The yellowcake story was simply NEVER a justification for war.

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12192008.html



The yellowcake story, now definitively shown to have been a deliberate lie, even if true, could not have constituted such an imminent threat.

Yet not once has this key point been addressed by any member of Congress who voted to authorize an invasion. Nor does the point get mentioned in mainstream journalistic reports on the matter.

Average Americans, nearly half of whom reportedly believe that the earth was formed just 6000 years ago and a fair proportion of whom believe that the sun revolves around the earth, might be excused for not understanding this point, but clearly intelligent members of Congress like former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and future secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who both claim they might not have voted for war “had they had known then what they know now,” are themselves caught in a lie.

They and other war backers clearly knew in 2002 and 2003 that the yellowcake story, even if true, was no justification for war. So did editors and reporters (like Judith Miller and Michael Gordon of the New York Times, for example).

I have yet to see a single US corporate media outlet explain that the yellowcake story was simply never a justification for war. It will probably never happen, and yet many analysts have said it was that claim by Bush, Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others (remember her dark warnings about not wanting a “smoking gun” to be a “mushroom cloud”?), more than any other that stampeded the nation into a war that has cost over $1 trillion over five years, and over 4000 US lives and one million innocent Iraqi lives.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld and others in the outgoing administration should all be impeached, tried and jailed for their lying and treason in embroiling the US in the pointless and criminal Iraq War, with the yellowcake story a key element in any indictments. But there needs to be some kind of reckoning too, for the willful ignorance and deceit on the part of the majority of Congress and of the press in pretending that an alleged scheme to buy uranium ore was a justification for launching a war of aggression, which five years on, is still continuing.

The American people themselves also need to reflect deeply, not just on how ill served we are by our elected officials and by our media, but on how gullible we have become, and how ignorant.

[ThomWV]

1. I doubt very seriously that very many people even understand what yellowcake is

This sinister Yellowcake that we see pop up in the news from time to time, how many people do you think there are out there who even know that all the stuff is is slightly refined uranium ore. It has not even been smelted into a metal yet let alone gone through the truly intensive step of separating the metal that comes from yellowcake into its various isotopes and even that doesn't get you to the point where you can start making any sort of weapon out of it.

They make Yellowcake sound like the bomb itself when in fact its not as close to being a bomb as iron ore is to being a bridge. Oh, and when you move the stuff its done in convoys of dump trucks, not spys carrying suitcases.

[polly7]

2. They really did think they were playing everyone for fools, didn't they.

[unblock]

4. not everyone. only congress.

and perhaps the media.

[n2doc]

3. Iraq has its own uranium mines

Prior to Gulf War I they had an enrichment program. All that was shut down, dismantled or closely monitored afterwards. There is no way they would have been able to do anything with the "yellowcake" even if they really had tried to buy some. And if they could have somehow done so, they certainly could have used some of their own stockpiles first!

The thing is, all these lies have been out there, even before 2002. The average citizen has shown they just don't care. They are much more interested in who Madonna is screwing.

[robertpaulsen]

5. Yellowcake aside, Kucinich's speech spelled out the danger Iraq posed was neither clear nor present.

The resolution states: ``Whereas the attacks on the United States of America of September 11, 2001 underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations.''

And, again, and I stress, the American people need to know that there is no connection between Iraq and the events of 9-11. However, this resolution attempts to make the connection over and over and over. And just saying that there is a connection does not make it so, because the Central Intelligence Agency has not presented this Congress with any credible information that indicates that there is in fact a tie between Iraq and 9-11, between Iraq and al Qaeda, or Iraq and the anthrax attacks on this Capitol.

And if we are to go to war against any Nation, and I oppose us doing this in this case, we ought not be taking such action in retaliation, and ought not put it in a document like this in retaliation, attacking a nation that had nothing to do with 9-11.

The resolution goes on to say, ``Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself''; that is the assertion.

The key issue here is that there is no credible evidence that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. If Iraq had successfully concealed the production of such weapons since 1998, and let us assume that somebody has information they have never told Congress, they have never been able to back up, but they have this information and it is secret, and they secretly know Iraq has such weapons, there is no credible evidence that Iraq has the capability to reach the United States with such weapons, if they have them, and many of us believe no evidence has been presented that they do.

In 1991, the Gulf War, Iraq had a demonstrated capability of biological and chemical weapons, but they obviously did not have the willingness to use them against the Armed Forces of the United States. Congress has not been provided any credible information which proves that Iraq has provided international terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

more...

http://www2.kucinich.us/files/pdfs/IraqFloorSpeech2002.pdf