What is it with the warhawks' sudden recognition of the hypocrisy of the now discarded justification for the invasion of Iraq being to "disarm Saddam?" For an example, Andrew Sullivan, disillusioned Bushie war cheerleader writes:
Emphasis mine. Where to start? The survey showing that
about the invasion and occupation of Iraq is well known, but surely Sullivan, who's covered the Iraq debacle obsessively since its inception, has stumbled across some actual factual reporting.It's been quite clear that the
debunking this justification was available to anyone not willfully blinding themselves. I wrote the following in a debate in June of 2003. It focuses on al Tuwaitha, the major Iraqi nuclear facility:
A timeline for post-invasion al Tuwaitha.
From Marines hold nuclear site APRIL 9 2003.......
Quote:
A few hundred meters outside the complex, where peasants say the "missile water" is stored in mammoth caverns, the Marine radiation detectors go "off the charts."
"It's amazing," said Chief Warrant Officer Darrin Flick, the battalion's nuclear, biological and chemical warfare specialist. "I went to the off-site storage buildings, and the rad detector went off the charts. Then I opened the steel door, and there were all these drums, many, many drums, of highly radioactive material."
*******
"I've never seen anything like it, ever," said Seegar, who leads a company of combat engineers turned into combat grunts. "How did the world miss all of this? Why couldn't they see what was happening here?"
Seegar's biggest headache: Peasant looters, who keep cutting through the miles of barbed wire, no longer electrified because the war killed the power. He cradles in his arms blueprints in Arabic, showing recent construction, and maps in English, detailing which buildings test radioactive. Next to each, Seegar's placed an asterisk.
"Three weeks ago, the scientists seemed to have abandoned the complex," said Seegar. "That's what the villagers say. The place was protected by the Special Republic Guard, but they deserted it, too. Four days ago, everyone was gone. Then we came."
For him, Al-Tuwaitha is like a crime scene, and the next detectives on the atomic beat will be Army specialists.
Seegar promises to hold the nuclear site until international authorities can take over. His men hunker down in sandbag bunkers, sleepless, gripping machine guns.
Okay, are you following along? These Marines get to Tuwaitha, go exploring around and fancy that they've found the smoking gun. They open the storage building, which up until now had intact seals on steel doors.
From Experts:US "Discovery" Of Nuclear Materials Already Known April 10 2003
Quote:
VIENNA (AP)--U.S. troops who suggested they uncovered evidence of an active nuclear weapons program in Iraq unwittingly may have stumbled across known stocks of low-grade uranium and illegally broken U.N. seals, officials said Thursday.
Leaders of a U.S. Marine Corps combat engineering unit claimed earlier this week to have found an underground network of laboratories, warehouses and bombproof offices beneath the closely monitored Tuwaitha nuclear research center just south of Baghdad.
The Marines said they discovered 14 buildings at the site which emitted unusually high levels of radiation, and that a search of one building revealed " many, many drums" containing highly radioactive material. If documented, such a discovery could bolster Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear weaponry.
The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which has inspected the Tuwaitha nuclear complex at least two dozen times and maintains a thick dossier on the site, had no immediate comment.
But an expert familiar with U.N. nuclear inspections told The Associated Press that it was implausible to believe that U.S. forces had uncovered anything new at the site. Instead, the official said, the Marines apparently broke U.N. seals designed to ensure the materials aren't diverted for weapons use - or end up in the wrong hands.
"What happened apparently was that they broke IAEA seals, which is very unfortunate because those seals are integral to ensuring that nuclear material doesn't get diverted," the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Several tons of low-grade uranium has been stored at Tuwaitha, Iraq's principle nuclear research center and a site that has been under IAEA safeguards for years, the official said. The Iraqis were allowed to keep the material because it was unfit for weapons use without costly and time-consuming enrichment.
The uranium was inspected by the U.N. nuclear agency twice a year and was kept under IAEA seal - at least until early this week, when the Marines seized control of the site.
"It's hard to believe that the U.S. military would not be well aware of this site - it's the center of Iraq's nuclear research activities," the expert told AP. "Just as you wouldn't be surprised to find hamburgers at McDonald's, no one should be surprised to find nuclear materials at this site."
So, the Marines have now blundered into a sealed IAEA inspection site and broken the seals. Notice the date:April 10, 2003 .
New date: APRIL 11 2003 U.N. nuclear agency asks United States to secure Iraqi nuclear complex
Quote:
VIENNA, Austria, Apr 11, 2003 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- The U.N. nuclear agency said Friday it has asked the United States to secure Iraq's main nuclear research center after U.S. Marines reported high levels of radioactivity at the closely monitored site.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he received assurances from Washington that the Tuwaitha nuclear research center would be protected and that access to the complex would be restricted.
"Until our inspectors return to Iraq, the U.S. has responsibility for maintaining security at this important storage facility," he said in a statement. "As soon as circumstances permit, the IAEA should return to verify that there been no diversion of this material."
ElBaradei did not directly respond to unconfirmed reports that radiation may be leaking from the complex 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Baghdad.
But he made it clear that the site is well-known to the nuclear agency, suggesting there was little to document the notion that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons there or that the Marines had uncovered anything new.
High radiation levels are normal at the site, "and great care must be taken" when entering storage buildings, the IAEA said Friday.
Follow this? On April 11 the US guaranteed that the site would be scured.
On APRIL 25 2003 the Washington Post reports: U.S. Has Not Inspected Iraqi Nuclear Facility
Quote:
Lt. Col. Michael W. Slifka, a senior leader at Central Command's Sensitive Site Exploitation Planning Team, said U.S. forces had not broken any IAEA seals. But he said in an interview here that he did not know whether seals had been broken by others, because he had not been authorized to dispatch a team with nuclear experts from the Energy Department's national laboratories.
"For force protection reasons, because of the folks we've got there," Slifka said, "we aren't in a position to go inside."
"The site is now secured by coalition forces," he said. "They're safeguarded." Slifa said technicians had taken readings and "established safe zones" to protect U.S. forces and civilians, "but we've left it at that."
Now. One might ask why this site wasn't very high on the priority list of the invaders and why the military approaching the site wasn't thoroughly briefed as to what to expect there. One might even think that getting to the known nuclear sites and guarding them might well be considered "disarming Saddam" and "preventing nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists" wouldn't you?
It is quite clear that the Iraqi scientists and employees fled a few days before the Marines arrived at Tuwaitha around April 10. Minimal looting had occured up until then. The Marines then stumbled about breaking seals and blowing locks off steel doors in their smoking gun excitement.
Then......on MAY 4 2003 the Washington Post reports:
Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted
U.S. Team Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are Missing
Quote:
Twenty-three days ago, a smaller U.S. survey team passed by and recommended an immediate increase in security. The following day, April 11, the IAEA listed this site and Tuwaitha as the two requiring the most urgent protection from looters. U.S. Central Command sent a detachment of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division to control the facility's gate.
Rolling in at 8:15 a.m. today, accompanied by two reporters, Navy Cmdr. David Beckett said U.S. troops were reported to be securing the gate. Beckett's master sergeant, a Special Forces soldier who asked to be identified only as Tony, hopped out of the driver's seat and spoke to the lieutenant on duty.
"I don't believe this," he said, returning. "They let workers in here for the past week!"
"Local workers?" Beckett asked.
"Yeah," Tony said.
Employees of the research center -- or Iraqis who said they were employees -- had been coming in by the score for more than two weeks. The 3rd Infantry's security detail had no Arabic speaker and could not verify their stories. In addition, looters had been scavenging inside continuously since U.S. forces took control. At the peak, there were 400 a day. On Friday, the U.S. soldiers detained 62 of them, but many more got away.
"Looters, they see us in Bradleys or on foot," said Capt. Blaine Kusterle, a platoon leader in Alpha Company. "They can outrun us easily because they have a 300-meter start."
who've been slapped upside the head with this missing explosives story. Those of us who refused to worship the War Gods at the altar of the State were not surprised that the RDX and HMX were looted. We expect enormous government programs to be run by incompetents, to be plagued with unintended consequences and for idealistic rhetoric (Liberation! Democracy!) to serve as cover for venal motives. The surprising part is that the
