The Socalled Niger Uranium Smoking Gun

Everybody seems to be focused on weapons of mass destruction here lately. CNN, Fox News, ABC News, MSNBC, Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, etc; they all seem to be focused, however, it’s all about one minor detail in the State of the Union Address, where Bush stated: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”.

The statement is simply propaganda and does not prove anything, however, the mainstream media have recently turned it into the “smoking gun” of Bush’s lies. First of all, this should have been mainstream news before the war. Second, there are far worse allegations that are not being addressed.

The statement was never credible
Immediately after the State of the Union Address, the Institute for Public Accuracy had this in response to that statement: “Rangwala: “Iraq in 1981-82 tried unsuccessfully to import yellowcake (unrefined uranium) from Niger. The UK government has given no signs that it was not referring to this episode. The IAEA have repeatedly asked the U.S. and UK for information about this, without success. Either the UK is refusing to comply with the UN weapons inspectors, or its claims are irrelevant.”

Almost two weeks before the war started, several foreign newspapers carried stories claiming the UK documents, that the statement is based on, were forgeries according to the United Nations. See Guardian Unlimited and Globe and Mail articles.

Administration finally admits statement should not have been made
Nearly four months after the war started, the White House finally admits statement should not have been used in the State of the Union Address taken from a British dossier. You might think Bush would blame it on the British, even though the British say they stand behind the dossier. Somehow Bush claims it’s the CIA’s fault. So does Condoleezza Rice, however, CIA Director George Tenet successfully intervened to remove that statement from the speech.

The statement is only a small fraction of the whole truth
If Sean Hannity is right, that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy in mainstream media, and that’s the reason they are bashing bush and calling him a liar, then why does the media not focus on the whole truth? It would be very easy to convince the American public that Bush should be impeached.

Here are a few points that need more attention:
- Gulf War II is illegal according to the United States Constitution and the United Nations Charter
- Plans for war with Iraq, North Korea, and Iran (axis of evil) was planned years ago and only needed a ‘Pearl Harbor’ type event to justify it all; according to PNAC
- America has never made a pre-emptive strike, until now
- The Administration has close ties to big corporations, and along with the UK, they are the only ones profiting from this war
- Both Russia and China are training for nuclear war against America. Both countries say they are doing so because they have learned from the way America handled Iraq
- The Iraqi people are not free, contrary to “Operation Iraqi Freedom”; the people now live in fear under martial law
- Iraqis were promised a government chosen by them, but has not yet happened
- The Administration says occupation will continue until new government is installed, however Tommy Franks has stated occupation could last another four years
- Iraqi citizens had more rights under dictator Saddam, including women’s rights and gun ownership
- In many locations phone lines are down, internet is down, there is no electricity, water is unfit for use, but oil is already back in production
- Iraq does not have vast stocks of chemical and biological weapons from the first Gulf War
- Saddam was never a threat to his neighbors or the United States
- If Saddam had Anthrax, Botulinum, or Gas Gangrene, it was because our government gave those chemicals to them in the late eighties
- The United States edited out more than 8000 crucial pages of Iraq’s 11,800-page dossier on weapons, before passing on a sanitised version to the 10 non-permanent members of the United Nations security council.
- Although many Americans believe we have actually found WMD, we have not found any; no banned weapons at all. Too many also believe that there is a link to Al-Qaeda
- Saddam never had ties to Al-Qaeda because they have been enemies for years
- There was never any justification for war and there definitely wasn’t any link to 9-11
- British evidence used was assembled by junior aides, copied from the internet, forged, plagerized (errors and all), and deliberately fabricated
- Of the nine main conclusions in the British government document “Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction”, not one has been shown to be conclusively true
- Many of these lies were revealed before the war