Iraqi Yellowcake Goes to Canada

What follows is the text of a video aired by ABC News on Tuesday:

[0:00] ..." The US embassy as well as the multinational forces in Iraq are now confirming that the United States government has assisted the Iraqi Government with the sale and removal of approximately 550 metric tons of yellow cake at the request of the Iraqi Government . It's thought to be the lost major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program yellow cake. It's concentrated natural. Uranium it is not considered to be potent enough alone for a dirty bomb. However it can also be enriched for use in reactors and even at higher levels could possibly be used for nuclear weapons . Those 550 metric tons of yellow cake are now in Canada. Clarissa -- ABC news Baghdad"...

Wow. So is this proof that Saddam actually did have a nuclear weapons development program?

A good many right wingers, including Springfield’s own Larry Little http://simplethoughts-complexmind.blogspot.com, are saying the answer is yes, but it doesn’t take much research to find the truth which is that the UN, the IAEA, and the US government were all well aware of the presence of that yellowcake from 1991 on.

It is notable that even BushCo wasn’t brazen enough to claim it was evidence of an on-going nuclear weapons development program.

By definition, yellowcake is not weapons grade. In order for it to be used for nuclear weapons, it would have to be much more highly refined, and Saddam did not have the centrifuge system necessary to do the job. It even needs further refinement before it could be used to produce nuclear power.

The US government took part in the decision to move the stuff to Canada because that country does not have a nuclear weapons development program and is signatory to the nonproliferation treaty.

So, once again, the radical right are willing to risk the reputation of the more stable right wingers so that they can make their fear-mongering claims that the decision to go to war in Iraq was a valid one.

We need a much more balanced discourse in this country. One that allows the voices of those with level heads on both sides to be heard and that presents fact-based discussion of the pros and cons of various positions. The kind of “Amerika-love-it-or-leave-it” thinking that is espoused by the right wing alarmists is no more valuable than the “America-is-always-wrong” kind of thinking that is put forward by extremists on the left.

Our two political parties are far too divided for reasonable discourse in Congress, but the people on the street ought to be able to do better, and the end result ought to be that elected representatives who are too polarized are tossed out of office and replaced by others more willing to consider the needs of the citizens of America and the people of the world than to march goose-step to the party line drums.

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” – Patrick Henry


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle