While the report contains no new information per se, it brings to the forefront pertinent facts that, while widely available, were also widely ignored.  But when analyzing military and security matters, we can ill afford to ignore any factual information.
 
Yellowcake is often used as seed material for nuclear weapons, a process that requires the use of centrifuges.  Saddam’s ability to convert the uranium to weapons grade was hindered at the end of the first Gulf War, when Iraq was forced to turn it over for isotopic dilution.  However, the uranium could still have been enriched and not only did Saddam show no sign of abandoning the prospect of doing so, he actually took bold and decisive steps in the other direction.  
 
The extent that Saddam went to was profound.  At the start of the Gulf conflict and beyond, the allied coalition began to monitor Iraq’s importation of centrifuges and laser equipment needed for conversion of yellowcake to weapons grade uranium.  What did Saddam do to bypass the monitors?  He simply poured $8 billion into building calutrons, equipment that was used in the 1940s to build the first a-bombs, as Richard A. Muller explained in detail in MIT’s Technology Review (published Oct. 2002).  To say the least, this does not seem like the action of someone who had abandoned his nuclear ambitions.   
 
Many of today’s Democrats like to tell tales of Bush “lying” (although the idea that a president, any president, would knowingly mislead a nation, at the expense of his reputation and legacy, is ridiculous and offensive to logic).  They also like to chant the story line that “there were no WMD in Iraq” and even that “Saddam posed no threat.”
 
These same people would be well reminded that in Oct. of 2004, Sen. Joe Biden spoke of the fact that Saddam’s Iraq had dangerous quantities of uranium, saying at the time that, “everybody acknowledges there’s over 350 metric tons of this stuff somewhere.”  It also bears mentioning the New York Times report of May 22, 2004, that 500 tons of uranium had been found in Iraq, 1.8 of which had already been converted to low-grade enrichment status.    
 
The same Democrats have criticized President Bush for attacking Iraq, dubbing 18 months of persistent warning to comply with a 12 year old and 12 years broken cease fire treaty a “rush to war.”  In their attempt to move the argument any which way, they also fault the President for “ignoring” the “greater” threats posed by Iran and North Korea and concentrating on Iraq. 
 
The truth is, as President Bush said at the time, if we had not taken action against Iraq to enforce a ceasefire after 12 years of warning, we would have been viewed by other rogue nations as deliverers of empty rhetoric.  Iran and North Korea would have laughed at us and negotiations would have been doomed from the start, as our threat of consequences would have been shown to be obsolete. 
 
Furthermore, an analysis that Iran and North Korea posed more pressing threats than Iraq fails in its entirety to recognize the true nature of the threat that Saddam actually presented.  Iran and North Korea are only interested in build up for a long term confrontation, not in inflicting mere casual damage.  By contrast, Saddam was content with taking small, damaging strikes at the West without even the remote possibility of victory, as evidenced by his planned attack on former President Bush. 
 
Any logical person would have known that an assassination attempt against a former US President would have resulted in severe strikes against Iraq and possibly in Saddam’s ouster.  Yet that didn’t dissuade him from trying.  Unlike Iran and North Korea, Saddam’s Iraq would not wait until it presented a real military challenge.  Saddam would have been happy to launch deadly attacks against us, even if he couldn’t win the larger battle.  For this reason, it made sense to try to negotiate and pressure with the other two nations, while acting quickly against Saddam.
 
Saddam did not need nukes to hurt us and no one disputes that he sponsored individual acts of terrorism in other countries.  His plethora of gas weapons and even lower caliber weapons could have been given to rogue agents.  And while there remains no evidence that Saddam had any conversations with members of al-Qaeda, there is clear and compelling evidence that he spoke with and supported plotters of terror outside of Iraq.
 
SANCTIONS, NOT THE OUSTER OF SADDAM, MOST GREATLY STOKED ANTI-WESTERN SENTIMENT
 
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the war in Iraq was right for humanitarian reasons.  Aside from the fact that Saddam had killed a total of 2 million people, or about 100,000 for every year of his rule, the sanctions imposed by the West against Iraq were truly horrendous.  While they had no affect on Saddam, they did hurt innocent Iraqi people and contributed more to anti-Western sentiment than any other action.
 
Right after 9-11, I had the opportunity to speak with a number of Iranian Muslims who had immigrated to the West.  All of them expressed clear condemnation of the attack on America.  Furthermore, all were highly critical of the Iranian regime for several reasons.  But when it came to Iraq they expressed an equally strong consensus, that while Saddam posed a threat to the entire Middle East, U.N. sanctions were inhumane and affected only civilians, people that Saddam had little care for and who had often been the target of his cruelty.  And these sanctions did nothing to curb his rule. 
 
In the early days of the current Bush administration, there was a fair amount of consideration given to the lifting or easing of sanctions against Iraq, for the very reasons stated above.  That was before 9-11, when the need to prevent rogue leaders with a proclivity for causing small to midsized terror attacks abroad from trying to bring their fantasies to fruition became clear.  Nonetheless, it would have been the right thing to do, as was getting rid of Saddam. 
 
We should be thankful that we have a President who saw the need to oust Saddam... (To read more go to http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3927
Excerpted from: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3927

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Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center
al-Aseel / al-Diyalla Facility

The Iraqi nuclear weapons effort, which was directed from the PC-3 headquarters received raw uranium for processing from mines at Ukashat. Seven facilities were promiment in the calutron enrichment program. Four of these facilities, al-Jesira, al-Atheer and al-Rabbiyah and al-Dijjla at Zafaraniyah, had not been identified by American intelligence as being associated with the nuclear weapons program and consequently escaped any significant damage from coalition airstrikes during the Gulf War. The three other facilities -- Tuwaitha, Tarmiya, and al-Fajar -- were previoiusly identified by American intelligence as being associated with the nuclear weapons program and suffered extensive damage during the War. Baghdad was operating approximately 25 calutron units; 20 at Tarmiya where uranium was enriched to 35%, and 5 at Tuwaitha where enrichment levels of approximately 95% were achieved. Another program for the production of uranium under the Petrochemical-3 project used gas centrifuge enrichment, with two facilities at Al Furat and Rashidiya, and a third under construction at Taji.

As of 2002, the only known store of nuclear material in Iraq is in heavyweight sealed barrels at the Tawaitha research facility south of Baghdad. It consists of several tons of low-grade uranium and is monitored by an international agency with the full co-operation of the Iraqi regime.

Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, located 18 km SSE of Baghdad, was the main site for Iraqi nuclear program. Tuwaitha is the location of the Osiraq reactor bombed by Israel in 1981. The Al Asil General Establishment at Al Tuweitha was the headquarters of the Iraqi Nuclear Commission. Activities included several research reactors, plutonium separation and waste processing, uranium metallurgy, neutron initiator development and work on number of methods of uranium enrichment. The Pure Lead Project at Al Tuweitha was engaged in the development of shielding for the nuclear weapons program.

At a location immediately outside Tuwaitha parts for the enrichment program were reportedly stored. Also outside Tuwaitha is a facility where magnetic coils and insulators were manufactured. Neither of these facilities were bombed during the Gulf War. Facility 416, the storage and warehouse area at Tuwaitha, was not at all damaged during the Gulf War. Facility 405 at Tuwaitha, operated by the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and the basis for the 411 Program ( the al-Tarmiya enrichment facility), was probably totally destroyed. [GulfLINK]

Experiments on enrichment were conducted in the Laboratory Workshop Building (LWB). Operations in this building focused on the enrichment of uranium work included experiments with centrifuge, electromagnetic separator, and laser separation experiments. Also in this building was a group working on chemical processes using acetone. The "hot laboratories" were located in the lama building. [GulfLINK]

All nuclear fuel at this site was removed under IAEA monitoring. Equipment directly tied to the nuclear weapons program was destroyed in place.

In April 1991, Iraq’s inventory of safeguarded highly enriched uranium included 35.58 kilograms of U235 which had been irradiated but could not be readily used in weapons production since the fissile material would have been difficult to extract quickly from the irradiated fuel. This material was held at two storage locations: a fuel pond, which contained the reactor core and fuel storage racks; and an emergency storage where fueld from the Tammuz-2 reactor core and associated pond had been transferred during the Gulf War. This emergency storage, designated "location B", consisted of pits in a farmland area a few miles from the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center. [IAEA April 1992 ]

During the Gulf War the allied forces bombing of Iraqi facilities inflicted a maximum of 20 percent damage on the Iraqi nuclear weapons development program. Most of the damage occurred in two facilities--the headquarters (HQ) of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program, called the Tuwaitha or al-Diyalla facility, located on the southeastern edge of Baghdad, and the al-Safaa uranium enrichment factory located north of Baghdad. Allied forces bombing inflicted a great amount of damage on Tuwaitha; however, most of the facilities destroyed belonged to the Iraqi Nuclear Power Commission or were administrative facilities. The reactor building and a small test reactor, which remained from the time that Osirak was built both were destroyed. One production unit was damaged. This unit processed spent nuclear fuel and contained two hot cells for this purpose. Bombing of this unit caused some nuclear contamination. Because of the contamination, Tuwaitha was closed for two days after the bombing. The nuclear reactor building was damaged. The reactor inside the building was shut down before the gulf war. [GulfLINK]

The Al Tuwaitha nuclear center was extensively equipped with "hot cells" for dealing with radioactive material, although many were severely damaged during bombing. However, concern remained about possible reconstruction and future use of the undamaged cells. Therefore, during the seventh inspection, these cells were rendered harmless by cutting off the manipulator arms and control wires. Associated glove boxes were rendered useless by pouring cement into them. As a long-term measure, epoxy resin was used along with cement to render harmless the mixers-settlers. The seventh and eighth IAEA inspections revealed special equipment essential to the nuclear weaponization programme for warhead development and assembly as distinct from nuclear material production. Two special video cameras ("streak cameras") were removed from Iraq and other equipment was sealed pending decisions on removal, destruction or monitoring. [IAEA April 1992 ]

Following the 1991 Gulf War, the International Atomic Energy Agency removed all known Iraqi stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, in accordance with the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 687. As of 2002 the only positively confirmed nuclear material left in Iraq is 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium and several tons of natural and depleted uranium. The material is in a locked storage site at the Tuwaitha nuclear research facility near Baghdad. Under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, this stock of material is checked once a year by an IAEA team. The most recent check was in January 2002, and none of the material had been tampered with at that time.

A significant event marking the return to normalcy for the Iraqi people occurred 07 October 2003. Authority of a site was transferred back to the people of Iraq. Coalition forces transferred authority of the former Al Thawath Nuclear Research facility to the Iraqi Ministerial Guard. The Ministerial Guard will oversee the security and integrity of the facility. Two formations, one comprised of the Iraqi Ministerial Guard and the other of soldiers from Company B, 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, marched from opposite ends of the ceremony area toward each other and came to a stop five feet before they would have met. Guest speaker, Dr. Rashad Omar, the Iraqi minister of science and technology, said the day was monu-mental. "Today marks the first change-of-command ceremony between Iraqis and the coalition," he said. "This place was a place of much concern and controversy. We will use it for new and better circum-stances." The prior regime used the Al Thawath Nuclear Research Facility as a weapons research and development site. "The Americans did well to give back this facility to the Iraqi people," said Hady Bouhy, one of the 412 guards assigned to the 23,000-acre complex. "It shows great progress."

By June 2004 Iraqi authorities had begun rebuilding facilities at the Tuwaitha research center once used by Saddam Hussein to pursue nuclear-weapons ambitions. The reconstruction under way at Tuwaitha, despite its potential for generating controversy, was no secret. The effort involved cleaning out, repairing, painting, and refurnishing office and laboratory buildings at the site. The intention is to create space to house research and development efforts by Iraq's newly reconstituted Ministry of Science and Technology. Those research efforts will focus on agriculture, water, petrochemical and other projects. The cost of reconstruction was estimated at about 30-million dollars. The Coalition Provisional Authority is not financing the rebuilding.It is being paid for by the Development Fund for Iraq, established by the United Nations. The United States has been a major donor to the fund and it is managed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. While it is unclear whether Iraqi scientists will be able to conduct nuclear research at Tuwaitha again, there has been radioactive contamination at the site and radioactive materials once stored there are missing.

Source: Oct. 8, 2002, DoD Briefing on Iraqi Denial and Deception

 
"Like threads woven into a piece of fabric, we are a nation of extraordinary people. Though slashed and ripped, torn and scorched, every fiber holds fast at some point to another, entwined, enmeshed, single strands, though hanging severed apart, are still attached, attached by a thread to others of a greater whole, not of what was, but of what is."
 
"The living spoke in bittersweet tones, of youth and dreams, of loss and of found. They are the loose ends and they wonder why. No one anywhere knows why. Reason is not there or in the here and now. One of those living threads said as though reciting a creed, "When people are running out of burning buildings, firemen run in..."
 
"As woven but torn single threads who now forever remain, forget not to remember, to remember to look your loved one in his eyes, and tell him, tell him you love him, each and everyday you are alive. Yet forget not, to remember, to remember those fibers now threadbare, those who were torn apart amongst us,  and those torn away who were slain."

 

 Originally Written and Entitled: Survivors and Nation

 

Have not posted much lately here, let alone posted my own opinion or thoughts. I was struck again by what I wrote awhile ago and the compelling memory of it, perhaps it will strike a cord with some bloggers and others will look and read "out of the box" and have some insight into their past childlike sense of awe in realizing the meaning of pictures and words. GC

 

Viewing Photographs of Hell On Earth