I thought Iraq had no nuclear program?

[Nie Trink Wasser]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.nuclear/index.html

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Equipment and materials that could be used to make nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq, the chief of the U.N.'s atomic watchdog agency has warned.

Satellite imagery shows entire buildings that once housed high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear bombs have been dismantled, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a letter to the Security Council.

In the letter, IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei said that though some radioactive equipment taken from Iraq after the war began has shown up in other countries, none of the high-quality, dual-use equipment or materials that is missing has been found.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Satellite imagery shows entire buildings that once housed high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear bombs have been dismantled, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a letter to the Security Council.

Hmm, Saddam dismantled his nuke programme. No wonder we had to get rid of him...

 

[Megalodon]

For once you got a nice thread started... However, you failed to post the juicy stuff:

Anti-proliferation agreements say that the United States, which administered Iraq until June 2004, and the Iraqi interim government, which took over from the United States in June, must inform the IAEA of any import or export of such materials and equipment.

But since March 2003 "the agency has received no such notifications or declarations from any state," ElBaradei said.

and

Demetri Perricos, head of the commission, known as UNMOVIC, said Iraqi authorities for over a year have been shipping thousands of tons of scrap metal, including at least 42 engines from banned missiles and other equipment that could be used to produce banned weapons

and

But a CIA report released last week by chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded that Hussein terminated his nuclear program after the first Gulf War in 1991.

So apparentely, the "good guys" are selling nuclear material to third parties. The same nuclear material that was contained, sealed and supervised in Iraq by the IAEA until the invasion.

That was a good job in keeping the dangerous stuff out of the wrong hands...

 

[Nitpick]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3063443a12,00.html

The equipment - including high-precision milling and turning machines and electron-beam welders - and materials - such as high-strength aluminium - were tagged by the IAEA years ago, as part of the watchdog agency's shutdown of Iraq's nuclear programme following the first Gulf War.

UN inspectors then monitored the sites - due to their "proliferation significance" - until their evacuation from Iraq just before the 2003 war.

The IAEA said neither Baghdad nor Washington appeared to have noticed the disappearance of the equipment and materials.

(Emphasis mine)

 

[Crossbow]

Does NTW ever read the stuff he posts?

 

[Dorian Gray]

Once again, programs are not weapons, intent is not a weapon, desire is not a weapon. It's not the same as when the US sold Iraq botulism toxin - they had a fully functioning weapons manufacturing operation then.

 

[epepke]

Once again, programs are not weapons, intent is not a weapon, desire is not a weapon. It's not the same as when the US sold Iraq botulism toxin - they had a fully functioning weapons manufacturing operation then.

An American company sold Iraq killed Clostridium botulinum. No toxins. No viable cultures.

I thought it was pretty ridiculous that the pre-war embargo included oscilloscopes, on the grounds that somebody could use an oscilloscope as a tool to develop a nuclear bomb. Of course, the main use of oscilloscopes back then was to fix television sets. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea, because otherwise, people would be clamoring that the US gave Saddam Hussein Nuclear Bomb-Making Tools!

 

[Mr Manifesto]

An American company sold Iraq killed Clostridium botulinum. No toxins. No viable cultures.

Bullsh!t

The West should also reflect on its contribution to the making of Saddam, and the way in which the shifting sands of Middle Eastern politics led to the West, overtly or covertly, aiding the Iraqi war effort in the 1980s. The West provided Saddam with the means to develop chemical weapons and did not move to stop the flow in the aftermath of the gassing of Kurds at Halabja. The United States, for example, licensed the export of various key materials: bacillus anthracis, clostridium botulinum, histoplasma capsulatam, clotridium perfingens, clostridium tetani, and so forth. As a Senate inquiry discovered, "these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and removed from the Iraqi biological warfare program."(63) For example, Iraq used a strain of clostridium botulinum from the United States to produce nearly 20,000 litres of the solution, 12,000 liters of which were used either in field testing or to fill warheads.(64)

(emphasis mine- end notes in article in link)

Isn't it amazing how the people for the war in Iraq (including the Bush, Blair and Howard administrations) never bother to check their facts?

 

[BPSCG]

(emphasis mine- end notes in article in link)

Isn't it amazing how the people for the war in Iraq (including the Bush, Blair and Howard administrations) never bother to check their facts?

What? You mean Saddam had biological weapons?

But Bush lied!!! about Saddam...

 

[Ed]

Once again, programs are not weapons, intent is not a weapon, desire is not a weapon. It's not the same as when the US sold Iraq botulism toxin - they had a fully functioning weapons manufacturing operation then.

If you own the pieces of a restricted firearm you own the restricted firearm. Your "intent" is not relevent.

 

[Dorian Gray]

What? You mean Saddam had biological weapons?

But Bush lied!!! about Saddam...

Are you really this stupid? This is like arguing that you are still 9, because you were once 9. In other words, tempus fugit. We sold Iraq the stuff in the '80s. The weapons had been used or destroyed by 1992.

If you own the pieces of a restricted firearm you own the restricted firearm. Your "intent" is not relevent.

Wrong. Example: Assault weapons were restricted if they had certain accessories. They were not if they didn't have the accessories. An accessoryless assault weapon is arguably a 'piece' of a restricted firearm. Yet it wasn't restricted.

This line of reasoning is indicative of a mindles sheep who is told what to think - a conservative. A Hannitized dittohead. Gratz.

 

[Ed]

Are you really this stupid? This is like arguing that you are still 9, because you were once 9. In other words, tempus fugit. We sold Iraq the stuff in the '80s. The weapons had been used or destroyed by 1992.

Wrong. Example: Assault weapons were restricted if they had certain accessories. They were not if they didn't have the accessories. An accessoryless assault weapon is arguably a 'piece' of a restricted firearm. Yet it wasn't restricted.

This line of reasoning is indicative of a mindles sheep who is told what to think - a conservative. A Hannitized dittohead. Gratz.

Your knowledge of firearms issues appears to extend no further than the latest issue dejeur conjured up by the press. I am talking about a completely different issue.

The fact is that a part or two can, if used to replace a non-full auto part (like the sear), convert a perfectly legal firearm like the AR15 into a full auto weapon. These parts were made illeagel some time ago but the presence of the potentially convertable firearm and the part(s) in the same place are, legally, a restricted firearm regardless of intent.

You really gotta read up on this stuff.

 

[c0rbin]

One thing is indesputable.

Saddam no longer has any weapons program of any kind.