Report says Iraqi nukes found in disarray

[Barrett808]

VIENNA, Austria - U.N. inspectors found Iraq's nuclear program in disarray and unlikely to be able to support an active effort to build weapons, the atomic agency chief said in a confidential report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei reiterated that his experts uncovered no signs of a nuclear weapons program before they withdrew from Iraq just before the war began in March.

The United States and Britain invaded Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein's regime was developing nuclear arms as well as chemical and biological weapons.

"In the areas of uranium acquisition, concentration and centrifuge enrichment, extensive field investigation and document analysis revealed no evidence that Iraq had resumed such activities," ElBaradei said in the report, made available to the AP by a diplomat.

"No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq," he said.

...

"The agency observed a substantial degradation in facilities, financial resources and programs throughout Iraq that might support a nuclear infrastructure," he said.

"The former cadre of nuclear experts was being increasingly dispersed and many key figures were reaching retirement or had left the country," he said.

(more)

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/world/6722197.htm

[FloridaPat]

1. Where is Disarray? I couldn't find it on a map. But if there is

a report that says Bush's WMD were found in Disarray, I'm sure they are there.

[BadGimp]

2. It's just north of Fubar

Which is exactly describes the state of BushCo's Iraq misadventure.

[laconicsax]

4. I think it's in Syria...or Iran

Jordan?

[NickB79]

3. God is that headline misleading

What fucking nukes? A barrel of radioactive waste is not a nuclear warhead! A bombed-out reactor is not a nuclear warhead!

And this may surprise Bush, but a nuclear weapons program is NOT A FUCKING NUCLEAR WARHEAD!!!

But we all know that the morons who voted for Bush will read no further than the headline (about as far as their 6th-grade eduations will get them anyways) and think we've confirmed Saddam had nukes pointed at New York and Washington DC.

[Racenut20]

6. Hey ! I am Proud

of my 6th-grade education. I didn't put in 10 long years in that one room school house for nothing, you know !!!!!!!

[gp]

5. Now is a good time to refresh our collective memory as to what was said...

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Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation
Thursday, February 6, 2003 Posted: 8:08 AM EST (1308 GMT)

Part 7: Nuclear weapons

Let me turn now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program.

On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.

To fully appreciate the challenge that we face today, remember that, in 1991, the inspectors searched Iraq's primary nuclear weapons facilities for the first time. And they found nothing to conclude that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.

But based on defector information in May of 1991, Saddam Hussein's lie was exposed. In truth, Saddam Hussein had a massive clandestine nuclear weapons program that covered several different techniques to enrich uranium, including electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge, and gas diffusion. We estimate that this illicit program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars.

Nonetheless, Iraq continued to tell the IAEA that it had no nuclear weapons program. If Saddam had not been stopped, Iraq could have produced a nuclear bomb by 1993, years earlier than most worse-case assessments that had been made before the war.

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript.07/


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Cheney: Saddam working on nuclear weapons
September 10, 2002 Posted: 5:16 AM EDT (0916 GMT)

<snip>
He's been free -- and we know he has -- to continue to improve his chemical weapons capability," Cheney said in the interview, broadcast Monday. "We know he has worked to and has succeeded in improving his biological weapons capability. And we're confident that he has also begun, once again, to try to acquire a nuclear weapon."

The vice president said nuclear technicians are "still in Iraq" and that Saddam is working on what Cheney called "fissile material."
</snip>

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/09/cheney.interview/


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Top Bush officials push case against Saddam
September 8, 2002 Posted: 8:46 PM EDT (0046 GMT)

<snip>

On NBC's "Meet the Press," Vice President Dick Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.

"And what we've seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest ... is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium -- specifically, aluminum tubes," Cheney said, referring to one of the elements for making nuclear weapons.

Citing Bush administration officials, The New York Times reported Sunday that Iraq tried to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes.

The tubes, Rice said, "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs."

Centrifuges are one way to separate weapons-grade uranium from natural uranium.

White House sources also tell CNN that Saddam has in recent months met several times with Iraq's top nuclear scientists and encouraged them to continue their work.

Sources say Iraqi defectors who used to work for Iraq's nuclear weapons "industry" tell administration officials Iraq's top priority is acquiring nuclear arms.

Rice acknowledged that "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but said, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

A senior administration official involved in Iraq policy tells CNN classified briefings to congressional leaders in recent days included evidence of "procurement issues" relating to Iraq's nuclear programs, including the aluminum tubes.

</snip>

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/08/iraq.debate/


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