on this thread) was repeatedly used by "Chemical Ali's thugs" on their own citizens & killed thousands of helpless victims but the "Moron Left" continues to deny that DOCUMENTED FACT, too.
(I call that mental affliction: WILLFUL BLINDNESS.)
yours, satx
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