I believe Iraq had substantial amounts of yellowcake in storage -- which was carted off during Rummy's looting fest last spring.

This so-called intelligence is merely another sign that the Bush (mis)Administration and their multinational corporatist allies around the world are growing more fearful that they are about to lose their influence and wish to counter this loss. I'm sure it's easier for a country like Iraq, or North Korea, or most other nations, to acquire already processed nuclear material from the Russian Mafiya than it is to go through the enrichment process themselves. Anyone who's ever been to Oak Ridge, Tennessee can attest to the large industrial facility necessary to process uranium ore.

Try hiding THAT in Iraq where no one can find it.

So, let me get this straight: Feith's and Rummy's "Office of b.s." or whatever it was called would take disinformation the CIA had planted, which the CIA knew was false and said was false, and then report having found evidence against Iraq? Jiminy Crickets! That'd be funny if it wasn't so scary. I wonder if they believed it.

I just wish Josh Marshall would hurry the fok up with his story on this, I'm tired of being teased about it.

One thing is clear: Our government didn't know, with any certainty at all, whether the Yellocake to Iraq line was true or false when Bush used it as concrete evidence in the SOTU speech. That remains pure deception.

It is clear, if they forged the memo, they absolutely knew the claims to be false.

The theory about operating the mines stinks.

You have to process the uranium to get yellowcake. That means the plant has to stay operational, which means supplies, equipment and trained personnel have to be available.

This isn't something like diamonds where you can sell the raw material so it is possible to run underground operations (no pun intended). And, if Cogema or another company decided to close down a mine as unprofitable, they aren't going to leave the plant operational and equipment lying around to continue mining. This isn't an environmental issue but an economic one. That stuff is freaking expensive and they'll haul out as much as they can to be either sold or transferred to another one of their mines.

So even if the company up and left without any sort of clean-up, you simply wouldn't be able to walk in there and resume operations.

Any mining person would look at that assertion and laugh their ass off.

The other thing is that Hersh's comment was right: that's too much uranium to be unnoticed. The two operating mines, together, only produce 3000 tonnes of concentrate a year. I suspect they'd notice if nearly 17% of their annual production up and vanished, especially with uranium which is closely monitored internationally.

This so-called intelligence

Hey pessy,

Since your privy to this intell why don't you tell us what is false about it. You must know the source huh? Or are you making partisan assumptions like usual? mmm hmmm thought so.

I bet if Bush told you that the world was round you wouldn't believe him.

If this intel were real, demonstrable and true, since the madministration knew it "back then," there is no way in hell we wouldn't have seen it shouted from the hilltops and mountains, squirting from every media maven's pores, injected into the electric grid, and placed in every school child's lunchbox. No way they would have held back, so, no, no way it's true.

Ed