One minor quibble. While I agree that the homicidal dictator wanted weapons grade U-235, what was being sought in Africa was yellowcake: natural uranium which is aproximately 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235. A weapon requires uranium that is at least 20% U-235 — practically speaking we’re talking about an enrichment in the high 90% range in order to build a “device”.

I agree that the whole Wilson-Plame farrago shows there were reasons for skepticism and that most of the established media failed in their responsibility to be “fair and balanced”. But, the uranium story needs to be put into perspective. It is so difficult to enrich uranium to weapons grade that having natural uranium or trying to acquire it is of very, very minor import. Of much greater concern would be things like VX precursors or (shudder) VX itself. There’s still 1000 tons of VX unaccounted for, if Blix was to be believed — and we all know that Blix is a paragon of honesty.

Our legitimate concerns about Iran’s weapons program are not centered around the fact that the Iranians have uranium, rather the fact that the Iranians are building hardened facilities for centrifuge enrichment.

Regards,

paul hager (candidate, Indiana House of Reps)