[spacefreak]

More bad news for Democrats ...

Intelligence backs claims Iraq had talks on uranium

Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the US-led invasion, according to senior European intelligence officials.

Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq.

These claims support the assertion in the British government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme in September 2002 that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from an African country, confirmed later as Niger. George W. Bush, US president, referred to the issue in his State of the Union address in January 2003.

[PacHead]

Another nail in the coffin for the anti-Bushists. Saddam had every intention of getting nukes/wmds any way he could, and anybody denying this must be mentally deranged. Why are they trying to minimize the intentions of this arab hitler ?

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by PacHead:
Why are they trying to minimize the intentions of this arab hitler ?

It's sort of like CNN and the BBC - whenever they show footage of Bin Laden, it's always a shot of him walking the land looking like a peaceful shepard.

[osiris]

The last line of the article:

"In spite of evidence that the illicit market supplied at least two of the five countries, it is unclear whether talks with Iraq led to exports being made."

No Bingo. If the article stated "it is clear that talks with Iraq led to exports" then you'd win.

[PacHead]

Originally posted by osiris:
The last line of the article:

"In spite of evidence that the illicit market supplied at least two of the five countries, it is unclear whether talks with Iraq led to exports being made."

No Bingo. If the article stated "it is clear that talks with Iraq led to exports" then you'd win.

What's the difference ? He was certainly trying to obtain them, and that's all we need to know. When it comes to the saddam, there is no reason at all to assume he had honorable intentions. When in doubt, don't trust arab hitler wannabes.

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by PacHead:
What's the difference ? He was certainly trying to obtain them, and that's all we need to know. When it comes to the saddam, there is no reason at all to assume he had honorable intentions. When in doubt, don't trust arab hitler wannabes.

LOL

"He was certainly trying to get them"

With so much spin, how come none of you has vertigo????

[osiris]

Originally posted by PacHead:
What's the difference ? He was certainly trying to obtain them, and that's all we need to know. When it comes to the saddam, there is no reason at all to assume he had honorable intentions. When in doubt, don't trust arab hitler wannabes.

The article makes no stated reference to Saddam obtaining Yellowcake.

[Logic]

Do you guys even know what yellowcake is?

[osiris]

Originally posted by Logic:
Do you guys even know what yellowcake is?

[MacGorilla]

Why people make this huge, sweeping generallities only find out out as detail emerge, all is not what it seems.

And I highly doubt an election is going to turn on yellowcake.

[AKcrab]

Sounds like we should have invaded NIGER not Iraq.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by osiris:
No Bingo. If the article stated "it is clear that talks with Iraq led to exports" then you'd win.

Win what? We're in a war, and that's what I want to win. Your reference to me as "you" tells me that you're not in agreement.

The left jumped all over Bush for mentioning British Intelligence's claim of this, saying that Bush lied, or praising Gore's "he betrayed this country" spasm. Now we have European intelligence undeniably confirming this to be true.

Another liberal platitude shot down by the truth.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
It's sort of like CNN and the BBC - whenever they show footage of Bin Laden, it's always a shot of him walking the land looking like a peaceful shepard.

What footage would you like them to show?

(Every time I've seen a reel of Bin Laden footage there has been at least one shot with him holding or firing a weapon of some sort)

[Troll]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
More bad news for Democrats ...

When did the truth become relative to the number of people that make a claim? Your argument here is that two unnamed officials from two intelligence agencies from unnamed countries as well as George Bush think that Iraq sought yellowcake from Niger, therefore it's true. Basically, if three people agree then what they're saying is the truth.

Problem is, the IAEA, UNMOVIC and Joseph Wilson (on instruction from the White House) all say it isn't. Under your logic, two organisations and an individual create the truth, so we have a problem here! Let me ask you this: how many members does the Flat Earth Society have?

[itai195]

Originally posted by Troll:
When did the truth become relative to the number of people that make a claim? Your argument here is that two unnamed officials from two intelligence agencies from unnamed countries as well as George Bush think that Iraq sought yellowcake from Niger, therefore it's true. Basically, if three people agree then what they're saying is the truth.

Problem is, the IAEA, UNMOVIC and Joseph Wilson (on instruction from the White House) all say it isn't. Under your logic, two organisations and an individual create the truth, so we have a problem here! Let me ask you this: how many members does the Flat Earth Society have?

Seriously, does anyone ever learn anything on this forum?

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by Troll:
Problem is, the IAEA, UNMOVIC and Joseph Wilson (on instruction from the White House) all say it isn't. Under your logic, two organisations and an individual create the truth, so we have a problem here!

Really? Please post a link showing that IAEA, UNMOVIC, and Wilson all proved without a doubt these numerous, documented events/incidents to be false and the intelligence not credible.

[xi_hyperon]

Originally posted by osiris:

Man, I could really go for that right now. Not baked. Just the batter right out of the bowl, and a Rubbermaid spatula.

[Troll]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
Really? Please post a link showing that IAEA, UNMOVIC, and Wilson all proved without a doubt these numerous, documented events/incidents to be false and the intelligence not credible.

That's bizarre what you just did! I never said that anyone had proved without a doubt that the yellowcake allegations were false. Nor did you prove without a doubt that they are true. What I said is that the fact that three people say something is true doesn't make it true. Particularly when three other people SAY it isn't true.

A person with a brain and the capacity to think logically listens to both parties, considers their credibility, looks at the evidence and then makes a conclusion. In this case, we have some very credible people saying Iraq never sought yellowcake from Niger. On the other side we have two unnamed sources from unnamed agencies saying they did. I notice I said Bush agreed, but actually that's not true. The US government is on the same side as the IAEA et al.

I don't have time to go and drag all of the evidence out again but the IAEA said publicly a number of times that the documents that the US presented were embarassingly fake. Here's a link:

From the New Yorker
On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said.

One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.”

George Tenet admitted the documents were forged, claimed the 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union Address and started blaming other countries. Condaleeza Rice also admitted the documents were fake. The Italians made all kinds of denials about the intelligence. link Actually that Slate article is a good summary of the evidence.

Wilson famously reported that the allegations were ""bogus and unrealistic." We all know what happened to him for making those allegations!

In light of all of the evidence to the contrary, I don't see why these new revelations would sway the matter. The evidence which suggests that Iraq never sought yellowcake is still overwhelming more reliable than the unnamed sources quoted in the FT.

[mr. natural]

Troll, spacefreak is still squirming with embarrassment that no WMD have been found when he was soooooo absolutely certain they would be -- at least according to some unnamed sources he knew who knew someone else who swore it was all true!

It wouldn't surprise me that he thinks they have been found and we just won't admit it.

In any event, it's kinda like Dick Cheney claiming he knows the real story about Saddam and Osama but we'll just have to trust his word; especially because he won't share his evidence in an open and transparent fashion so it can be factually corroberated.

Yep, this is one hell of an election deciding story.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Troll, spacefreak is still squirming with embarrassment that no WMD have been found when he was soooooo absolutely certain they would be -- at least according to some unnamed sources he knew who knew someone else who swore it was all true!

Embarrassment? What about executing the biggest self imposed smackdown in macnn history with those "reagan in hell" pics. haha

Anyway, Troll is right in this case. Until more credible evidence shows up, I don't see any reason to believe this stuff.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by TheMosco:
Embarrassment? What about executing the biggest self imposed smackdown in macnn history with those "reagan in hell" pics. haha

Hey man, the ABC article mentioned the protestors as "liberals". I hadn't seen the articles about some super-right religious group holding those signs. The protestors were still turds, just not liberal turds.

I'm just posting stuff on a mac-centric message board, so the last thing I ever feel is embarrassed or hurt because I've been "smacked down". Life's too important to worry about that.

As for waiting to see more evidence, this is it. These are the EU intelligence findings confirmed.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by mr. natural:
Troll, spacefreak is still squirming with embarrassment that no WMD have been found when he was soooooo absolutely certain they would be -- at least according to some unnamed sources he knew who knew someone else who swore it was all true!

It wouldn't surprise me that he thinks they have been found and we just won't admit it.

I have an idea. Why don't you completely avoid the topic and smear me personally? Too bad that no matter how you spend your time trying to smear me, it still won't change the fact that Iraq's attempts to obtain Yellowcake from Niger have been absolutely confirmed.

As for the WMD, they're somewhere. Way too much of Iraq's documented stocks are missing. Only a fool would believe that Saddam never had them, or that he decided on his own free will to destroy them without having international representatives witness their destruction, as was required by UNSC resolutions.

I just pray that WMD can be secured with little loss of life.

[angaq0k]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
As for the WMD, they're somewhere. Way too much of Iraq's documented stocks are missing. Only a fool would believe that Saddam never had them,

Nobody said he NEVER had them.

or that he decided on his own free will to destroy them without having international representatives witness their destruction, as was required by UNSC resolutions.

Actually, what was not destroyed by him was destroyed by the UN supported agencies, without counting the bombings the U.S. (and the Brits too IIRC) did from what appears to be an operation of U.S. Intelligence infiltrated with those U.N. supported agencies. Note that pretty much all participating countries with UNMOVIC were suspected to have Intelligence personel involved.

I just pray that WMD can be secured with little loss of life.

Completly agree with you, and hopefully, ALL countries with WMDs will get rid of them one day.

But I do like to dream...

[Atomic Rooster]

Originally posted by PacHead:
Another nail in the coffin for the anti-Bushists. Saddam had every intention of getting nukes/wmds any way he could, and anybody denying this must be mentally deranged. Why are they trying to minimize the intentions of this arab hitler ?

Seek help pachead, you're delusional.

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/ge...amp;ID=Ar00101

[zigzag]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
As for the WMD, they're somewhere.

How do you know? How is it that you have more insight into this than David Kay or Colin Powell or any number of other authorities?

Way too much of Iraq's documented stocks are missing. Only a fool would believe that Saddam never had them, or that he decided on his own free will to destroy them without having international representatives witness their destruction, as was required by UNSC resolutions.

As others have pointed out, no one is arguing that he never had any. Other plausible explanations have been given for any subsequent discrepancies, which, as Troll has pointed out, may have resulted more from over-estimation than direct evidence.

If we're trying to apply commons sense, we might ask: If he had operational WMDs, why wouldn't he or his underlings have used them to defend themselves? You might have an explanation, but I doubt that it's any more plausible than the alternatives. The idea that he hid them, unused, is no more plausible than the idea that he had stopped making them and was bluffing, especially in light of the fact that he didn't defend himself and no one has been able to identify or find any.

Doesn't the fact that nothing has been found, nothing has been used, and no Iraqi scientists or officials have identified any WMDs, count for anything? Why is it so hard to say "Well, it looks like the intelligence was lousy." Even the administration has said so. Why do people persist in defending WMD claims even after the administration itself has disavowed them?

If the Niger story is substantiated, I'll have no trouble saying "They were right on that one." I'd like to see better evidence, but I don't rule it out.

[mr. natural]

Posted by zigzag:
Why do people persist in defending WMD claims even after the administration itself has disavowed them?

This would require a level of humility, self-reflection, and honesty to admit many things -- chief among them the simple decency to say: I was wrong.

Faith in an illusion is a powerful psychological crutch that some folks just can't abide renouncing as it would create a huge schism in their psyche. OJ Simpson comes to mind. It works the same with certain folks here too.

We can, however, pray for their eventual salvation -- sometime, say, after early November.

[dialo]

By the time you read this post you'll likely already know that today's Financial Times makes stunning new claims about alleged sales of uranium from Niger to Iraq.

In brief, the main article in the FT makes two points ...

First, that there is much more information than the forged 'Niger-uranium' documents backing up the claim that Iraq (and other countries) sought to clandestinely purchase 'yellowcake' uranium from Niger.

(I think point two is the real point of the FT story, not point one. But we'll get to that in another post.)

The second assertion requires a touch more explanation.

If you're up on the arcana of the 'Niger-uranium' story you'll remember that they first came to light when a source -- an unnamed Italian businessman and security consultant -- gave copies of them to an Italian journalist named Elisabetta Burba.

(For more on the tick-tock of what Burba did with them and how they eventually got into US hands, see this piece by Sy Hersh from last year in The New Yorker.)

There has been endless speculation about who this mystery man was and who actually did the forging. Was he the forger? And if so, what were his motives? If not, who put them into his hands? And what were their motives?

According to the Financial Times article, that business man is likely himself the forger of the documents and he has a long history of bad acts which, they say, discredit him as a source of information. That last tidbit plays a key part in the FT story because, in their words, the provider of the documents is "understood to be planning to reveal selected aspects of his story to a US television channel."

That's what the FT says.

I hear something different.

In fact, I know something different.

My colleagues and I have reported on this matter extensively, spoken to key players involved in the drama, and put together a detailed picture of what happened. And that picture looks remarkably different from this account which is out today -- specifically on the matter of the origins of those forged documents and who was involved.

I cannot begin to describe how much I would like to say more than that. And at some later point in some later post I will do my best to explain the hows and whys of why I can't. But, for the moment, I can't.

Let me, however, offer a hypothetical that might help make sense of all this.

Let's say that certain individuals or organizations are responsible for some rather unfortunate misdeeds. And let's further postulate that such hypothetical individuals or organizations find out that some folks are on to them, that a story is in the works -- perhaps more than one -- and that it's coming right at them. Those individuals or organizations -- as shorthand, let's call them 'the bad actors' -- might well start trying to fight back, trying to gin up an alternative storyline to exculpate themselves and inculpate others. If that story made its way into the news, at a minimum, it might help the bad actors muddy the waters for when the real story comes out. You can see how such a regrettable turn of events might come to pass.

This is of course only a hypothetical. But I thought it might provide a clarifying context.

So read the FT article. But also keep your ears open. It is, I'm quite confident, not the last word you'll hear on this story.
-- Josh Marshall

From TPM.

If you guys don't want your belief system decimated yet again, you should probably try being a little more objective and cool yourselves down.

Also, from today on the same subject:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._27.php#003111

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
And I highly doubt an election is going to turn on yellowcake.

We aren't seeking the election to turn, we want to keep it where it is.

We just have fun laughing at the Saddam sympathizers.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
As for waiting to see more evidence, this is it. These are the EU intelligence findings confirmed.

You have to put it into perspective space. A lot of these folks believe what Michael Moore says.

Anything that goes against what they believe is false. No matter of the facts.

Just get used to it, and laugh while it happens. It's actually entertaining.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by angaq0k:
Nobody said he NEVER had them.

Oh yes, many people in here have said Saddam never had them. Many.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Oh yes, many people in here have said Saddam never had them. Many.

Care to back that up?

[daimoni]

.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Logic:
Care to back that up?

Do a search.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Do a search.

Didn't think so.

[Zimphire]

You got to be kidding logic. ..

I don't know HOW many times I have had to post that list Clinton gave in here of the WMDs Iraq had because someone claimed Iraq never even had them! That Saddam was making it all up! And we were the fools to believe it!

[daimoni]

.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
You got to be kidding logic. ..

BLA BLA...

So you have nothing?

[Troll]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
You got to be kidding logic.

Undotwa, you want to take this one?

[Zimphire]

I don't know how many people have told me after 1990 Iraq never had one WMD.

You guys HAVE to be kidding!

[daimoni]

.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
I don't know how many people have told me after 1990 Iraq never had one WMD.

You guys HAVE to be kidding!

Well, that is not the same as you claimed first:

Oh yes, many people in here have said Saddam never had them. Many.

But lets say you meant that to begin with, do you care to back it up?

[Zimphire]

Sorry, I should have made myself a little more clearer. I have had people tell me there was never any WMDs ever, but I don't think it was in THIS forum.

But sure Logic.

Even though my search function has been working wanky, I manually found one.

Oh, my loved americans... There was never a threat of WMD in Iraq. They have had some, but they were used in 1990

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by daimoni:

P.S. It's about how yellow cake wasn't found, even though spacefreak, pachead and you popped out of the hole all shouting how this faulty intelligence was somehow fact (even though it was disproved a long time ago).

I believe it's still up in the air. Lots of evidence there.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Sorry, I should have made myself a little more clearer. I have had people tell me there was never any WMDs ever, but I don't think it was in THIS forum.

But sure Logic.

Even though my search function has been working wanky, I manually found one.

link?

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Logic:
link?

What? You think I am making it up? Heh.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...60#post2024433

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
What? You think I am making it up? Heh.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...60#post2024433

Originally posted by Essex63110:
As Don Rumsfeld once said: "Yes, Saddam is a damn bastard, but he is OUR bastard!"
What did the USA expect a cruel dictator to do with WDM? Use them for decoration?! Just a few years ago the US-Government did not care about the people in iraq, killed thousands of innocent children with the blockade and gave WMDs to one of the most dangerous dictators in the middle east, and now you want us to beliefe you just do this to help the iraqi people?! LOL!

Are you sure this was the post? Because he doesn't say what you say he did.

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by Logic:
Are you sure this was the post? Because he doesn't say what you say he did.

I think that the post he's referring to is this one:

Oh, my loved americans... There was never a threat of WMD in Iraq. They have had some, but they were used in 1990 and, we may not forget that, were delivered by the USA. The american government had no problem with Iraq having WMD and use them against the enemy. So don't tell me you are afrait of this country!

Essex said, however, that there was never a threat (to the U.S.A., I assume). He admits easily that they had WMDs. I don't know if he realizes that Iraq had WMDs for a least a while after 1990, even just counting the one's the UN took the time to destroy.

BlackGriffen

[Logic]

Originally posted by BlackGriffen:
I think that the post he's referring to is this one:

Essex said, however, that there was never a threat (to the U.S.A., I assume). He admits easily that they had WMDs. I don't know if he realizes that Iraq had WMDs for a least a while after 1990, even just counting the one's the UN took the time to destroy.

BlackGriffen

Weird, when I click the link now I get the one you posted.

Yup, someone said it. That doesn't surprise me at all. But Zimph said many said that so finding one post doesn't exactly prove his case. But at least he provided something to back up his argument and that is a nice development.

[Zimphire]

Ahhaha nice one Logic! Did you get the part about search not working for me? I am not going to manually find ALL the accounts on this.

This is just one I found MANUALLY.

If I find three more, you'll then say "That doesn't = many"

No matter WHAT I find you'll find a way to spin it.

Fact is, there are a lot of misinformed people that think Iraq didn't have any WMD after the Gulf War. That they used them all!

And that any other evidence that shows otherwise, even Iraq's admittance was a lie.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:

If I find three more, you'll then say "That doesn't = many"

OK, if you find three more I'll give you that many thought they didn't have any post-90. Up for the challenge?