We Drove Saddam’s Yellowcake to the Baghdad Airport

ertAs someone who led the company that transported 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium—enough to make fourteen Hiroshima-size bombs—from Saddam’s nuclear complex in the Iraq War’s notorious “Triangle of Death” for air shipment out of the country, I know Baathist Iraq’s WMD potential existed. In early 2008, we secretly moved over several nights 140 truckloads carrying 5500 barrels of extremely heavy radioactive material provided to Iraq as part of the French-supplied Osiraq reactor destroyed by Israeli fighter bombers in 1981. The virulently anti-Semitic Saddam had announced “here begins the Arab bomb” and the Israelis took him at his word.

The recent article in the New York Times, however, caught us all by surprise. Random caches of old chemical weapons found post-invasion were old news, but not “roughly 5,000” warheads and bombs, many filled with still active, nerve agent. That’s an enormous quantity even if evidently left over from the 1980s Iran-Iraq War. Just “antiques,” as the Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung quaintly put it at a Center for Strategic and International Studies forum on Iraq.

At the least, this shocker (after so many years of repetitious “Bush lied [about WMD], people died”) further points to the world’s inability to trust that the UN inspectors could ever realistically certify Saddam clean of his nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs. He had to be deposed, and the only way to do it was for us to invade and overthrow his dictatorship. Here was a genocidal, expansionist tyrant who had used chemical weapons on his own people and that of a neighboring nation (Iran), publically celebrated 9/11, and allowed a chemical weapons laboratory affiliated with al-Qaeda to operate within his security forces’ reach inside his country’s borders in contested Kurdistan (Khurmal).

The article in the Times references the Duelfer Report that summed up the official American investigation of Iraq’s WMD as definitive in that there were no ongoing WMD programs pre-invasion, yet fails to mention that every section of the report on the different types of weapons of mass destruction concluded that the evidence gathered by investigators clearly indicated that once sanctions were removed Saddam would reinstate his WMD programs. In addition, the article mentions that the chemical weapons program was not active for over ten years, but not the biological weapons program, which extended into 1996 and was only discovered because Saddam’s son-in-law defected, even after five years of aggressive UN inspections.

There’s no question in my mind, Saddamist Iraq would have reconstituted its WMD programs once UN sanctions faded away—a push Security Council veto-wielding members Russia and France were actively working toward because of oil field opportunities. (Petroleum companies from both countries signed huge, new contracts with Saddam pre-invasion.) And given the yellowcake inventory, nuclear weapons with available Pakistani and North Korean technology might not have been far off. After over ten years in effect, the sanctions system was actively degrading with banned flights landing in Baghdad, the Oil for Food program corrupted, and, as a result, would have collapsed if we had not invaded—thus leaving Saddam free to threaten the world again with WMD.

The greater problem, however, of significant quantities of chemical weapons hidden at some date prior to the US invasion points to a current and growing threat. The leader of the neo-Saddamists allied now with ISIS is Izzat al-Douri, a former Iraqi army general and last member of the senior Baathist leadership not executed or imprisoned. There is a distinct possibility that Saddam’s minions hid these munitions with the intention of disinterring them for deterrent use once again. And in fact, this is why Saddam’s military and secret police leaders never ceased to believe Iraq possessed WMD and could therefore project terror onto the Kurds and the rest of the region (Israel and Iran, specifically) until the end because Iraq did possess WMD, even after the dictator’s death by hanging. The Iraqi army and security services did not handle “special” weapons without the knowledge of the regime’s leaders. So to think that Saddam and his immediate circle, including al-Douri, did not know the locations of the WMD discussed in the Times article begs credulity.

Much of the area where the “antique,” yet still potentially potent chemical weapons discovered by US forces is now in the hands of ISIS, the forces of al-Douri, and their allied Sunni Arab tribes undergirding the “caliphate” occupying almost a third of Iraq. With hundreds of Western passport holders fighting in Syria and Iraq, the most immediate threat to the United States is the spread of jihadi terrorism to Europe now that ISIS has a border with Turkey, a gateway to the EU.

Can one even imagine the impact of a weaponized sarin-gas attack in Paris?

Carter Andress is president of AISG, Inc. (American-Iraqi Solutions Group) and the author, with Malcolm McConnell, of Victory Undone: The Defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Its Resurrection as ISIS (Regnery, October 2014).  

  • Bamaguje

    “With hundreds of Western passport holders fighting in Syria and Iraq,
    the most immediate threat to the United States is the spread of jihadi
    terrorism to Europe now that ISIS has a border with Turkey, a gateway to
    the EU” – Carter Andress.

    What about Iran’s nuclear program?

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      Truth is The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
      mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD … The choice
      people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

    • objectivefactsmatter

      Close second place.

      Arab Spring.

  • truebearing

    550 tons of yellowcake? The NY Times can make that disappear with denial and lies. Not much chance they’ll ever admit they were repeatedly and intentionally wrong.

    • gerry

      They were lying.

      • The March Hare

        I believe that’s what “intentionally wrong” means.

        • DavieButlinfpup

          my friends sister just got a 2012 Kia Optima Hybrid by work parttime using a laptop. visit site …….>> -> START BY CLICKING HERE!!! <-

    • info warrior

      NYT was being fed the lies from the CIA and Pentagon when they reported on WMD in Iraq. The paper was exposed as a CIA front back in the 1970s.

      • Nabukuduriuzhur

        Historically inaccurate.

        • info warrior

          Google New York Times CIA Church Commission

          We’ve known it was a propaganda outlet since the 1970s.

      • creative_dude

        The first of the long string of lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction is the refusal to admit the truth of how administration after administration used the words. The official government position for a long time was that poison gas = nukes = biological warfare. Even the New York Times admitted the facts about the yellowcake, but that was not the original point. Poison (WMD) gasses were used. By the old Soviet Union several times, and by Saddam several times. Changing the definition of WMDs was the beginning of a systemic use of untruth. As for nukes, The Clinton administration, his fellow democratic party members, the French, the Germans, the Russians, and heck . . . even Saddam’s own generals all believed he had them.

        • info warrior

          Nobody can deny that Saddam had massive stockpiles and was manufacturing WMD prior to Desert Storm in 1991. If you remember, US troops were exposed when a massive chemical weapons depot was blown up in Kamisiyah as a way to dispose of it. The issue is when politicians pushing for war used stories about WMD in Iraq from the late 1990s onward.

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD … The choice people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

      • Nabukuduriuzhur

        Not just Syria, but Libya got theirs from Saddam.

        The stuff has turned up in a host of places. 2004, some 20 tons of recent manufacture were found in the hands of a terror org by the Jordanians near Amman.

        The Left ignored completely the convoys of trucks leaving Iraq for places around the near and middle east carrying the stuff. Saddam had five full months to get rid of most of it.

        In the first week week of the invasion, both a nuclear complex and a chemical manufacturing plant were found. Both were underground. But the media only reported on them ONCE. After that, it was “bush lied, people died.”

        Never mind that as of 2011, some 400,000 had been found in mass graves dating to Saddam’s genocides.

        And that by 2011, only the third “mass grave” of civilians which had less than 200 people in it, was found in Bosnia. No one screamed “clinton lied, people died” did they?

  • toedeladoki
  • Dennis Opihory

    where is the yellowcakenow

    • elcid76

      It was transported to a processing plant in Canada.

    • info warrior

      Canada.

      • Dennis Opihory

        more info please

        • info warrior

          Google Canada purchases Iraq yellowcake. It was in the news years ago.

  • Tom Hoffman

    Can I imagine the impact of a weaponized sarin-gas attack in Paris? Yes..with unqualified glee.

  • Mo86

    A little later for this story, don’t you think?

    That’s what drives me nuts. Leftists get out ahead of stories and publicize their endless lies, over and over and over, from every outlet, so that even people who don’t pay attention to such mattes knows the lines. (People like my parents, who are older, don’t have internet and whose only source of information is the nightly news, which they assume to be factual.)

    How many years later we get this story? The narrative’s DONE! It’s set!

    This is too little, too late.

    • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

      It’s never too late to start fighting and reclaim the narrative – it’s just that Establishment Republicans don’t want to.

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
      mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMDs … The choice
      people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

  • Pepe Turcon

    Sadly….the end will have to be a nuclear explosion hopefully in Tehran and not in Tel Aviv. Deep down we all in the West ( and most other places also) hope and pray it will be in Tehran and big enough to show the world the West will either leave in freedom and in peace or we rather die.

    • info warrior

      Yellowcake is not used to make a nuke bomb. Uranium has to be highly enriched to become highly explosive.

      • JayWye

        “yellowcake” is solid-state uranium hexafluoride.
        it gets turned into a gas for enrichment,then converted back to uranium metal for reactor fuel or bombs,depending on level of enrichment.
        also,uranium is not “explosive”,it’s fissionable,when enriched.

        • info warrior

          Explosive, fissionable, potatos, tomatos. The end result is a big boom.

    • JayWye

      Hopefully,not a nucdet in the NYC or DC waterway (Test Baker style)
      or far worse,high over the northeastern US,a HEMP attack.
      Iran’s first use of a nuclear bomb may not be over Israel,but the US,a HEMP attack. A HEMP attack on the US would set us back to 19th century living conditions we are NOT prepared for,and many millions would die from starvation and disease in the first year. It could mean the end of the US. Iran has been testing SCUD launches from container ships,with HIGH altitude detonations characteristic of an EMP attack,and not usable for attacks with conventional warheads . This type of attack is not needed for Israel,Iran’s IRBMs already can reach Israel. But with the US crippled or destroyed,Iran is free to do as they please,without any other Western nation able or willing to interfere with them.

      Then there’s the other major nuke option;the “Test Baker” scenario.
      But that would only affect NYC or the DC area,not the entire nation as would an EMP attack.

      • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

        The Hal Lindsey Show reported this way back when it happen .But people
        mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
        matter no difference if President Bush said this,because the liberal media would
        have just again attacked him … The choice
        people need to make today ..
        http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

        • gray_man

          enough with the self promotion.

  • info warrior

    Canada ended up purchasing those 550 tons of uranium. It was a good deal, as nuclear power is growing in Canada as a much cleaner alternative to coal.

  • joe kulak

    The big question is if, with two years remaining in office, will Obama be able to sufficiently degrade our security to the degree that allows a nuclear device to be smuggled in and exploded domestically. If so, we can only hope that Karma holds.

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
      mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
      matter no difference if President Bush said this the liberal media would
      have just again attacked him …… The choice people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

  • butpygmies

    Why didn’t the Bush administration unveil this to the public when he was being excoriated by the media and the dems? Wouldn’t he have been vindicated? What was the politically motivated purpose in keeping this hidden?

    • James_IIa

      There are many stories in the media recently indicating that Karl Rove killed these revelations. In fact, he orchestrated ridicule of Senators who attempted to reveal the discoveries of the Saddam weapons programs. That was around 2006. He thought that it would be a tactical mistake to reopen the old wounds.

      • XOT

        Would be interesting to know if in hindsight Rove now feels they should have responded accordingly . . . ?

        • James_IIa

          Maybe. I found this:

          “”They had a philosophy in the White House: Never respond to criticism,” noted Rush Limbaugh on his Friday show last week. “Never defend yourself against any criticism no matter what happens because that’ll just prolong the story. Rove has even admitted now that one of the big mistakes he made strategically… letting some of these allegations day to day, whatever they were, not just about the Iraq war, but let ‘em all go by and not comment on it.”

          Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/10/karl_rove_weapon_of_mass_delusion.html#ixzz3K0uPNZSQ

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
      mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have matter no difference if President Bush said this the liberal media would have just again attacked him … The choice
      people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

    • RAM500

      Many of the WMDs had come from the US and Europe!

    • Nabukuduriuzhur

      Bush didn’t defend himself on almost everything. He had a naive view that the public would somehow find out the truth on many things and of course, most of the public at least partly bought the lies of the left.

      People just were not getting the true stuff and the Republicans really were not trying to get it out there.

  • Sniper’s Ire

    Well done. A must read for all! #terrorism @Napoleonlegal understands.

  • http://www.chaverimisrael.org Norbert Haag

    You might want to ask Carl Rove why he wanted the WMD discussion to be over.

    You don’t need enemies if you have friends like this thug.

    Alas, go and vote republican please when you vote tomorrow. As fighting Carl Rove or Mitch Mcdonnell is easier then reclaiming the republic from the left.

    • Erudite Mavin

      Go ask the Democrats who push the lies about no WMD
      Americans have had your Obama and leftist agendas.
      You will have to do better to get your posting money from Soros

      • http://www.chaverimisrael.org Norbert Haag

        Really? Why would I take money from another thug?

        Rove is a hack and just as bad as any of the Dem thugs.

        While I will vote for the Republicans I deny to agree that every of them is a hero.

        Rove is certainly not. He is one of the first ones to fight after the election. One of the first RINOs to need their butts to be kicked.

      • Pete

        You misread his post.

        Norbert did say vote Republican.

        He is reluctant to vote Republican, but will nonetheless.

        I say vote Republican and then primary the @ZZes of RINOs or have a few selected for recall elections and start picking them off.

      • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

        Now The Hal Lindsey Show reported this back when it happen .But people
        mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
        matter no difference if President Bush said this,because the liberal media would
        have just again attacked him … The choice
        people need to make today ..
        http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

    • Pete

      As fighting Carl Rove or Mitch McConnell is easier then reclaiming the republic from the left.”

      EXACTLY!

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
      mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
      matter no difference if President Bush said this,because the liberal media would
      have just again attacked him … The choice
      people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

  • Space Cowboy

    Here was a genocidal, expansionist tyrant who had used chemical weapons on his own people and that of a neighboring nation (Iran), publically celebrated 9/11, and allowed a chemical weapons laboratory affiliated with al-Qaeda to operate within his security forces’ reach inside his country’s borders in contested Kurdistan (Khurmal).

    A lot is contained in that sentence. Nonetheless, all non-Muslim apostate rulers in Islamic totalitarian society have to be ruthless to the max if they are going to stop the jihad that will inevitably be waged against them perpetually. So which do you prefer, Islamic totalitarian rule as in ISIS today or Authoritarian rule as in Saddam, Mubarak, King Abdullah II, and el Sisi? I’m sorry but there are no other available options because we don’t live in a perfect world.

    Moreover, the Iraqi government isn’t a democracy, as its constitution was infused with Sharia by the stealth jihadists appointed by GWB, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, and I’m sorry but the only freedom that Sharia allows is the freedom for Muslims to become more devout slaves of Allah. It’s also a poodle of Iran anyway.

    How did the overthrow of the Shah of Iran workout for us? How about the overthrow of Kaddafi? Is that going okay? We got very lucky on Mubarak’s ouster.

    Moreover, Saddam did try to expand into Kuwait, the other Gulf States, and Saudi Arabia, and had Bush I not been a myopic poodle of the Saudis, he would have given him the green light instead of making us the Islamic totalitarian world’s stooge by waging a jihad on their behalf to stop Saddam and to force him to retreat.

    Indeed, in one fell swoop, had Saddam been give the green light, he could have eradicated or at least dealt a very severe blow to the forces of Islam that today represents by far the world’s greatest threat.

    Now subsequently, after Saddam had been turned into a pariah and an enemy, he obviously celebrated 9/11 like all other Muslims in the world and may have allowed a chemical weapons lab affiliated with AQ to exist in Iraq and probably far worse. As a matter of fact, as a direct result of him being ousted out of Kuwait, Saddam converted to Islam and became a Muslim himself. So why wouldn’t he celebrate 9/11 and wage jihad by any means like all other mainstream orthodox Muslims in the world?

  • info warrior

    The yellowcake was discovered shortly after Desert Storm in the early 1990s, and had been under lock and key and under observation by the UN and other monitoring groups until it was finally sold to Canada to make fuel for power plants.

    This is old news.

    • JayWye

      The UN was “observing” Iran’s nuclear program,and Iran built several secret nuclear facilities without the UN’s IAEA inspectors being aware of them. they were Clear violations of the NPT,too. And Iran also did several tests on nuclear weapons components and did nuclear weapons simulations for increasing yield of a nuclear explosion,all prohibited nuclear activities. But the UN didn’t know about them.

      The UN’s WMD inspectors said there was no WMD in Iraq,but now we know that’s not true.

      • info warrior

        That is beside the point. The yellowcake in Iraq was left over from the nuclear power program they had in the early 1980s. The only evidence of the material getting loose was some idiots who took some small canisters after the 2003 war began, amid all the chaos. It was still 550 tons (give or take) when Canada purchased it.

        • truebearing

          Saddam tried to acquire yellowcake after that.

          • info warrior

            Actually, no. Bush lied about the yellowcake.

          • empiresentry

            Wow Bush must have been incredibly powerful and had a time machine to go back to 1998.

            Bush was such a powerful governor, he made Pelosi, Kerry, and 156 other dems sign H.R. 4655 S.2525 Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.
            .
            Then, when no one was looking and couldn’t see the time machine, Bush fed misinformation to the Clinton Admin who used it to bomb the snot out of the middle east.

          • info warrior

            Actually, it was the other way around. The Clinton war machine fed (knowingly) false information to the Bush regime. This war began long before 2001.

          • Nabukuduriuzhur

            No, infowarrior. You are a liar. That is the problem here. The truth just isn’t in you.

          • info warrior

            Go on believing the government then, and good luck.

    • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

      Truth is The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
      mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
      matter no difference if President Bush said this,because the liberal media would
      have just again attacked him … The choice
      people need to make today ..
      http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

      • info warrior

        Chick cartoons, are you for real?

        Truth is, it was reported in a variety of alternative news sources, mostly in the liberal and left-leaning news. Syria has nothing to do with the yellowcake, it was sold to Canada.

        • Nabukuduriuzhur

          Do you source any of your claims, or just read democrats dot com and the daily kos?

          • info warrior

            If there’s a reason to, sure. I’m not familiar with those two sires you mentioned, and I am not a Democratic Party supporter. In fact I worked for Ralph Nader in 2004 to help expose and defeat John Kerry.

  • SoCalMike

    The NY Times is the Pinocchio of journalism.
    How many times do you listen to and believe someone who repeatedly either lies or gets it wrong?
    Maybe 2 or 3 times at most.
    Why give them the benefit of any doubt any longer?

  • Space Cowboy

    “With hundreds of Western passport holders fighting in Syria and Iraq,
    the most immediate threat to the United States is the spread of jihadi
    terrorism to Europe now that ISIS has a border with Turkey, a gateway to
    the EU”

    I hate to rain on the writer’s naive parade, but Muslims are already waging jihad via stealth deliberately non-violently by design on purpose throughout the infidel west, not only throughout Europe, but also throughout the USA as well. As waging jihad violently in the infidel west isn’t feasible because it would quickly be defeated.

    Indeed, it’s the Islamic totalitarian world’s version of the Cold War. Only our political elites this time around are like the writer, blinded to the hilt by PC multiculturalism.

    Apparently, the writer believes in fairy tales, i.e., the vast overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world are so-called moderates, with only a tiny minority of them being so-called radicals.

    Nonetheless, all Muslims in the world are jihadists in one form or another, either of the violent variety (a tiny minority) or of the non-violent variety (the vast overwhelming majority of them), per the dictates of Islam.

    Indeed, Muslims don’t all of a sudden become radicalized via the Internet, or via attending a radical mosque, or via a radical Imam. As that is baloney! Indeed, ALL MUSLIMS IN THE WORLD are already jihadists in one form or another per the dictates of Islam.

    As a matter of fact, Muslims are not terrorists, as terrorism is solely an infidel manifestation only. Instead they are jihadists waging jihad, which is a so-called holy war waged by ALL MUSLIMS IN THE WORLD against ALL INFIDELS IN THE WORLD to ultimately make Islam and its followers supreme.

    Therefore, Muslims don’t murder innocent civilian infidels in cold-blood like terrorists do because they are also terrorists too. Instead, ALL MUSLIMS IN THE WORLD are waging jihad against ALL INFIDELS IN THE WORLD, combatants and non-combatants alike, to ultimately make Islam and its followers supreme. Thus, they murder innocent civilian infidels in cold-blood simply because they happen to be the easiest targets.

  • JayWye

    Unable,or perhaps he had some reason to not make the WMD public?
    Like maybe NOT let the Iraqi insurgents know it’s there and possible to sneak in and grab? (to be used against US troops,of course.)

    if it came down to Jeb Bush or Hillary,who would you rather have in the WH?
    I know I’d rather have Jeb in there,despite him not being my first choice for POTUS.

    I sure would not vote 3rd party or stay home,and thus HELP Hillary win.

  • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

    Hal Lindsey report this back when it happen .But people mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD … the choice people need to make today ..
    http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

  • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

    Media loves Obama … The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
    mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
    matter no difference if President Bush said this,because the liberal media would
    have just again attacked him … The choice
    people need to make today ..
    http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

  • http://bodybuildingfitness.com Mike Sturm

    Here the facts The Hal Lindsey show reported this back when it happen .But people
    mocked Him .Where does everyone think Syria got it WMD .Would have
    matter no difference if President Bush said this,because the liberal media would
    have just again attacked him … The choice
    people need to make today ..
    http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0100/0100_01.asp

  • empiresentry

    fascinating that you now blame Bush for the leftist Pravda media and their lies. People were told. People chose to listen to the louder voices.
    .
    Here is another example: Bush going to Congress requesting they reduce the level of risk and exposure to the mortgage financial markets.
    .
    What happened? Anyone who DARED to question it was a racist, a corporista, hated the poor, unfair to middle class, bla bla bla.
    We all know the outcome.

  • Nabukuduriuzhur

    Bush wasn’t inept at all. I worked in the feds under both clinton and bush and the main problem was the media taking the dozen or so faux-pas that bush did and constantly replaying them. Obama does that many in a day, but it’s not reported.

  • Joseph Wisgirda

    There was no yellowcake. You sir, are a liar!