🚀 go-pugleaf

This is not news. The Iraqis told the UN that's exactly what they were used
for. What is news is that the Moron in the White House still tried to use
this as an excuse to get almost 200 Americans killed.

"No One" <noone@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:6ryHa.3751$Ly2.708168@cletus.bright.net...
> http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/sept11/dailyUpdate.html
>
> The Observer reports that an official British government investigation
into
> two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ
> warfare labs, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery
> balloons.
>
> A British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the
> trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week: 'They are not mobile germ
> warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological
weapons.
> They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said
they
> were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.'
> http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,977853,00.html
>
> If the British government report is true, it would be enormously
> embarrassing for both US President George Bush and UK PM Tony Blair. The
LA
> Times reports that the argument that the trailers produce hydrogen for
> artillery balloons will embarrass the British authorities because
Britain's
> Marconi Command & Control sold the original to Iraq in 1988, when Britain
> and the US still supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But in response
to
> a question Monday in the Australian parliament about the mobile labs, PM
> John Howard continued to insist that US and British intelligence had
> concluded that the trailers were biological weapons facilities.
> http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/story/0,4386,194926,00.html
> http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/542p15b.htm
> http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/16/1055615721193.html
>
> [The Observer also reports that the British government sold similar
systems
> to Iraq in 1988 for making hydrogen and MSNBC reports that without
companion
> trailors the trailors in question are incapable of even producing WMD
> http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,973012,00.html
>
> The (CIA) report also notes that, in order to produce biological weapons,
> each trailer would have to be accompanied by a second and possibly a third
> trailer, specially designed to grow, process, sterilize, and dry the
> bacteria. Such trailers would "have equipment such as mixing tanks,
> centrifuges, and spray dryers"-none of which were spotted in the trailers
> that were found. The problem, the CIA acknowledges, is that "we have not
yet
> found" these post-production trailers. Question: Is it that they haven't
> been found-or that they don't exist?
> http://slate.msn.com/id/2083760/
>
> According to the New York Times there are no signs they were put to
> nefarious use:
> A technical assessment alone "would not lead you intuitively and logically
> to biological warfare," an official said of the trailers. Their gear was
> rusty, officials said, perhaps from sitting in the rain. And the mobile
> factories were poorly designed. For instance, one official noted, Iraqi
> biologists running the plants would have had a hard time getting raw
> materials into the production gear and removing multiplied colonies of
> deadly germs. "Relatively inefficient but ingenious" is how one analyst
> described the mobile factories.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/29/international/worldspecial/29LABS.html
>
> In Poland, President Bush stunned the world by declaring "We've found the
> weapons of mass destruction." only to clarify his statement by saying "You
> know, we found biological laboratories"
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57402-2003Jun13.html ]
>
> The Washington Post reports about the efforts of Task Force 20 to find
> weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The unit, whose existence and mission
> is classified, has been very busy; it captured Palestinian guerrilla
leader
> Mohammed Abbas in Baghdad in mid-April and the Iraqi scientists nicknamed
> Mrs. Anthrax and Dr. Germ; it prevented a catastrophic release of
> floodwaters from the Haditha Dam; and it retrieved Pfc. Jessica Lynch from
a
> hospital in Nasiriyah. But it didn't find any evidence of WMD, even before
> the war started.
>
> Sources with firsthand knowledge of its mission and personnel, and others
> with access to its reports, said the team has found no working
> nonconventional munitions, long-range missiles or missile parts, bulk
stores
> of chemical or biological warfare agents or enrichment technology for the
> core of a nuclear weapon.
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52505-2003Jun12.html
>
> A month after Mr. Bush proclaimed that the coalition had prevailed in its
> battle against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, the LA Times writes that
there
> still is no consensus over whether the threat was as great as described.
>
> A careful review of the evidence marshaled by the Bush administration and
> that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the months leading up to the
> war suggests that some of the claims were overstated, others have been
> proven wrong, and still others - particularly those involving Saddam's
human
> rights abuses against his own people - have been amply validated. But the
> charges that many found the most troubling, those involving Saddam's
alleged
> production of chemical and biological weapons, remain largely unsupported.
> http://www.thesunlink.com/redesign/2003-06-15/nationworld/177159.shtml
>
> Newsweek reports that Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee are
> seeking access to a closely held classified transcript that could resolve
a
> key question in the Iraq-war intelligence debate: whether the CIA misled
> Congress about documents purporting to show Hussein was trying to buy
> uranium from the African country of Niger. The LA Times reported Saturday
> the CIA has decided to reassign two senior officials who oversaw its
> analysis of Iraq and its suspected weapons of mass destruction.
> http://www.msnbc.com/news/926789.asp
>
> CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said Friday that the changes were routine and
that
> it is "absolutely wrong to think this is somehow punitive or negative or
> indicative of anything other than a normal rotation." ... But other
> intelligence sources offered a different account. "Two of the key players
on
> this problem have essentially been sent into deep exile," one agency
> officialsaid on the condition of anonymity. The official added that the
> changes seemed designed to show the administration that "we're being
> responsive to charges that we did not perform well."
>
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/orl-asecmintel14061403jun14,0,5940900.story?coll=orl-news-headlines
>
> The question of the importance of finding the WMD largely depends on who
you
> ask, especially in the US. Writing in the conservative Wall Street
Journal,
> deputy editorial page editor Daniel Henniger writes that we won't learn
> about Iraq's WMD until we know for certain that Hussein is gone. Only then
> will Iraqi scientists talk freely about the WMD program. He also says that
> those who argue that not finding WMD hurts the US's image around the world
> have missed the point.
>
> The proponents of this current thesis, that the war's basis has damaged US
> "credibility," are the same people who since 1991 have been willing to
move
> the goal posts constantly downfield for Saddam Hussein, a proven
> proliferator of WMD who should have been ousted when a premature
cease-fire
> was declared in February 1991, or anytime in 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 and in
> every month that he was up and running - until March 2003. Now he, and his
> WMD proliferation nightmare are gone. Good.
> http://www.chronwatch.com/featured/contentDisplay.asp?aid=3087
>
> Writing in the liberal Internet newsletter Counterpunch, however, Michael
> Leon says the Bush administration is increasingly desperate to find
evidence
> of WMD, as is evidenced by the "contortions" now made to defend Bush's
> stated case for war, "as they get sillier with each passing day." He
points
> specifically to a letter to the editor written by Victoria Clarke,
assistant
> secretary of defense for public affairs. Responding to a Times column by
> Paul Krugman ("Standard Operating Procedure," June 3, 2003, Clarke wrote:
> "Clearly, [Krugman] prefers placing his trust in Saddam Hussein rather
than
> in United States officials who acted in good faith on the best information
> available.... The threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
> destruction is a documented fact." Leon comments:
> http://www.counterpunch.org/leon06132003.html
>
> In other words if you do not believe Bush, you trust Saddam Hussein. And
> Bush did not lie because Bush did not lie, he acted in good faith, on the
> best information and a documented fact. I guess Clarke never had a decent
> sixth-grade English teacher to advise her that simply stating her
conclusion
> over and over is not an argument. Then again, repetition of message is
what
> passes for administration argument.
> http://www.iht.com/articles/98410.html
>
> The Voice of America reports that the lack of WMD is an issue that could
> serve Democratic presidential hopefuls in what may be a tough battle
against
> Bush in 2004. But as a recent Pew Research poll found that 58 percent of
> Americans surveyed believed the war in Iraq was justifiable without
finding
> mass weapons.
>
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=71B2053C-1487-43D0-B13A5EC6A62E320D
> http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=65
>
>
>