Iraq Confirms U.S. Has Removed Nuclear Material

[mrmatas2277]

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government confirmed Thursday the United States has removed radioactive material from Iraq, saying ousted dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) could have used it to develop nuclear weapons.

U.S. and U.N. officials said Wednesday Washington had transported 1.8 tons of enriched uranium out of Iraq for safekeeping more than a year after looters stole it from a U.N.-sealed facility left unguarded by U.S. troops.

Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the uranium and about 1,000 highly radioactive items from the former Iraqi nuclear research facility had been taken to the United States.

"I can now announce that the United States Department of Defense (news - web sites) and Department of Energy (news - web sites) have completed a joint operation to secure and remove from Iraq radiological and nuclear materials that the ousted regime could have potentially used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program," Allawi said in a statement.

"Iraq has no intention and no will to resume these programs in the future. These materials which are potential weapons of mass murder are not welcome in our country and their production is unacceptable," Allawi said.

A "radiological dispersal device," or dirty bomb, uses a conventional explosive to disperse radioactive material over a wide area.

U.S. officials said lightly enriched uranium, which could be used in such a bomb, was airlifted to an undisclosed U.S. site after its removal from the Tuwaitha nuclear complex south of Baghdad, a one-time center of Iraq's nuclear weapons programs.

U.S. officials said the move would help keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.

The Tuwaitha nuclear complex was dismantled in the early 1990s after the first Gulf War (news - web sites).

But tons of nuclear materials remained there under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, until last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when it was left unguarded and looted by Iraqi civilians.

The IAEA learned a week ago that the transfer had taken place on June 23, the agency said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council made public Wednesday.

[obby]

Any comments from those of you who claimed that we used WMD as an excuse to invade Iraq???????

Conspiracy theorist unite!!!!!

[xpyrate]

good ... we don't have to worry about terrorism anymore

[bigpoppanils]

Any comments from those of you who claimed that we used WMD as an excuse to invade Iraq???????

well i would once again like to know why Tony Blair is telling the British public this:

Blair: WMD may never be found

Tuesday, July 6, 2004 Posted: 7:55 PM EDT (2355 GMT)

(CNN) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said that weapons of mass destruction may never be found in Iraq, but he insisted former leader Saddam Hussein had posed a threat to "the wider world."

"We know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and we know that we haven't found them," Blair told a committee of British lawmakers Tuesday.

"I have to accept we have not found them, that we may not find them.

"But what I wouldn't accept is that [saddam] was not a threat and a threat in WMD terms."

Blair and President Bush used Iraq's alleged weapons program as a main reason for invading the country.

So far the Iraq Survey Group, which is in charge of the hunt for illicit weapons, has yet to turn up any stockpiles.

The British leader said evidence uncovered by the group showed that Saddam had the "strategic capability" and intent to use such weapons.

"Whether they were hidden or removed or destroyed even, the plain fact is that he was in breach of United Nations resolutions," Blair said.

Before the war, Blair stated that Iraq was a "serious and current" threat and that it had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/06/blair.wmd/index.html

[sobeton]

Any comments from those of you who claimed that we used WMD as an excuse to invade Iraq???????

Conspiracy theorist unite!!!!!

LOL enriched uranium removed months ago. surely this justifies everything. more political mumbo jumbo ,to try and justify bad policy decisions. election year politics is so entertaining.

[mursa]

The IAEA should remove the 200 or so nuclear weapons Israel has in it's possesion .

There shouldn't be double standards when it comes to Nukes .

[dkny8]

Any comments from those of you who claimed that we used WMD as an excuse to invade Iraq???????

Yeah, the Al-Tuwaitha facility was guarded/monitored for over ten years by the IAEA lol. It was even inspected in February 2003, just before the war. That's why Bush hasn't been blasting the news out of a bullhorn from the Rose Garden. He probably doesn't even want it publicized since the transfer of the uranium occurred without the permission of the UN. This was uranium that was already known about and kept under IAEA seal. Here's a story from 2003 from a conservative news source, Newsmax.

UN sources confirm that the US troops found "nothing new" at Tuwaitha. In fact, one UN source intimately familiar with the nuclear center called the US military inspection "sloppy" and that the IAEA had passed on information to the Pentagon to alert them to the presence and location of the nuclear waste.

IAEA sources say that 1.8 tons of natural uranium were under seal, 500 tons of natural and depleted uranium as well as an undisclosed amount of the highly toxic cesium 137. Nuclear experts say the cesium would be ideal for use in a dirty bomb.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/6/4/135845.shtml

In fact, the facility has been known about for 20 years. It's the same facility the Israelis bombed decades ago! Ironically, it was looted AFTER Baghdad fell. If the U.S. was REALLY concerned about preventing WMD from getting into the hands of terrorists they would have secured al-Tuwaitha well BEFORE securing Iraq's oil fields. Dontcha think?

[vicman]

Bush Issues Broad Defense for Iraq War

By Deb Riechmann

The Associated Press

Monday, July 12, 2004; 12:04 PM

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -- President Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq even as he conceded on Monday that investigators had not found the weapons of mass destruction that he had warned the country possessed.

Allowing Iraq to possibly transfer weapons capability to terrorists was not a risk he was willing to take, Bush said.

"Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq," Bush said after inspecting a display of nuclear weapons parts and equipment, including assembled gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, from Libya.

The hardware was shipped here in March as part of an agreement with Moammar Gadhafi to end his country's nuclear weapons program.

"We removed a declared enemy of America who had the capability of producing weapons of mass murder and could have passed that capability to terrorists bent on acquiring them. In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take," Bush said.

The president offered a broad new defense of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq three days after the release of a Senate report that harshly criticized unsubstantiated intelligence cited in the run-up to the war in Iraq, a crucial battle in the war on terrorism.

The key U.S. assertions leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons -- were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses, a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report asserted Friday.

Intelligence analysts fell victim to "group think" assumptions that Iraq had weapons when it did not, the bipartisan report concluded. Many factors contributing to those failures are ongoing problems within the U.S. intelligence community, which cannot be fixed with more money alone, it said.

Without directly acknowledging the intelligence was flawed, Bush said a wide array of government leaders, from members of the Clinton administration to lawmakers to the U.N. Security Council, had studied the same intelligence and "saw a threat."

During the Clinton administration, official U.S. policy toward Iraq became "regime change" -- a stance that sought the ouster of Saddam Hussein, he noted.

But Saddam refused to open his country to inspections, Bush said.

"So I had a choice to make: either take the word of a madman or defend America. Given that choice I will defend America."

Bush has used similar rhetoric in speeches for months, but the words took on added significance in light of the latest report condemning the Iraq intelligence.

Bush's trip to Tennessee was designed to showcase a victory in his administration's campaign against weapons of mass destruction.

Bush was shown nuclear weapons parts and equipment from Libya, and called them "sobering evidence of a great danger." It was the White House's second effort to shine a spotlight on the Libyan victory. Several months ago, the White House arranged a tour for journalists of the equipment.

Bush said Libya's decision to scrap its nuclear ambitions and do away with its long-range missiles was the result of "quiet diplomacy" by the United States, Great Britain and the Libyan government. But it also was the result of outspoken public denunciations of nations that seek to threaten the world with nuclear and other weapons, he said.

He said the world knows that doing so carries serious consequences and that the "wise course is to abandon those pursuits."

And Bush said his administration was doing everything possible to avert the attacks he said terrorists are now plotting.

© 2004 The Associated Press

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44268-2004Jul12.html