Well, it turns out that Iraq did have the makings of a nuclear weapon…

In fact, Iraq was sitting on a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium called "Yellow Cake" that can be refined into weapons grade material. It can also be added to conventional explosives to cause highly contaminated nuclear dirty bomb fallout.

President Bush knew, as soon as the war ended and the nuclear research facility at Tuwaitha was in U.S. hands, that 550 metric tons of uranium yellowcake had been found. That’s over a million pounds! While yellowcake is not a weapon of mass destruction itself, it is an ingredient that is used in producing WMDs.

Bush's dilemma was that if he had announced the existence of the yellowcake, it would immediately have become a major target for terrorists. Of course, he would have been personally and politically vindicated, but terrorists or Iran's operatives might have attacked the research facility and made off with the uranium.

While Bush was being horribly beaten up by the news media, he could have saved himself by simply telling the world that our forces were in possession of Iraq’s uranium yellowcake. Saddam may not have had an active WMD program, but he was in the process of developing one. And the fact is that the action taken by our forces prevented such a disastrous consequence.

It was not possible to just ship the yellowcake anywhere.  There had to be a secure place to send it that was accustomed to handling such highly dangerous nuclear material.

All this time President Bush kept the existence and the movement of the yellow cake secret. And he continued to silently suffer while being persistently and unmercifully thrashed by the news media and self-seeking politicians back in Washington. 

Finally, Cameco Corporation, a Canadian company, was willing to accept and to purchase the material. Next came the hard part. It had to be moved by military convoy -- all 3,550 barrels of nuclear yellow cake -- over terrorist infested and interdicted roads to Baghdad airport.  There it was put on 37 cargo plane flights and sent to Diego Garcia. Diego Garcia is a flyspeck of an Island -- plopped down in the Indian Ocean -- that is owned by the British and run by the U.S.  From there it was sent by ship to Montreal, Canada. 

Say what you will about President Bush, but don't say that he's not courageous or that he doesn't put the welfare of America first, far above all personal considerations. In my lifetime, no President, including Presidents Nixon and Clinton, has been more vilified than Bush by the news media and political opportunists. He could have spared himself much pain and public humiliation by simply speaking out and letting us know all he knew about what was found in Iraq. Putting his own interests first, however, is neither the nature nor the character of the man.

It took great personal courage to do what President Bush did and we should all be thankful that we have such a brave president.