Iraq removes uranium left over from Saddam era

This was an interesting article that I found, it was published in July 2008:

Iraq's government has removed 550 tonnes of natural uranium left over from Saddam Hussein's era and sold it to a Canadian company, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. The uranium, called yellowcake, had been stored in a compound at Tuwaitha, south of Baghdad, which was once the centre of Saddam's nuclear weapons program. A U.S. embassy spokeswoman confirmed the U.S. military helped safely ship the uranium out of the country.

"The Iraqi government decided to get rid of the uranium, which amounted to 550 tonnes, because of its potentially harmful affects on Iraq and the region and because it causes pollution," Dabbagh said on Iraqiya state television late on Sunday. As far as the (nuclear) proliferation threat goes, natural uranium is not of direct use in a nuclear weapon," U.S. embassy spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said.

After reading this most people probably have no idea what a "tonne" is, so I did some research. 550 tonnes is 550,000 kg or 1,200,000 lbs. The "Little Boy," the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in WWII used only 64.1 kgs. I think that pretty much paints the picture. So the questions is: why wasn't this story heard in the mainstream media? Do you think Sadaam was just going to use yellowcake for energy or destruction?

I'm not trying to justify our invasion of Iraq with this post. We have obviously made some mistakes as far as intelligence and maybe even tactical errors. But I think this information is extremely relevant. Is it any justification at all? Who am I to say, but I suppose I'm just trying to find some sort or optimistic needle in the haystack.