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BUSH"S REASONS FOR HIS WAR WITH IRAQ CONTINUE TO CRUMBLE
There are many of us that would love to see George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and a host of others in the Bush Administration held responsible for taking the United States into an un-necessary war, causing the deaths of over 4,000 American troops and the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians while costing the American taxpayers Billions of dollars. Not to mention the loss of American's reputation for fairness and equality around the world.
President Bush has been saying for years that he "did not lie about getting us into the war in the Middle East". However, there was one reason given to the American public for our invasion of Iraq that now has some new information that we all need to hear and understand. The item that I was referring to that was given by President Bush, was stated in what has since become known as the president's famous "sixteen-word sentence in the January 2003 US State of the Union Address". This is the sentence that stated that an attempt was made by the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq to purchase "yellowcake" uranium ore for nuclear weapons development from the country of Niger.
History:
The documents that originally brought this issue to the administration's attention are today referred to as the "Niger Uranium Forgeries", which have been confirmed as falsified classified documents initially discovered and revealed by the Italian state intelligence agency.
On the basis of these documents (and other equally false statements), the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq had attempted to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating, "weapons of mass destruction(WMD's)", in defiance of the United Nations Iraq Sanctions.
President George W. Bush cited this statement in the January 2003, State of the Union Address, even though the head of the American CIA had advised that they were not able to verify that the information was correct. The International Atomic Energy Agency later determined the documents were forged and the U.S. government finally declassified a 2002 Central Intelligence Agency Report that also caste doubt on the documents' veracity. Today, President Bush continues to be broadly criticized for his decision to include the 16 word sentence in the state of the union address.
U.S. intelligence officials had received the initial documents on October 7, 2002, the same day President Bush had launched a new hard-line public relations campaign targeted to increase public support for a American attack on Iraq. The president kicked off the campaign with a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, in which he referenced Saddam Hussein's "apparent" growing and "dangerous to America" nuclear weapons capabilities.
You may recall that, a former US Ambassador, Joe Wilson, had been previously sent to Niger by the White House to check out these assertion. Upon returning to Washington DC, the Ambassador had written his report for the administration stating that he had found "no evidence in Niger to support any assertions that Iraq had tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger". After hearing the president's State of the Union address, Wilson was so distressed that he wrote a column for the New York Times (NYT) stating his case regarding not finding any evidence in Niger. Understandably, due to its sensitive timing, Wilson's NYT column seriously opened Pandora's Box within the Bush Administration.
The Attach on the Wilson Family:
Most Americans are aware today that shortly after Ambassador Wilson's NYT column was published, Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, (then a CIA officer), her undercover identity was illegally leaked to the press by the White House. The leak was made from Vice President Cheney's office to Washington political columnist, Robert Novak (and other journalists), to retaliate against her husband's article in the New York Times. A federal investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity eventually 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.
Unfortunately for Ms. Plame, a federal judge recently dismissed the lawsuit filed by the former CIA officer and her husband. The suite against Vice President Cheney and other top officials of the Bush Administration was for their disclosure of Plame's name and covert status to the media.
The U.S. District Judge had said that Cheney and the others could not be held liable for the disclosures in the summer of 2003. Even though the disclosures were in the midst of a White House effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war by Plame's husband, the judge said that such efforts were a natural part of the officials' job duties, and, thus, they were immune from liability. In other words, "Even though they were guilty of wrong-doing, they were immune from being tried and found guilty."
And now, what's the big new News today?:
Last month, some previously secret UN and US activities in Iraq were declassified. These activities confirmed the fact that the documents regarding Iraq's attempted purchase of uranium from Niger were not only false, they also confirmed why Saddam Hussein had no reason for attempting to acquire "Yellowcake Uranium" from Niger, or any other country.
The following are excerpts from a recent story by the Associated Press that you will obviously not be hearing any comments about from President Bush or any of his Administration. It proves beyond a doubt that the administration was using whatever means they could find, regardless of its validity, that would allow the President to go to war with Saddam and Iraq.
Per the Associated Press article:
Sat., July. 5, 2008
"The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's original nuclear program — a huge stockpile of concentrated natural "yellowcake" uranium was recently removed from Iraq". This "yellowcake" was left over from many years after Israeli warplanes had bombed an Iraqi reactor project site in Iraq in 1981. Some time later, UN Inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had previously been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. "There was no evidence of any additional yellowcake dating after 1991", a UN official said.
The Iraqi government has recently sold the aging yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the UN Official described as being 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 nuclear 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.
Secret mission
The deal for the yellowcake was finally completed after more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives. It was kept quiet 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 US Military Base on the small, Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia, and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal, Canada.
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
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 US and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing into Iran. What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at Iraq's former Tuwaitha Nuclear Complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad. The clean-up will use teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in the Ukraine.
"Everyone is very happy to have this [yellowcake] 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.
The yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb", a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material. However, it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in nuclear reactors and, nuclear weapons, by using sophisticated equipment.
US and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site where the yellowcake was stored. The site was surrounded by huge sand berms, following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall, that included villagers toting away the old yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.
When the US troops arrived on site, the U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers, some leaking or weakened by years of corrosion, and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels. Last April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad International Airport, in preparation for the 37 flights to Diego Garcia.
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.
Saddam's last stockpile
The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's 1970-80's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup are ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites. The UN 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" that were 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 just one of the hundreds of troubling footnotes of the Iraq war that Washington DC officials will be dealing with for years to come.
AP 05/05/08
Author's Note:
And once again, we get the news about this and other areas where President Bush and his administration have blatently lied to the American citizenship. Over time, I'm sure that even more examples of major "untruths" will continue to become known to America and the world.
Hopefully, no matter how long it takes, Bush and Company will be forced to take responsibility for what they have done in this, possibly the largest national disaster ever in the history of America. Unfortunately, one can only hope for this outcome, as American's have historically been proven to have very short memories.
For those that have given their lives for such a costly and unnecessary war and occupation, this should never, ever be forgotten.
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