Wingnut Hysteria II

I put this at the end of the “Wingnut Hysteria” post below, but I think I’ll give it its own post so it doesn’t get lost.

One of the running themes of the various Idiots I called out in “Wingnut Hysteria” is that the Tuwaitha yellowcake proves that Joe Wilson lied. For example, Patterico says I am missing the point of the significance of the Tuwaitha yellowcake.

The debate isn’t about if Saddam was on the verge of obtaining nukes or not. Rather, it is about the fact that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame are liars – something that most of the press refuses to acknowledge. Notably, Mahablog doesn’t mention the Joe Wilson controversy at all.

Please. The yellowcake in Tuwaitha is completely unrelated to Joe Wilson. The Tuwaitha yellowcake had been sitting in those drums, with the IAEA seals, at least since the end of the Gulf War. The IAEA had exhaustively inventoried it and monitored it from 1991 until inspections stopped in 1998, and when they went back in 2003 they found nothing whatsoever had changed — nothing had been added, nothing had been taken away. The same barrels were still there, with the same seals.

Documentation for the IAEA inspections is in my old Tuwaitha posts, and you can also find some of the same documentation on this Iraq Nuclear Verification Office page, which provides summaries of inspections from 1991 to 1998

Wilson’s trip to Niger in 2002 was to investigate an alleged sale of uranium in the late 1990s. The alleged Niger uranium had nothing whatsoever to do with the Tuwaitha uranium.

In fact, one of my arguments all along about the 16 words and the alleged Niger yellowcake was that it made no sense for Saddam Hussein to purchase more yellowcake when he was already sitting on a huge pile of yellowcake that he didn’t have the technology to enrich.

16 thoughts on “Wingnut Hysteria II

  1. Yea I don’t think these guys get it. The embarrassing knee-jerk reaction, complicated by obvious reading comprehension problems, was to declare Bush vindicated and Joe Wilson a crow-eater. I read the article, and it appeared to signify the opposite.

    The fact that those barrels of yellowcake were still sitting there wasting away in their original tupperware would tell one that Saddam hadn’t been pursuing any nuclear program since at least the point when the drums were sealed. They were untouched. i.e., the inspections and sanctions had worked in that regard, and the invasion wasn’t necessary.

    And of course you’re right, the Wilson thing is a different issue altogether. What Wilson was looking for was evidence that Saddam was shopping for more yellowcake, which if found, would signify that Saddam indeed was trying to reconstitute his program. And all we have from that fiasco is forged documents, an indicted administration underling, and well, no additional yellowcake. So, no crow eating for Joe Wilson.

    But it is fun to watch!

  2. I think a better title should be “Moonbat Denial”.

    The Tuwaitha yellowcake had been sitting in those drums, with the IAEA seals, at least since the end of the Gulf War. The IAEA had exhaustively inventoried it and monitored it from 1991 until inspections stopped in 1998, and when they went back in 2003 they found nothing whatsoever had changed — nothing had been added, nothing had been taken away. The same barrels were still there, with the same seals.

    I read that IAEA report linked in this post, plus the one linked in the other post. It states that, “The IAEA had removed all known weapon-grade nuclear material, i.e. highly enriched uranium and plutonium. Additionally, it had taken custody of all known remaining uranium compounds;“. Leaving barrels of yellowcake in Iraq does not seem like the IAEA took custody of it at all. It seems that the Hussein government kept custody of this material for Saddam’s own purposes. I would imagine he could get the IAEA barrels and stickers and whatnot by bribing the right people (Hans Blix, Kofi Annan, Mohammed El-Baradei, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder). After all, this is how he handled Oil-for-Food.

  3. SteveIL — “Custody” does not mean the IAEA physically removed all the yellowcake and kept it in their own closets. It means they had inventoried and sealed it and kept it under inspection and surveillance, except for the years between 1998 and the end of 2002. But when they re-inspected in 2002 and 2003, nothing had changed from 1998. Nothing had changed from 1991, in fact.

    More facts:

    1. The Tuwaitha yellowcake had nothing to do with Joe Wilson.

    2. Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons development program whatsoever at the time of the Iraq invasion. Even if he had broken the seals, he didn’t have the means to process and enrich the yellowcake and turn it into something dangerous.

    3. Hans Blix and Homammed El-Baradei were right; the Bush administration was wrong.

    (Scorn and derision, anyone? It’s time for my walk.)

  4. “Custody” does not mean the IAEA physically removed all the yellowcake and kept it in their own closets.

    Every definition of the word “custody” that I’ve ever seen means someone has control of someone or something. Leaving yellowcake uranium in the hands of a government who wasn’t supposed to have it, having that government then guard it, “leaving the fox to guard the henhouse”, doesn’t match the definition of the word “custody” in anybody’s book. Except to a moonbat in denial.

    As far as the rest of your rebuttal:

    1. I didn’t mention Joe Wilson.

    2. Saddam Hussein didn’t have to produce nuclear weapons. He could keep the yellowcake under wraps until sanctions were lifted and sell it to someone who could (eg., North Korea).

    3. Hans Blix is a fool and El-Baradei is a tool. And I wouldn’t put it past either of them, along with the others I mentioned, that they would have accepted bribes to provide Saddam Hussein cover. Why else would there be 550 tons (not pounds; tons) of yellowcake in Iraq, under the care of Saddam Hussein, for 12 years, assuming these barrels were supposedly sealed by the IAEA in 1991?

  5. Reasoning like the following first off makes me crazy and secondly tells me that the author’s entire ‘argument’ is eye-wash. “…Israel previously bombed a nuclear reactor in Iraq which would indicate that Saddam had a desire for such (nuclear) weapons.”

    Want proof that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons? Here it is. Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor. Light-bulb-on!!! All we have to do to prove that some country wants nuclear weapons is to have Israel bomb one of its nuclear reactors. Who needs the IAEA, for christ sake?

    Am I missing something?

  6. “I would imagine he could get the IAEA barrels and stickers and whatnot by bribing the right people (Hans Blix, Kofi Annan, Mohammed El-Baradei, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder).”

    Yeah, all these guys, all of whom had reasonably successful careers of their own, could be bribed without any of them whistleblowing. Look, someone who believes that stuff shouldn’t accuse anyone of denial.

  7. Every definition of the word “custody” that I’ve ever seen means someone has control of someone or something.

    The IAEA had taken control. Deal with it.

    I didn’t mention Joe Wilson.

    My post did, though.

    Saddam Hussein didn’t have to produce nuclear weapons. He could keep the yellowcake under wraps until sanctions were lifted and sell it to someone who could (eg., North Korea).

    Yellowcake requires several months, if not a couple of years, of high-tech processing before it becomes weapons grade and truly dangerous. As long as it was being monitored and sealed it was a concern, but not a big bleeping deal.

    Anyway, North Korea has plutonium. They laugh at yellowcake uranium.

    Hans Blix is a fool and El-Baradei is a tool.

    Yet they are still right about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs, and the Bush Administration is still wrong. Calling them names doesn’t change that.

    Good bye.

  8. The yellowcake bears the same relationship to nuclear bombs that fertilizer does to the Oklahoma City bomb, with the note that the processing of yellowcake is much more difficult. What does this mean about fertilizer dealers?

  9. …this seems to be pretty instructive as to where Patterico wants to go with this:
    Once again, for the bazillionth time, the argument was never that nuclear Iraq was imminent. It was that it was eventually inevitable unless Saddam was removed from power. Perhaps it wouldn’t come to be until years into the future, but it would eventually come.
    It’s all about reframing the context of the debate about going to war with Iraq to reduce or deflect the culpability of the hysterical proponents. In the famous Cincinnati speech, Gee Dub introduced the “reconstituted nuclear capabilities” meme and made it clear that merely the acquisition of suitable nuclear material would make the threat “imminent”. In his equally famous Meet The Press appearance, Gunner Cheney made a point of reinforcing the impression that Saddam’s acquisition of nuclear weapons through his reconstituted development program was very likely “imminent”…

    …so here we are, faced with the specter of apples and oranges being blended together in an effort to make a strawberry daiquiri. Iraqi nuclear weapons were a pressing threat, but not an imminent one – even though both the president and vice president worked very hard to leave that very impression, and the only important issue after all was that Joe Wilson lied about something he wasn’t actually even talking about in any case…

  10. Once again, for the bazillionth time, the argument was never that nuclear Iraq was imminent. It was that it was eventually inevitable unless Saddam was removed from power. Perhaps it wouldn’t come to be until years into the future, but it would eventually come.

    Good lord, what part of that statement isn’t false? The punctuation marks, perhaps.

    To add to Jack K’s debunking of this nonsense, various members of the administration’s cabal repeatly stated in the months prior to the Iraq invasion that Saddam could attack us with WMDs at any time. There was no clarification that these WMDs would still be in the form of crusty yellow crud and empty aluminum tubes. There was no use or even insinuation of the concepts “eventual” or “years into the future.” Specifically, there was mention of attacks coming within “forty-five minutes,” which I suppose could seem like years to someone with the intellect and moral development of a fruit fly.

  11. People like SteveIL have no understanding of the United Nations and treaty organizations, they have no clue how international treaties work, they have no use for the Rule of Law.

    That Hussein did NOT break the IAEA seals means nothing to them.

    That Uranium in ‘yellowcake’ form was beyond the abilities of Iraq to do anything with means nothing to them.

    Reality, truth, evidence, law, all unimportant to lost souls like SteveIL.

  12. I did not write any of the recent posts about yellowcake. They were written by my guest blogger Justin Levine. Each begins: “[posted by Justin Levine].”

    Please change the references to me in your posts to Justin Levine.

  13. To add to the whole “not imminent” thing … do they realize that if this were true, they’d be outright accusing the Bush admin of war crimes? The ONLY justified, justifiable FIRST use of force is in cases of IMMINENT danger. Anything else, by international law, international law that we, the US, helped write back when there was still some sense of decency in the government of this country, is illegal.

    That was the whole flipping point of th WMD dodge in the first place …

    Maha … apologies for not heaping scorn and derision, no time yesterday 🙁

    -me

  14. Well, you corrected one of your posts. Sort of. It’s “Justin” and not “Justine.” (A lot of people make that mistake.) But you’re still claiming in this one that I wrote one of the posts.

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