President Bush exonerated of 'misleading statements' leading to Iraq war

Great Piece ! Unfortunately the Democrats and their leftist masters don't deal in facts.It's all about "feelings", "consensus", and "Bush Lied,People Died". Facts are meaningless to them, so even though you are factually correct, I don't think the Democrats will ever acknowledge the facts, and will continue their rant about the evil Republican president.

Who's Joe Wilson, wasn't he a former ambassador, an honorable man? Wasn't Valerie Plame a dedicated CIA operative, fighting for America and the American way? Yellowcake? I prefer chocolate. Don't disturb Americans with facts, we are comfortably back asleep. zzzzzzzzzzz

The AP story reporting this does say that the 550 tons of yellowcake have been there since 1991 and we knew about them before we invaded. We set up guards to protect it from being taken until we could work out a way to get it out of the country safely after Baghdad fell. It doesn't say if we knew the amount: 550 tons.

So, as much as I would like to say this proves something about the Wilson/Plame attack on Bush and Iraq, it probably doesn't.

It does refute those D's who try to lie and say that Saddam didn't have any kind of nuclear weapons program whatsoever. The Duelfer Report makes it clear that Saddam had the scientists and engineers necessary to reconstitute it if we hadn't invaded and sanctions were lifted. That yellowcake would have been used to make nuclear bombs. How many, I have no knowledge.

Here's an important two sentences in the article about what we know today:

"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."

I am baffled why Wilson was given the mission. I know his wife put in a good word for him. Just looking at the guy you can see he is a unctous pompous liberal with poofy hair.

I am convinced that the only way the "truth" will get out to the public, is if a conservative buys one of the big 3 TV channels. On a bad day, the worst of the big 3 has more news viewers than the best day for Fox News.

How much evidence does there have to be? The ONLY complaint we can have against this war was the bungling of it for two years by Rumsfeld and Bush's ultimate trust in him. That was poor judgement on Bush's part - we should have changed Sec of Defense sooner and the war would have been further along. Good job for the Dubya!! I believe in the man and think he's done a heck of a lot better than Clinton ever did.

A true Homer Simpson moment for the MSM:
"Ya, that moron Bush actually thought Saddam had a WMD program hehehehe.......D'oh"

So - Where did Saddam get the yellowcake?

This has to be my surprise story of the year so far.It's hard to believe the amount of time and money wasted on this witch hunt. I just wonder why Bush kept this a secret all this time. Also George Soros has a stake in the company that bought the yellowcake..Ironic considering he was probably the culprit behind this whole smear.

This is the richest story in 100 years.
*George Bush had to sit on this for 5 years while being castigated as a liar
* Plame and Joe Wilson: useful idiots helping to hide the fact that the yellowcake was there? Or actually in on it?
* the military guys guarding the area....."what's in that huge storage area"...."500 tons of yellowcake"...."yeah, right"
* Saddam might have actually been pushing for a REAL WMD to do some real damage
* the UN inspectors pre-invasion were clueless!
* being that nobody knew about the uranium, and in light of the North Koreans hiding the fact of their nuclear advancement for years, perhaps Saddam could have covertly shipped a nuke to the USA through cover agents, whether Al Qaida, Hizbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas (with whom Saddam was tight), etc?
* the flimsy aspect of the argument about no AlQaida in Iraq....who the crap could say that with ANY authority when the fact that Saddam had 500 tons of yellowcake was secret? What a laugh! Anyway, Saddam was tight as jeans on a fat girl with Hamas.

Thank God for George W. Bush.

I think the title of this post is a reach.

This material isn't the material of the Wilson/Plame farce. This was declared and under IAEA control (whatever that means). As a matter of fact American Thinker wrote about it in 2004. Summary of yellow cake inventory see here.

http://rotstar.blogspot.com/2008/07/saddams-yellowcake-fitting-resolution.html

President Bush was vindicated long ago in the eyes of history, but he continues to be a demon to those flush with today's inaccurate common knowledge.
David

Thank God the truth is finally coming out. President Bush will go down in history as one of the better presidents. His one true fault is not putting those who so vocally criticise him in their place from his bully pulpit. Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, the true villians in all of this ought to be branded what they are now that the truth is laid bare. President Bush, the national hero ought to bring them to trial for lying and worse, betrayal all for personal greed and fame.

We also know that Saddam still had a stock of Chemical Warfare artillery shells like those he used against the Kurds and the Iranians. We know this because insurgents have used them in IEDs, and because we have destroyed over 500 of them. Somehow, Saddam had kept these chemical warfare weapons hidden through all the years of weapons inspections.

We know further that he was trying to preserve his weapons making ability, so that it could resume once he broke free of U.N. sanctions. To this end, he kept stocks of many dual use chemicals, and had the nuclear team stash their plans. And we know through the whole Oil for Food scandal that he was using bribery to influence the policies of those who stood against Bush when he attempted one last time to demand Saddam disarm. He may have even succeeded in breaking free from U.N. sanctions by now had 9/11 not happened.

The CIA told investigators that Wilson's story confirmed that Iraq had tried and failed to buy yellowcake from Niger.

And while we may never know if there were more stockpiles of WMD that he hid, or if it was all one massive bluff, we do know that Saddam was intentionally bluffing his own people and his neighbors to make them think he had them. His generals all believed that their fellow generals were more trusted and had them to use against us.

The first time the CIA, (and many other intelligence agencies) failed to warn us how close Saddam was to getting a nuke, because Saddam wanted it hidden. The second time the same groups failed because Saddam wanted them to think he still had these weapons. Don't blame Bush, and don't blame the CIA. Blame Saddam. Both times we found out what we know because our valiant military put him down.

What Bush did was right. And Bush did not lie to us. It is a damn shame that he has allowed his political enemies to lie to us about what he did and why.

This means absolutely nothing to anyone who is against the war. This will be completely ignored. Just like the fact that Bill Clinton and other leading D's read the same intelligence that GW did, and said many of the same things that GW said About Saddam.
If Al Gore was elected in 2000, I'll wager that we would have taken the same action that GW took, though Gore probably would have just blamed Saddam for global warming to justify invasion, but I digress.
This will be ignored for the same reason that fuels the anti-war movement, the absolute hatred of George W. Bush by the American left.

George Bush is a decent man who when attacked turns the other cheek. Hmmmm. Seems I've read about that somewhere.

Obama the thin-skinned when attacked changes his positions, makes excuses, uses his race as a shield. He'd never measure up to Bush in any way, shape or form.

So you mean to say that Saddam having 550 tonnes of yellowcake from the pre-1991 era when all his reactors were bombed out of service by Israelis & US (God bless their souls) is breaking news?

If there was a WMD program & enrichment devices, why did Saddam not unseal these drums & produce weapon grade plutonium?

To my eyes, this looks like old news (except the 550 tonnes part of it!).

Saddam always had the input for nuclear weapons (that is known since late 1980s). IAEA had inspected the facility & sealed the yellowcake in early 1990s and inspected & audited the quantity of the yellowcake periodically (when allowed!, i might add)

This information changes nothing from what Bush claims. The smoking gun we are looking for, is Centrifuges & missing stockpiles that would indicate that Saddam took some yellowcake & produced enriched uranium.

On a different note, there is no excuse for anyone to leak the name of undercover CIA officers - no matter how stupid the crime of the other party is. Libby & Armitage along with a whole host of unpunished Bush aides were clearly WRONG when they disclosed the true nature of Plame's work.

This story invokes dozens of interesting questions. Just to pop a few:

It is very easy to vindicate where this uranium come from (any uranium mine has its unique signature of trace radioactive elements). So, who dared to sell uranium to such a villain?

Did Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Obama, etc., knew about stockpile of illegally obtained uranium in Iraq? What about CIA?

Who at the end lied to American people about Saddam nuclear ambitions? Hint: does undermining Saddam's nuclear program constitute high treason from mentioned Reid, Pelosi, Kennedy, Obama, etc.?

President Bush 'exonerated'? Nonsense. His accusers do not even warrant the dignity of such a response. The President did not authorize the war, we did - just as the Constitution proscribes - thru our Congress with the 'Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq'. Reading it, there are over twenty writs of war by Congress. The highlights:

Wiilingness to use WMD's;

Known stockpiles of WMD's;

The invasion of Kuwait;

Violating UN ceasefire resolutions;

Fear that nuclear weapons were immenently operational;

'Throwing sand in the face' of UN weapons inspectors;

The attempt to assassinate GHWB;

Kicking out the UN inspectors in 1998;

Refusal to confirm destruction of WMD's per UN resolutions;

Known ties to Al-Qaida;

Terrorist day spa;

Refusal to release non-Iraqi citizens and US Military personel after the Gulf War;

Repression of its people;

Threat to the mid east countries;

The UN's sanctions have to have teeth;

Our security does not take a back seat to the UN;

The fear that WMD's will be used during a surprise attack on the US....

Putting all this in perspective after the attack on 9/11 and the reams of congressional record transcripts pre-2001 declaring Iraq a threat, why even waste a breath responding to the irrelevant - and amusingly retarded - "Bush Lied People Died" sing-song? A lot of Americans, I am convinced, are instead alive today because of our President, our military and, yes even our Congress.

The Libs can be thrown into a vat of Truth about this war but they will still refuse to acknowledge that it was justified. Their hatred for Bush and all that is conservative is all pervading and will not be deterred by mere Truth. They will continue to stick their fingers in their ears and scream inane mumbo-jumbo like a bunch of 5 year olds who refuse to listen to their parents. There is justified indignation that we all should be have as the situation becomes ever more clear when the facts emerge. Aside from the disastrous Hussein regime that should have been reason enough to intervene, this revelation exposes his "clear and present" danger to the rest of the civilized world. This further emphasizes the noble work of our troops as they continue to bring the hope for Iraqis that all humans strive for.

It was reported several years ago about the yellowcake being under US control, but the previous stories put it at 500 tons, with an additional 2 tons of it already enriched. According to those earlier reports, the material had been transported to Oak Ridge, TN in 2004 right after the combat part of the war ended. Is this 550 in addition to that earlier 500+2 (giving Saddam a total of 1,052 tons of uranium) or was the earlier report inaccurate?

Resolution of US Congress authorizing Bush for a war in Iraq:

* Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 cease fire, including interference with weapons inspectors.
VALID. Saddam was playing a cat & mouse game with the inspectors.

* Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and programs to develop such weapons, posed a "threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region.
PARTLY VALID: WMDs, even if present, were threat to Persian Gulf region but no threat to US. Repeated UN missions stated that Saddam had no WMD capability. US chose to listen to Saddam's bluff rather than inspectors' logic (though i have no qualms on this line of reasoning!)

* Iraq's "brutal repression of its civilian population."
INVALID. If this is a reason to go to war, US should go to war against at least 50 more countries incl. Zimbabwe, Burma, Paistan, China.

* Iraq's "capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people".
INVALID. If this was a reason, US should have attacked Iraq in 1986 & not 2003.

* Iraq's hostility towards the United States as demonstrated by the alleged 1993 assassination attempt of former President George H. W. Bush, and firing on coalition aircraft enforcing the no-fly zones following the 1991 Gulf War.
INVALID. This reason leaves the realm of seriousness into abject humour. The attempted assasination attempt was in 1993, a decade earlier. Why was US sleeping for 10 years?

* Members of al-Qaeda were "known to be in Iraq."
INVALID. No evidence of Al-Qaeda in Iraq in Saddam regime has been produced. Tons of reports stating the contrary position inc. 9/11 commission report, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2006 report, Defense Dept records.

* The efforts by the Congress and the President to fight terrorists, including the September 11th, 2001 terrorists and those who aided or harbored them.
INVALID. See earlier point. Saddam had no active link with Al-Qaeda or Osama

* The authorization by the Constitution and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism.
INVALID. Terrorism where & against whom?

* Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement.
INVALID. How will US feel if China passes a US regime change law & uses it as excuse to invade US

So, from the above - the only valid reason as per the law under which US went to war: Not allowing UN inspectors to do their job. Iraq did allow inspectors in Feb 2003 to inspect the sites. Hans Blix went on record asking, no praying & begging for time to complete his inspection. US did not allow Hans Blix's request & went to war.

So, in all, Saddam played a dangerous game of bluff with the US & his people - to the tune of 650,000 civilians paid the price for the US midadventure

I have no doubt that the world is better off without saddam; Iraq will eventually be a better place than under Saddam; US efforts are finally finding success in Iraq; Iraqi people will come to see US soldiers as brothers rather than occupiers soon - but none of this should deflect the attention from the fact that the most of the reasons for going to War turned out to be false.

Read it and weep all you Red Democrat traitors!! Or I guess in your case, read and get more mentally ill!

I recall Obama mentioned that "Because of the war, Al-Quaida is in Iraq today".

We dismissed this statement. We need Obama to explain what he meant. He had to give supporting evidence for his claims, instead of just shrugging it off as an ordinary statement.

Obama must come out clean. Does he have personal dealings with Al Quaida?

http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn&ncl=1226140489&topic=h

These barbarians don't deserve our help! Why do we care about them? Obviously their whole culture is screwed up. This suicide bomber is probably considered a great hero. We should pull out of there and -- yes -- let their nations descend into chaos.

Helping such people is rewarding them. They have deeply criminal societies that don't deserve help. We will be dragged down into their chaos.

The words conservative and liberal are synonyms.

Thanks for that post, George S!

Valare Plame was not a "covert operative" or a "secret agent". She was basically a secretary who had been promoted well beyond her ability or talent; and who had delusions of grandeur. There was nothing there to "out" - but she and her girly-man husband saw a chance to garner a modicum of noteriety and make a few bucks by ruining other people's lives. They are disgusting, despicable little creatures.

I recently completed Mrs Wilson's book, Fair Game, and have a (lengthy) review in the works. But my question has always been: if Ambassador Wilson knew, on the day that President Bush uttered the infamous "sixteen words," that they were false, why didn't he say something then, before the invasion, rather than 3½ months after the invasion?

Published when his article was, it couldn't do one thing to stop an invasion he opposed, but could only serve to politically weaken George Bush and the administration.

Wilson is a traitor, plain and simple. His Op-Ed had the explicit intent of inflicting harm on the war making capacity of this nation. He succeeded in spades and is eclipsed only by the treason of that floating putrescence, John Kerry. Wilson lied. Kerry lied. Americans and a raft of others died. Do not, friends, let commity prevent you from confronting those who declare otherwise. Treason must mean something again. We must confront our own friends and relations with the falsity and flat-out evil of their anti-Americanism.

The important text in the AP story is not the age of the yellowcake but the fact that the UN was responsible for safeguarding it. Since they were administering the "oil for food" program so efficiently then surely we could rely on them to do the same with uranium! Incidentally, it doesn't matter even if they had this in 1991 or bought it in 2001, the fact remains that they had it and our intelligence sources (also much maligned) got it right.

Thanks for the summary. I have always liked George W becasue he stands by what he says and does not change midstream. I come from a family of Democrats and I am tired of always hearing the parroting of the media. This is just one more item that will dissappear in the sands of time.