Can the US take 550 tons of nuclear bomb making material from Iraq if there wasn't any there to begin with?

Question

How does that happen? They said there were no WMDs! Or was Sadaam confused and thought that the "yellowcake" was for a Duncan Heinz recipe? I guess if you have 550 tons of nuclear bomb making material, you plan on flying kites and playing soccer games...right?

Answer 1

You do not say what caused you to believe this, so it is difficult to respond.

This having been said, if you refer to the "yellow cake" recently found in Iraq it is NOT weapons grade.

Answer 2

Yellowcake is not "WMDs."  No one that I know of ever, ever, ever said that Saddam did not, at any time, have WMDs.  Neither did anyone claim that Saddam did not have the capability or the desire to develop nuclear weapons.  Of course he did; that wasn't the issue.  The issue was whether or not Saddam had huge stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons and an active nuclear program when the US invaded.  Both of those things turned out to be untrue, as Bush himself admitted in 2004 (see links).  The stockpiles did not exist, and the nuclear program was "decayed."

This store of yellowcake was not just recently discovered, and has in fact been known for some time.  If this was an example of WMDs, then why hasn't the Bush administration trumpeted that fact?  It's time for those of you who still insist that the WMDs were there, despite the statements of the Bush administration itself, to give it a rest.