Its a good thing the rest of us live in a democracy so we don't have to depend on the neocons for the truth!
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Nation & World: Friday, January 24, 2003
Growing doubts about Iraqi nuclear weapons
By Joby Warrick
The Washington Post
When President Bush traveled to the United Nations in September to make his case against Iraq, he brought along a rare piece of evidence for what he called Iraq's "continued appetite" for nuclear bombs. The finding: Iraq had tried to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes, which, Bush said, were "used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon."
Bush cited the aluminum tubes in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly and in documents presented to U.N. leaders. Vice President Dick Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice both repeated the claim, with Rice describing the tubes as "only really suited for nuclear-weapons programs."
It has been by far the most prominent, detailed assertion by the White House of recent alleged Iraqi efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. But according to government officials and weapons experts, the claim now appears to be seriously in doubt.
After weeks of investigation, U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq are increasingly confident that the aluminum tubes were never meant for enriching uranium, according to officials familiar with the inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.-chartered nuclear watchdog, reported in a Jan. 8 preliminary assessment that the tubes were "not directly suitable" for uranium enrichment, but were "consistent" with making ordinary artillery rockets — a finding that meshed with Iraq's official explanation for the tubes.
New evidence supporting that conclusion has been gathered in recent weeks and will be presented to the U.N. Security Council in a report to be released Monday, officials said.
Moreover, there were clues from the beginning that should have raised doubts about claims that the tubes were part of a secret Iraqi nuclear-weapons program, according to U.S. and international experts on uranium enrichment. The quantity and specifications of the tubes — narrow, silver cylinders measuring 81 millimeters (3.2 inches) in diameter and about a meter (3.3 feet) in length — could not be used to enrich uranium without extensive modification, the experts said.
But they are a perfect fit for a well-documented 81mm conventional rocket program in place for two decades. Iraq imported the same aluminum tubes for rockets in the 1980s. The new tubes it tried to purchase actually bear an inscription that includes the word "rocket," according to one official who examined them.
"It may be technically possible that the tubes could be used to enrich uranium," said one expert familiar with the investigation of Iraq's attempted acquisition. "But you'd have to believe that Iraq deliberately ordered the wrong stock and intended to spend a great deal of time and money reworking each piece."
As the U.N. inspections continue, some weapons experts said the aluminum-tubes saga could undermine the credibility of claims about Iraq's arsenal. To date, the Bush administration has declined to release photos or other specific evidence to bolster its contention that Iraq is actively seeking to acquire new biological, chemical and nuclear arms, and the means to deliver them.
Although the U.N. inspections earlier this month turned up 16 empty chemical warheads for short-range, 122mm rockets, inspectors said that so far they have found no conclusive proof of a banned Iraqi weapons program in searches of facilities that had been identified as suspicious in U.S. and British intelligence reports. U.N. officials contend that Iraq still retains biological and chemical weapons and components it acquired before the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
"If the U.S. government puts out bad information, it runs a risk of undermining the good information it possesses," said David Albright, a former IAEA weapons inspector who has investigated Iraq's past nuclear programs extensively. "In this case, I fear that the information was put out there for a short-term political goal: to convince people that Saddam Hussein is close to acquiring nuclear weapons."
The Bush administration, while acknowledging the IAEA's findings on the aluminum tubes, has not retreated from its earlier statements.
Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company
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