Mohamed ElBaradei reported to the UN Security Council in March 2003:
• ❌ No evidence of reconstituted nuclear weapons programs
• ❌ No evidence of uranium procurement
• ❌ Niger yellowcake documents were forgeries
• ✔️ Iraq’s nuclear program remained dismantled
He specifically said Iraq was “not close” to acquiring a nuclear weapon.
• Inspectors detected trace residual radiation
• This radiation was:
Expected
Harmless
From Iraq’s pre-1991 nuclear program
It was found at known, declared sites that had been:
Bombed by Israel (Osirak reactor, 1981)
Dismantled under UN supervision in the 1990s
This was NOT evidence of:
• A secret program
• Restarted enrichment
• Weapons production
• Recent nuclear activity
Environmental sampling is so sensitive that it can detect:
• Decades-old uranium particles
• Residue from equipment long destroyed
The IAEA explicitly stated this radiation was legacy contamination.
• ✔️ Iraq had ~500 tons of yellowcake
• ✔️ It was removed after Saddam fell
• ❌ It was not evidence of a hidden or revived nuclear weapons program
• ❌ It does not validate pre-war intelligence claims
So the statement is true, but frequently used in a misleading way.
• This material dated back to the 1970s–1980s
• It was part of Iraq’s old, dismantled nuclear program
• It had been:
• Known to inspectors
• Declared
• Monitored
• Left over from before the 1991 Gulf War
It was not newly acquired, not hidden, and not evidence of a revived nuclear weapons effort.
