Month: July 2003

Scientists: Kansas is ‘considerably flatter than a pancake’. Nice to see scientists delving into the issues that really matter.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave with your eyes shut and your fingers stuck firmly in your ears, you’re probably aware that the heat has been turned on the Bush administration over a small, some might argue insignificant bit of the president’s annual State of the Union address. The 16 words in contention were “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

This is, at first glance, not that big a deal. After all, the British did issue a notification of this. In fact, even though Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, still maintains that he stands by this assessment, backed by a report that the Iraqi regime was seeking to obtain large quantities of uranium ore from Niger. That particular report has since been the subject of much speculation as being ‘suspect’, but then the SotU address was given back in January.

For those wondering what yellowcake is and what it has to do with the whole story, well, it’s a concentrated form of uranium ore in powder form and which is typically yellow in color. Uranium ore in this form is generally (read: almost always) processed into nuclear fuel for energy production use, although it is possible to concentrate the uranium into a weapons grade. Civilian energy-grade uranium is made of ore containing around 4% of Uranium-235; military energy-grade uranium runs anywhere from 25-45% U235, and weapons-grade is at least 90% pure U235. Looked at this way, it’s a long, long road from nuclear reactor material to bomb agent. Source: Texas Radiation Online.

Geeky stuff aside, there was also a rumor of Iraq importing aluminum tubes which could be used in centrifuges in order to enrich uranium. This came out late last year. That rumor could not be substantiated — Iraq was indeed buying the tubes, but most likely there were other military uses for them.

Taken together those two stories could easily be seen as consistent with the assessment that Saddam was, in fact, attempting to bone up on nukes and other forbidden munitions. That impression was reinforced by Saddam’s being less than forthcoming with UN weapons inspectors, something Hans Blix did not fail to mention as recently as February.

So the evidence is really not as black and white as the administration’s opponents would have people believe. I have big issues with the administration’s political opponents on the issue. Whereas there was nary in a voice in Washington who would have denied Iraq’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) back in March, it now seems that all Democrats with a committee chair now ‘knew all along’ that Iraq had no such weapons. Heck, Senator John Kerry of Massachussets now can’t even remember whether he supported the war or not! In the age of the web that’s not really a prudent political move, but somehow waffling has come back in vogue in Washington.

Not that Kerry is the only one waffling here, and that’s the problem that really prevents me from letting the Administration get away with it. If I recall correctly, one of Bush’s ‘strengths’ in the 2000 election was that he was a Washington outsider (ok, ok, how can the son of a President be a Washington outsider?) who was plain spoken and shot from the hip. Well, excuse me if I should be picky on this, but has this Administration’s reponse to the allegations concerning the ‘yellowcake’ report been fortright in any way? Is the President and his posse managing to turn a very banal and (frankly) reasonable phrase into a Watergate-sized sinkhole?

To wit — when the press really started asking about the Niger allegations, Bush’s response was that the CIA had approved the report. Well, the CIA had in fact approved the report; however the apparent instinct of the president to shift the responsibility for the inclusion of the report to George Tenet doesn’t look good, especially when it would have been much easier for GWB to say that he himself stood by the report. Tony Blair may be taking some heat for doing just that, but I don’t think anyone is accusing the British PM of being shifty about it.

Bush’s hesitation in this is also troubling in this repect — did he actually believe that report, or merely see it as politically expedient to have it included in the SotU speech? was the decision to include mention of the report in the speech something he was responsible or even competent to make? Yes, the President is the chief executive officer for the country and must deal with a fairly large number of things on a daily basis, but wouldn’t that sort of evidence be something he would, or should, have been keenly interested in? And as such, should he not feel confident in saying that he personally believed the report to be accurate?

And what of the CIA director’s role in this? He is even harder to track than Bill Clinton facing a question of adultery. Last week he was taking responsibility for the reference found in the speech… at first. When facing Congress the plot seemed to thicken. Suddenly he wasn’t so confident in the report anymore; there was White House pressure on the subject; eventually it became “These 16 words should never have been included” despite the fact that those 16 words are actually still true. Not only did that pronouncement cast a shadow over the justification for a war that is proving costly in many respects, it was also a rather impolitic snub of the British Prime Minister. Will the real George Tenet please stand up?

All these things don’t amount to much, and that’s precisely the issue at hand. We’re not dealing with a President made of subtleties here, and I for one find myself at a loss in trying to come up with a reason why a simple statement of fact should have snowballed into so much. In any case the next few weeks should at least offer a glimpse into a presidency which seems to be increasingly frazzled over something which certainly doesn’t appear to warrant such consequences.

Tired of being short? Try kimi! Sadly, this wonderful new technology does not appear to help one’s grammar.

Joe Biden, co-author of the RAVE act, is now astonished that the law is being used to eliminate free speech. Maybe the dumbass should have thought about that BEFORE sponsoring the bill.

Tired of products that don’t deliver? Try NaDa! It’s light, fast, and promises to do absolutely nothing.

In an attempt to keep her sofa dry, dumbass causes 24-car pileup. Unfortunately escapes accident unhurt.

The google ads are up, but for some reason they point to Apple sites despite the content on the page being completely unrelated… and that’s been the case for a few days. Very strange. Even weirder is the plethora of ads for some sort of a “Baycol lawsuit” on the articles page, even though I don’t have any articles about that.

Oh well, growing pains, I expect.

The British defence analyst reputed to be the source behind the ‘sexed up allegations’ story has been murdered. The plot thickens.

How do you make testing a UPS an interesting experience? Let The Inquirer show you.

Bush’s pick for the federal bench is obsessed with the death penalty. Bring us your young, your retarded, your underrepresented, and he’ll gas ’em. Looks like one guy who takes the motto ‘live free or die’ a little too literally in these days of DMCA and PATRIOT.