Thread: Iraq News

Well, at least Saddam is gone, eh?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Well, at least Saddam is gone, eh?

And the Russian and Chinese oil contracts with him.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Well, at least Saddam is gone, eh?

At least violence is down, and life returning to some semblance of normality in most places. To me, Saddam swinging was a non event after everything that transpired.

Lets hope these western oil contracts act as some sort of war reperation.

Originally Posted by sabang

The US supplied the chemical weapons used on the Kurds, and even aerial surveillance photoes of the Kurdish areas. It was all part of a big arms deal with our then buddy Saddam, and the chief US government representative/ salesman was one Donald Rumsfeld.

So these johny come lately attempts to justify invading Iraq on humanitarian grounds cut no ice with me. If we are so 'humanitarian' why then was no attempt made to help the Marsh Arabs, or the Shiites, also slaughtered by Saddam after the first Gulf War for rebellion- a rebellion encouraged by the USA? The history of this whole thing is not yet old enough to 'rewrite' unless you are dealing with utterly uninformed people.

Are you still sure about that?

The US did land troops in northern Iraq when Saddam drove the Kurds out of their villages and into the mountains during the snows of winter. Remember?


Panda- Why did the US wait? Because in the first Gulf War the UN mandate did not allow for the coalition troops to continue on into Iraq to dispose of Saddam. Bush 41 was following the mandate.

I think some people believe that even if things are stable now and

its economy is booming - and its military has driven the concentrations of terrorists and militia from every one of Iraq's major cities.

the terrorists and militia aren't camped up somewhere re-arming and training and waiting for the day the U.S. leaves.
It'd be a good strategy.

By Brian Murphy
Associated Press
July 6, 2008

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" - the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment - was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad - using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material - it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives - kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger - and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims - led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site - surrounded by huge sand berms - following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.
But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers - some leaking or weakened by corrosion - and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.
Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official.

Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.
Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_YELLOWCAKE_MISSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPL ATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-07-06-04-45-49

***

Nicely done!

Originally Posted by Texpat

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site - surrounded by huge sand berms - following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Should be no trouble tracking down the looters. Doubt there will be a need for night vision goggles.

Originally Posted by cujo

I think some people believe that even if things are stable now and

its economy is booming - and its military has driven the concentrations of terrorists and militia from every one of Iraq's major cities.

the terrorists and militia aren't camped up somewhere re-arming and training and waiting for the day the U.S. leaves.
It'd be a good strategy.

Heh...think Korea, Germany, Bosnia etc...

By Marie Colvin
Times Online
July 6, 2008

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.

A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.

The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.

Last Friday I joined the 2nd Iraqi Division as it supported local police in a house-to-house search for one such bomb after intelligence pointed to a large explosion today.

Even in the district of Zanjali, previously a hotbed of the insurgency, it was possible to accompany an Iraqi colonel on foot through streets of breeze-block houses studded with bullet holes. Hundreds of houses were searched without resistance but no bomb was found, only 60kg of explosives.

American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south.

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism.

“They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.”
The number of foreign fighters coming over the border from Syria to bolster Al-Qaeda’s numbers is thought to have declined to as few as 20 a month, compared with 120 a month at its peak.

Brigadier General Abdullah Abdul, a senior Iraqi commander, said: “We’ve limited their movements with check-points. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they’re mostly not succeeding.”

Major General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: “I think we’re at the irreversible point.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4276486.ece

***

Happy to see things improving. Maliki is too quick to cite successes though.

Interesting!

Originally Posted by Texpat

By Brian Murphy
Associated Press
July 6, 2008

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program - a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium - reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" - the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment - was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex about 12 miles south of Baghdad - using teams that include Iraqi experts recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb" - a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material - it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer, Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military initiatives - kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad, then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the African nation of Niger - and an article by a former U.S. ambassador refuting the claims - led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site - surrounded by huge sand berms - following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as damage to internal organs, experts say.

"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route, however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.
But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the Saddam-era containers - some leaking or weakened by corrosion - and reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.
Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official.

Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other smaller sites.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical expertise.
Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive "hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver, predicted the cleanup could take "many years."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ_YELLOWCAKE_MISSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPL ATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-07-06-04-45-49

***

Nicely done!

Originally Posted by Milkman

Originally Posted by attaboy

Originally Posted by sabang

The US supplied the chemical weapons used on the Kurds, and even aerial surveillance photoes of the Kurdish areas. It was all part of a big arms deal with our then buddy Saddam, and the chief US government representative/ salesman was one Donald Rumsfeld.

Attaboy:

Are you still sure about that?

It's true that the US did supply Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons when he was at war with Iran. Therefore, some of the weapons, or parts of these weapons could have been used against the Kurds.

Attaboy:

The US did land troops in northern Iraq when Saddam drove the Kurds out of their villages and into the mountains during the snows of winter. Remember?

Irrelevant.

So, the Americans are playing both sides with arms deals again, like they always have.

Does this make it right?

Not in my opinion.

I don't think so. It's desert pragmatism; switching sides as it suits them. You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.



The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.
Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a weapon, according to the official.

Hardly a smoking gun to justify a war.

Believe what you want to satisfy your bias. The liberation was about regime change.

The liberation was about regime change

According the propaganda "liberation" and "regime change" followed Iraq being involved in 9/11 and WMD, respectively, actually.

Spouting BS again Ant. You know not of which you speak.

Regime change talks were in full swing in 1999. Nine-eleven was in 2001 and had little/nothing to do with Iraq.

Don't be so easily confused by your criticism of choice.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Spouting BS again Ant. You know not of which you speak.

Well, your opinion notwithstanding, I do actually know what I'm speaking about thanks.

Regime change talks were in full swing in 1999. Nine-eleven was in 2001 and had little/nothing to do with Iraq.

Actually you're right; 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq.

Which actually makes the lies from the Bush administration linking 9/11 to Iraq all the more reprehensible.

Don't be so easily confused by your criticism of choice.

And don't believe everything your Govt tells you as a matter of course, Tex. They've really a rather poor track record in this regard.

I base my beliefs on personal experience, not what someone has told me or propaganda I've read, or history revisionists "forgetting" everything that lead up to 2003.

You wish to believe the crux of the liberation effort was WMD -- of which no evidence was found -- justifying your disagreement with and criticism of the military action. Very convenient, tidy and warm. I'm sure I'll not change your mind and you'll not change mine.

I know regime change was the primary motivation.

I base my beliefs on personal experience, not what someone has told me or propaganda I've read, or history revisionists "forgetting" everything that lead up to 2003.

In point of fact I'm not forgetting anything. I recall with absoulte clarity that a number of rationales for the invasion of Iraq were trotted out. They changed as each premise was proven to be untrue. I find it rather ironic that your so-called personal experiences seem to preclude you from accepting certain - highly relevant - facts.

You wish to believe the crux of the liberation effort was WMD -- of which no evidence was found -- justifying your disagreement with and criticism of the military action. Very convenient, tidy and warm. I'm sure I'll not change your mind and you'll not change mine.

Sorry? I've stated no such thing. I knew there was no WMD, I knew it was a load of baloney; an excuse dreamt up to 'justify' an illegal invasion of another sovereign nation. i've never maintained otherwise and I've certainly not stated anything like you are suggesting I am in this thread.

Talk of "regime change" and, in particular, "liberation" is disingenuous at best.

Originally Posted by Texpat

Believe what you want to satisfy your bias. The liberation was about regime change.

Actually, I do believe the invasion and occupation was all about regime change. But not for the moralistic reasons purported by Bush and his partners in crime.

At the same time, Bush and his cronies told the public a pack of lies about Iraq possessing WMDS and involvement with Al Qaeda. That's how the war was "sold" to the voting public. A combination of fear, revenge and patriotic pride rather than the truth.
No way Bush would ever have been reelected if he told the public he was only going to send a small proportion of forces to Afghanistan to hunt for Bin Laden while the majority of US military would be sent to Iraq only to force regime change. The US voting public were conned pure and simple.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

I knew there was no WMD, I knew it was a load of baloney; an excuse dreamt up to 'justify' an illegal invasion of another sovereign nation.

And just how does an ambulance-chaser cloistered in a little town in northern Thailand know for certain there were no WMD's eh?

Right...

^ And you knew for sure there were? Reason enough for a war.
Well, the US government wouldn't lie to its people hey?

^
The question is not whether or not I knew for sure but how does one living in a little town in Thailand know for certain there were no WMD's, eh? Monday morning quarterbacking is so easy, ain't it?

Originally Posted by attaboy

Originally Posted by Milkman

So, the Americans are playing both sides with arms deals again, like they always have.

Does this make it right?

Not in my opinion.

I don't think so. It's desert pragmatism; switching sides as it suits them. You don't have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

And by "them" I mean our new found Sunni allies switching sides. We have always been the good guys.