Important WMD Reminder on Page 6

Opinion. It was on page 6 of my daily newspaper that an important reminder of Saddam’s capacity for WMD was published: the movement in secrecy of 550 tons of ‘yellowcake’ uranium from Iraq to Canada on July 5. 550 tons! Can they really continue their lies about no possibility of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Saddam’s Iraq? I know they will try to spin this, but can any honest person now still maintain that Saddam was not able to reconstitute his nuclear weapons’ capability left to his own devices? Can any honest person continue the nonsense of “Bush lied”? Although U.N. inspectors had previously documented and secured the material, are we supposed to forget that Saddam threw out all the U.N. inspectors in 1998, or that we found buried centrifuges after we went in there?

Here we have a cruel dictator who imagines himself the new Saladin, who finances and supports the training of several Islamic terror groups, who has employed WMD against Iran and his own people, who pays the families of Palestinian homicide bombers $25,000 each time innocent Israeli women and children are massacred, who has previously created a nuclear weapons factory (destroyed by the Israelis, thank God,) who is sitting on 550 tons of yellowcake uranium, who has enrichment centrifuges (God knows how many) buried in various locations, who has thrown out the inspectors, who is bragging to the world of his WMD capability and who is shooting at our aircraft as they try to enforce the no-fly provisions of the truce agreement.

This is the man, Saddam, who sits in the middle of the biggest pool of oil in the world, the one resource the developed world must have for its survival – a man who thirsts to control all of that oil – and who previously tried to do just that.

I know it will never be enough for the liberal ideologues and the purely partisan politicians, but I hope that this reminder, together with the enlightening 60 Minutes program and the follow-up articles on Saddam’s interviewer will end the “Bush Lied” nonsense – at least among those political opponents of Bush’s who are fair-minded.

Mr. Piro, an FBI agent assigned to question Saddam over many months, revealed on 60 Minutes that Saddam deliberately foisted on the world the deception that he had many kinds of weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological and nuclear. This deception took many forms and was carried out because Saddam feared most an attack from Iran, and he thought it was the only thing that would prevent that from happening.

He (Saddam) also told the interviewer that, although he had dismantled his WMD program, he had left in place equipment, scientists and programs so that he could reconstitute his WMD when the world lost interest, and that he intended to do just that.

Another important point we learned from Saddam via Piro was that Saddam expected only a short-lived air attack from the United States, because of the many times the U.S. had, in the past, responded in this manner regardless of the provocation. He was the most surprised man on the planet when the U.S. actually moved troops into Iraq and went after him.

Report: Uranium Stockpile Removed From Iraq in Secret U.S. Mission

July 05, 2008 AP (Excerpt)

“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.”