US weapons hunters ignored aluminum tubes: report

[underpants]

59 minutes ago

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/us_iraq_weapons

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US experts hunting for elusive weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites) have ignored depots containing much-publicized aluminum tubes that the administration of President George W. Bush (news - web sites) used to illustrate alleged Iraqi nuclear ambitions.

That equipment was central to the Bush administration's charge that President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had resumed long-dormant efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

But combat units were not alone in passing the stockpiles by. Participants in the subsequent hunt for illegal arms said months elapsed without a visit to that and many other sites of activity that President Bush had called "a grave and gathering danger," The Post said.

Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group overseen by David Kay are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use, according to the paper.


Most notably, investigators have judged the aluminum tubes to be "innocuous," according to Australian Brigadier General Stephen Meekin, who commands the Joint Captured Enemy Materiel Exploitation Center.

[maggrwaggr]

1. that story needs to be rated. Currently at a 2.91

go get 'em

[arcane1]

5. hell yes! Bump it up!

you know the freaks are going to rate this low, since they only cared about aluminum tubes BEFORE the war...

[0007]

7. It's up to 3.7 now -

It ain't going away.

[Spazito]

2. It seems that everything Powell, Bush and Blair touted as being....

WMDs, etc have turned out to be innocuous. I remember that the first priority was to protect the Ministry of Oil and that remains their priority.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Isn't this pathetic?

(snip) Citing records made available to The Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, the paper said it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration's prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue.


Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either, the report said. (snip/)

[underpants]

4. Yes EVERYONE knows the claims were baseless

Kay isn't even going to look at them but then maybe they already (we do) know what the answer will be so basically they don't want to ask the quesiton.

I think Dana Milbank of the NYT did a week in the doghouse (not allowed access to White House) after he exposed the entire Cincinnati spech in October 2002 as bogus THE NEXT DAY!

[number six]

6. Remember The Supergun?

Back in 1991, everyone was going crazy over Saddam's monster artillery piece that was going to be assembled from pipes in the desert and would be able to launch warheads at Israel. Maybe all Saddam really wanted was to be a good Bond villan.

[underpants]

8. Do you mean the one from "Moonraker"?

or the one Dr.Evil was building?

How could I have forgotten the Supergun?!?!? Oh yeah I was in the ARmy and got almost no information leading up to that war.

[number six]

10. Yeah...Saddam's supergun

was designed by this mad Canadian guy (who was later assassinated, btw) it was 512 ft long and could launch a projectile 1000km, or into orbit. 512 ft long! How the hell do you hide that from Special Forces and aircraft? Saddam was well up in the crazy league for sure!

[underpants]

12. Anwer:

You can't.

Assassinated huh?

[number six]

14. Gerald Bull - Assassinated March 1991 in Brussels

By - ha! Persons Unknown.

[number six]

15. Sorry - March 1990 - it's all here (inc links) - the whole mad story

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/other/supergun.htm

[FlashHarry]

13. I've seen a section of it at the Imperial War Museum.

Not the London one, the one at Duxford or something––it was an old RAF base. Anyway, the thing was HUGE!

[Flaming Meaux]

9. Even the Discovery channel said it would blow up...

...the first time it was fired. Saw pictures of it, but it was a pipe dream. Get it? Pipe dream?

[underpants]

11. but but it was a SUPER gun

You don't just go around giving names like that to things that won't work do ya? Like "Star Wars" I mean we all saw the movies we know it will work....

WElcome to DU :hi: you seem to have caught me on a lucid day. Oh but for tomorrow.

[rocktivity]

16. A coincidence, I'm sure

that this stuff is breaking at the same time the CIA and the mainstream press have started gunning for you, eh, Georgie!


rocknation

[underpants]

17. It's may be a very looooooong cold winter in DC

:scared:

Surely a coincidence that everyone he has completely insulted over the last almost three years smell weakness or at least the inability to manage/spin more than one thing at a time and are after him.

[Eureka]

18. Hardly surprising

If the information carried on the Australian public broadcaster (ABC) last night is correct. This program examined the aluminium tube issue with various intelligence agents and members of the state dept and the conclusion was, basically, that it was clearly evident that these tubes could not have been used for nukUlar purposes anyway. And, this was clear well before it was used as an excuse to give the Iraqis a good flogging, before Condi's "mushroom cloud" warning.

If you're interested, the information and full transcript can be found at http://abc.net.au/4corners/content/2003/20031027_spinning_the_tubes/default.htm

[underpants]

19. Thanks and welcome to DU

:hi:

[SOS]

20. 60 Minutes

did a good piece recently completely debunking the aluminum tubes story. Not ONE expert at the National Labratory felt that the tubes in question could be used in any nuke-u-lar program.
It was 100% false and everyone, including Powell, knew it.
Most of Powells UN presentation was fabricated falsehood, but apparently a faked casus belli is not bothersome to anyone.