Saddumb's weapons of mass destruction

Be careful: some among us seemingly take what is said on FoxNews as gospel. But thanks, I got a laugh from that.

By "the United States," I am referring to the military, the Administration, or both. The Administration, in particular, has taken a substantial amount of heat over the whole WMD issue. If they truly found the evidence, why did they not have press conferences showing the evidence? Why did they not go back to the UN? FoxNews would have played the soundbytes every half hour.

I never saw Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney, et al. on the air proclaiming that the search is over.

Regards,
BiR

 

The US military policy on WMD is "may or may not have...."

That is why. We just dont talk about it.

Agree with TCassidy...what difference would it make if they held press conferences? Sounds like (a term from my youth group here) a chance to punk someone out.

Like our faith, we are right no matter how much we talk about it.

Enjoyed the education TCassidy. Thanks!

 

So, you believe that they would not care how they are perceived in the international community, despite going to the international community to obtain approval for military action?

I really find it hard to believe that they would not show the whole world the WMD's that were found. They certainly put the corpses of Saddam's sons on television. They certainly put Saddam himself on television, along with that spider hole.

Sorry, it just doesn't make sense....

Regards,
BiR

 

The Hiroshima bomb, nicknamed Little Boy, was a 13 kiloton uranium (U235) device. Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb, was a 20 kiloton plutonium (U239) device.

The so-called "suitcase bomb" on the web page says it would be a 10-20 ton device. Unfortunately it fails to says 10-20 tons of what. The usual means of measuring nuclear explosions is to compare them to how many tons of TNT it would take to produce the same explosion. If the "suitcase bomb" is equivalent to 10-20 tons of TNT then, taking the middle figure of 15 tons of TNT, it would be less than 1/1000th the size of the Hiroshima bobm. Around 0.00115384615 of the Hiroshima bomb, and about half of that, or about 0.00075 of the Nagasaki device.

But the thing to look at is the fissile material used. The article says "plutonium (or U-233)." Neither plutonium nor uranium 233 occurs naturally. Both are manufactured products. And the machine necessary to manufacture then is nothing less than a special type of nuclear reactor known as a "breeder reactor." In the case of plutonium, the liquid metal (sodium) moderated reactor vessel would be lined with uranium 238, which is non-fissile. The U238 would capture neutrons which would "breed" the U238 into plutonium 239 (P239) which is fissile. In the case of uranium 233 (U233) the breeder reactor vessel would be lined with Thorium 232 (Th232) which, through neutron capture, would be bred into uranium 233 (U233) which is fissile.

And that is just the beginning. Milling and shaping the two piece core and devising a way to bring them together to achieve critical mass without blowing the two pieces of the shaped charge apart again and stopping the full power of the energy conversion is extremely difficult and demanding. Milling that fissile metal requires finer workmanship than grinding eyeglass lenses. Not something a terrorist hiding in a cave is likely to be able to do.

As I said earlier, the means to produce such a bomb requires a very well developed infrastructure, a nuclear reactor being, arguably, one of the most sophisticated machines every built by man.

It is highly unlikely a terrorist, hiding in a cave in Afghanistan, would have access to such a level of technology. </font>[/QUOTE]The more "terrorists" that are caught the more we find they have ties to some intell group or other. The "mastermind" behind the London bombings was being protcted by MI6. So say's mainstream Fox news.

These guys get all the technolgy and support they need from the same people that are supposedly protecting us from them.

 

If it would possibly cost 10s or even 100s of thousands of people their lives? No. I don't believe they would do that to score a few cheap political points.

And how many 10s or 100s of thousands of deaths did that result in?

Maybe sparing 10s or 100s of thousands of people from terrible misery and death doesn't make sense to you, but it certainly does to me. If your politics won't allow you to take the welfare of that many people into consideration, then you better find some more humane politics. </font>[/QUOTE]Three separate times you reference "10s of 100s of thousands of people." To whom are you referring? Saddam was contained, and that cannot be denied. He could not challenge the "no fly zone" over his country, nor could he reign in the Kurds. Those are facts.

The WMD's were the justification for the preemptive strike on Iraq. There were several people (Ritter, for example), who have said that they did not exist. Now, given the heat that the administration has taken over this whole ordeal, I do not believe for one minute that they would have allowed this discovery to be buried on the back pages of the New York Times. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the administration apologists would have been all over this story. I would have seen this on FoxNews. Yet, I didn't see, hear, or read a thing about this yellowcake.

Now, if this "makes sense" to you, then perhaps you can explain exactly where are the WMD's that necessitated the invasion of Iraq. Remember: if "10s of 100s of thousands of people" were at risk, then it should not be so difficult to show where this 500 tons of yellowcake is. There were reporters embedded throughout the US forces. SOMEBODY must have seen 500 tons of yellowcake. I would imagine that 500 tons of ANYTHING would be hard to hide. Can it simply be placed in duffle bags and walked out of the country? Who has the 500 tons? How is it going to be disposed? Who is going to dispose of it?

Thanks for responding to me,
BiR

 

You don't seem to be following the discussion. We found the 500 tons of yellowcake. We moved the 500 tons of yellowcake to an undisclosed location for disposal. Why would you want to advertise the location of a potentially deadly material to every terrorist in the world so they can take a shot at getting it, finish the processing, and deliver it to us via the mechanisms I discussed in the other post? Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to put 10s or even 100s of thousands of people at risk?

That's probably why it was reported in the NY Times. They are probably the only media outlet in America that couldn't care less about the wellbeing of anyone except themselves. </font>[/QUOTE]You seem to be saying that if the location of this "500 tons of yellowcake" were to be revealed, it would automatically be used to kill "10s of 100s of thousands of people." How do you jump to this conclusion. You don't think that the U.S. military is able to keep this yellowcake secure?

 

For those wanting to see the documentation -

http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2004nn/0405nn/040522nn.htm#030

 

TCassidy,

You could have taken BIR by the hand and showed him which window to peek in and there would still be silly posts. Typical of someone who wants to believe in all the wrong things. Guess there just isnt enough faith in some lives. I sure hope when Jesus comes for us, that he isnt looking the other way.

Oh, and I agree on the NYTimes comment. Self absorbed is how I found almost all of what I read for three years. I recently gave it up, and you know what? Life is good. LOL

 

The repository, at Tuwaitha, a centerpiece of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program until it was largely shut down after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, holds more than 500 tons of uranium, none of it enriched enough to be used directly in a nuclear weapon.

 

Actually, no - you are mistaken.
I have consistently asked about the location of the WMD's. Go back and check my posts - I have asked this over and over and over.

And yet, the Administration has remained silent on this. One would think that this information would be a validation of the original claim that Saddam had WMD's, thus necessitating the invasion.

If this location was found, and if the "potentially deadly material" was truly an issue, then it would be heavily guarded. Besides, according to that link to the story provided by BobRyan:

Now, if this facility was already identified, and had been prior to the first Gulf War, I would imagine that it was inspected several times by the UN inspectors, or the IAEA. Another point worth noting is that, in present form, the uranium really cannot be considered a WMD.

This does not make sense. Even you cannot deny that Fox News would be all over this story. Rush Limbaugh would be heralding this find as the proof that Bush was right all along. Sean Hannity would be parroting him, and proclaiming Bush as the savior of the modern world. The backing vocals would be handled by Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Oliver North, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck Come on, you cannot deny this.
Moreover, are you suggesting that the New York Times would be the outlet to disclose the proof that the Bush Administration was right all along? I guess that this dispels the claim that the Times is fixated on taking down the Administration.

Sorry: I don't buy it.

Thanks for discussing it with me though. I have very much enjoyed reading your thoughts/opinions/viewpoints.

Hope your weekend is as beautiful as mine has been,
BiR

 

Like I said, where are the WMD's?
Please: by all means, share the location with us.

Thanks for your concern about my spiritual condition. It is appreciated.

Regards,
BiR

 

Is anyone here saying that the existence of this yellow cake uranium constituted a "weapon of mass destructionby itself?" The question remains, Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the U.S. as Bush stated? I'll answer that myself. Absolutely not. The President "mislead" us when he said that that was a valid reason for invading Iraq.