Non-Existent WMD Now Considered Threat

[ajwps]

Originally posted by freeandfun1
If that is what it takes so be it. But we haven't and I don't think that we will unless we find out that he really is hiding chem/bio weapons there.

Fallujah is in the middle of Saddam's loyaists in the country and it would have been a perfect place to hide WMD programs.

Or unless this city of Fallujah is the head and center of the insurgents who order the attacks and bombing of Coalition forces. What difference if they are hiding biochemical weapons if the destruction of one city can effectively eliminate the majority of attacks before the so-called turn-over on Wednesday, next week.

Then it would make sense to wipe out the source as it is to open a wound and let the infection drain out leaving the body to mop up the remaining bacteria (insurgents).

 

[ajwps]

Originally posted by Kathianne
If you were listening a bit to others, instead of only your own 'self-proclaimed grand thoughts' you may have inferred that I was hypotesizing on one possible reason the Marines didn't rush in there, more dangerous perhaps to the civilians than to our military with gear.

And if you were able to read my post instead of hastily jumping to conclusions you would see that I also simply hypothesized another possible reason for the Coalition forces to have backed out of the city of Fallujah.

 

[Annie]

Might be back on the table. It's fairly long, but looks like one of the US News programs will soon have a key player on:

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentS...y&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373295039&p=1012571727085

Evidence of Niger uranium trade 'years before war'
By Mark Huband
Published: June 27 2004 21:56 | Last Updated: June 27 2004 21:56

When thieves stole a steel watch and two bottles of perfume from Niger's embassy on Via Antonio Baiamonti in Rome at the end of December 2000, they left behind many questions about their intentions.

The identity of the thieves has not been established. But one theory is that they planned to steal headed notepaper and official stamps that would allow the forging of documents for the illicit sale of uranium from Niger's vast mines.

The break-in is one of the murkier elements surrounding the claim - made by the US and UK governments in the lead-up to the Iraq war - that Iraq sought to buy uranium illicitly from Niger.

The British government has said repeatedly it stands by intelligence it gathered and used in its controversial September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes. It still claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

But the US intelligence community, officials and politicians, are publicly sceptical, and the public differences between the two allies on the issue have obscured the evidence that lies behind the UK claim....

....The FT has now learnt that three European intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq.

This intelligence provided clues about plans by Libya and Iran to develop their undeclared nuclear programmes. Niger officials were also discussing sales to North Korea and China of uranium ore or the "yellow cake" refined from it: the raw materials that can be progressively enriched to make nuclear bombs.

The raw intelligence on the negotiations included indications that Libya was investing in Niger's uranium industry to prop it up at a time when demand had fallen, and that sales to Iraq were just a part of the clandestine export plan. These secret exports would allow countries with undeclared nuclear programmes to build up uranium stockpiles.

One nuclear counter-proliferation expert told the FT: "If I am going to make a bomb, I am not going to use the uranium that I have declared. I am going to use what I acquire clandestinely, if I am going to keep the programme hidden."

 

[NightTrain]

Originally posted by Kathianne
One nuclear counter-proliferation expert told the FT: "If I am going to make a bomb, I am not going to use the uranium that I have declared. I am going to use what I acquire clandestinely, if I am going to keep the programme hidden."

That's because any detonated nuclear device can be tracked back to the origin of the uranium. Not that THAT will make anyone at ground zero feel any better.

 

[Annie]

Originally posted by NightTrain
That's because any detonated nuclear device can be tracked back to the origin of the uranium. Not that THAT will make anyone at ground zero feel any better.

Actually any discussion on this topic gives me the creeps. Talking to a friend that worked on nukes a few years back. (shhh, don't tell Jmarie.) He has me very nervous.