[thunderous_funker]

Published in the May/June issue of the Columbia Journalism Review
The Lies We Bought
The Unchallenged "Evidence" For War

by John R. MacArthur

Shortly before American military forces invaded Iraq, a troubled Ellen Goodman raised a singularly important question about the Bush administration’s propaganda campaign for war — “How we got from there to here.”

There, according to Goodman, was innocent 9/11 victimhood at the hands of religious fanatics; here, was bullying superpower bent on destroying a secular dictator. I assumed that someone as astute as Goodman would reveal at least part of the answer — that the American media provided free transportation to get the White House from there to here. But nowhere in her nationally syndicated column did she state the obvious — that the success of “Bush’s PR War” (the headline on the piece) was largely dependent on a compliant press that uncritically repeated almost every fraudulent administration claim about the threat posed to America by Saddam Hussein.

Late as she was, Goodman was better than most in even recognizing that there was a disinformation campaign aimed at the people and Congress. Just a few columnists seriously challenged the White House advertising assault. Looking back over the debris of half-truths and lies, I can’t help but ask my own question of Goodman: Where was she — indeed, where was the American press — on September 7, 2002, a day when we were sorely in need of reporters?

It was then that the White House propaganda drive began in earnest, with the appearance before television cameras of George Bush and Tony Blair at Camp David. Between them, the two politicians cited a “new” report from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency that allegedly stated that Iraq was “six months away” from building a nuclear weapon. “I don’t know what more evidence we need,” declared the president.

For public relations purposes, it hardly mattered that no such IAEA report existed, because almost no one in the media bothered to check out the story. (In the twenty-first paragraph of her story on the press conference, The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung did quote an IAEA spokesman saying, in DeYoung’s words, “that the agency has issued no new report,” but she didn’t confront the White House with this terribly interesting fact.) What mattered was the unencumbered rollout of a commercial for war — the one that the White House chief of staff and former General Motors executive Andrew Card had famously withheld earlier in the summer: “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.”

Millions of people saw Bush tieless, casually inarticulate, but determined-looking and self-confident, making a completely uncorroborated (and, at that point, uncontradicted) case for preemptive war. While we contemplate the irony of Bush quoting a UN weapons inspection agency that he would later dismiss, we might ask ourselves why no more evidence was needed than the president’s say-so — and why no reporters asked for any.

But the next day, more “evidence” suddenly appeared, on the front page of the Sunday New York Times. In a disgraceful piece of stenography, Michael Gordon and Judith Miller inflated an administration leak into something resembling imminent Armageddon: “More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, Bush administration officials said today.”

The key to this A-bomb program was the attempted purchase of “specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium.” Mysteriously, none of those tubes had reached Iraq, but “American officials” wouldn’t say why, “citing the sensitivity of the intelligence.”

Gordon and Miller were mostly careful to attribute their information to anonymous “administration officials,” but at one point they couldn’t restrain themselves and crossed the line into commentary. After nodding to administration “critics” who favored containment of Hussein, they wrote this astonishing paragraph:

“Still, Mr. Hussein’s dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq’s push to improve and expand Baghdad’s chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war.”

That Sunday, Card’s new-product introduction moved into high gear when Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to brandish Saddam’s supposed nuclear threat. Prompted by a helpful Tim Russert, Cheney cited the aluminum tubes story in that morning’s New York Times — a story leaked by Cheney’s White House colleagues. Russert: “Aluminum tubes.” Cheney: “Specifically aluminum tubes.” This gave the “six months away” canard a certain ring of independent confirmation: “There’s a story in The New York Times this morning,” said Cheney. “And I want to attribute the Times.”

Does it matter that, in the months that followed, aluminum tubes as weapons of mass destruction were discredited time and again? Does it matter that the former U.S. weapons inspector David Albright (not the usual suspect Scott Ritter) told 60 Minutes, in an interview broadcast on December 8 (a program in which I participated) that “people who understood gas centrifuges almost uniformly felt that these tubes were not specific to gas centrifuge” for production of enriched uranium — that the administration was “selectively picking information to bolster a case that the Iraqi nuclear threat was more imminent than it is, and in essence, scare people”? Will the Times ever publish a clarification (à la Wen Ho Lee) based on IAEA chief Mohammed el-Baradei’s January 9 and March 7 reports insisting that there was “no evidence” that the 81 mm tubes were intended for anything other than conventional rocket production?

As for the “defectors” with special knowledge of Saddam’s elusive chemical weapons stockpile, did Miller and Gordon — did anyone in the mainstream U.S. press — take proper note of Newsweek’s exclusive on March 3? In it, John Barry reported that Iraq’s most important defector, Hussein Kamel, who had run Saddam’s nuclear and biological weapons program, told the CIA and UN weapons inspectors in the summer of 1995 “that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.”

And what of Saddam’s overall nuclear procurement program? When el-Baradei told the UN Security Council on March 7 that supporting documents of alleged attempts to buy uranium from Niger were forged, no clarification of the Gordon-Miller report appeared in the Grey Lady. Perhaps Times people still believed their own scare story from all those months before: “Hard-liners are alarmed that American intelligence underestimated the pace and scale of Iraq’s nuclear program before Baghdad’s defeat in the gulf war,” the September 8 piece reported. “The first sign of a ‘smoking gun,’ they argue, may be a mushroom cloud.”

The few corrections and refutations of the White House line were too little and too late for American democracy. Enterprising reporting was needed from the moment of the Bush-Blair p.r. gambit to October 10, the day Congress abdicated its war-making power to the president. During that crucial period, I was able to find only one newspaper story that straightforwardly countered the White House nuclear threat propaganda; it appeared, of all places, in the right-wing, Sun Myung Moon-owned Washington Times. On September 27, a very competent piece by Joseph Curl (unfortunately buried on page 16) pointed out not only that there was no “new report” by the IAEA saying Saddam was six months away from the A-bomb, but also that the agency had never issued a report predicting any time frame. Indeed, when IAEA inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998, spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told Curl, “We had concluded that we had neutralized their nuclear-weapons program. We had confiscated their fissile material. We had destroyed all their key buildings and equipment.”

The American media failed the country badly these past eight months. As journalists, what can we do about it? Perhaps we need to adopt the rapid-response techniques used in public relations, something akin to James Carville’s and George Stephanopoulos’s famous “War Room” ethos: never leave an accusation unanswered before the end of a news cycle.

Unfortunately, the politicians and their p.r. people know all too well the propaganda dictum related nearly twenty years ago by Peter Teeley, press secretary to then Vice President George H.W. Bush. Teeley was responding to complaints that the elder Bush, during a televised debate, had grossly distorted the words of his and Ronald Reagan’s opponents, the Democratic candidates Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. As Teeley explained it to The New York Times in October 1984, “You can say anything you want during a debate, and 80 million people hear it.” If “anything” turns out to be false and journalists correct it, “So what. Maybe 200 people read it, or 2,000 or 20,000.”
--------------

Ah, the so-called "liberal" media. Especially the NYT.

If you're wondering why a new thread about the disinformation scandal, I consider this attention to the role of the media and the "free" press to be perhaps more important in the long run.

The watchdog of democracy has all but lost it's teeth.

[MacGorilla]

Excellent writing.

[Hugi]

Wow, it seems like such a long time since we heard excuse #1 of #n for invading Iraq...

[Nicko]

I have no doubt that academics will be studying the propaganda used to justify this war for decades to come.

[zigzag]

Unfortunately, it makes little difference. The NYT could have disputed the administration's claims on page 1 and most of the public public still would've ignored it, or dismissed it as a partisan smear campaign. In the end, people mostly believe what they want to believe. Politicians depend on it.

[Lerkfish]

-

[vmpaul]

Nice piece.

I LOVE that this starting to get more attention. I was getting worried there because they kept saying the country didn't care. Maybe they don't but questions are being asked now.

Can it last until the campaign starts next year?

[Lerkfish]

-

[spacefreak]

I haven't heard any official throw up their arms and say "there's no weapons here...we searched everywhere."

This rush to judgement is ridiculous. It's only week 6 of the search.

[Lerkfish]

-

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
Irrelevant to the topic.

The topic is how the bush administration may have manipulated or misrepresented the truth, and how the media rolled over and allowed it to happen. Please do try to stay on topic.

For every so-called expert who, for example, claims that the aluminum tubes cannot be used to enrich uranium, their is another, equally qualified expert who cays that they can be used for that purpose.

My point is that, ultimately, it will be the accumulation of physical and documentation findings in Iraq that determine.

And as for Bush's IAEA misquote, this passage from this article explains the episode a little more in depth...

Another Bush statement that Milbank labeled "dubious, if not wrong" was something the president said last September during a news conference with British prime minister Tony Blair. The president "cited a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] saying the Iraqis were 'six months away from developing a weapon,'" Milbank wrote. But Milbank said the IAEA report, which was issued in 1998, "made no such assertion."

In response, the White House argued that the president had simply misspoken. "It was in fact the International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS] that issued the report concluding that Iraq could develop nuclear weapons in as few as six months," Fleischer wrote. "The source may be different, but the underlying fact remains the same." And in fact, the IISS had finished a report, which was released the Monday after Bush's Saturday statement, which said Iraq could "assemble nuclear weapons within months if fissile material from foreign sources were obtained."

And even the IAEA report cited by Milbank was far less conclusive than he implied. The Post quoted a portion of the report that said the IAEA "has found no indication of Iraq having achieved its program goal of producing nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the production of weapon-usable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material." But Milbank did not quote the next portion of the report, which began, "At the same time, the IAEA points out the limitations inherent in a countrywide verification process and consequently its inability to guarantee that all readily concealable items have been found." The IAEA said that inspectors were not allowed to visit new weapons sites, and as a result, "the level of assurance the IAEA can give that prohibited activities are not taking place in Iraq is significantly reduced."

I'll make sure to post the artcile in its entirety, since that seems to be the big trend here these days.

[moki]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
In it, John Barry reported that Iraq?s most important defector, Hussein Kamel, who had run Saddam?s nuclear and biological weapons program, told the CIA and UN weapons inspectors in the summer of 1995 ?that after the gulf war, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them.?

Alas, this statement has proven to be untrue. There have been numerous cases of WMD equipment and chem/bio agents being actively hidden, and once uncovered, destroyed -- as recently as March 2003.

[Logic]

Originally posted by moki:
Alas, this statement has proven to be untrue. There have been numerous cases of WMD equipment and chem/bio agents being actively hidden, and once uncovered, destroyed -- as recently as March 2003.

Could you refresh my memory? Or are you talking about the Al-Samoud missiles?

[moki]

Originally posted by Logic:
Could you refresh my memory? Or are you talking about the Al-Samoud missiles?

He stated that Iraq after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all it's chemical and biological stocks, and the means to deliver them (stated in 1995). One look a the UNSCOM reports clearly shows that weapon stocks have been found and destroyed by inspectors well after the end of the Gulf War.

The implication in his statements is that after the Gulf War, there was nothing left of Iraq's WMD stockpiles. This is blatantly untrue.

Check out the excerpts from the various reports from Mr. Blix I've posted in a number of topics here. WMD have been being destroyed as recently as March 2003, and many questions remain.

[chris v]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
[B]


And as for Bush's IAEA misquote, this passage from this article explains the episode a little more in depth...[b]

quote:
In response, the White House argued that the president had simply misspoken. "It was in fact the International Institute for Strategic Studies [IISS] that issued the report concluding that Iraq could develop nuclear weapons in as few as six months," Fleischer wrote. "The source may be different, but the underlying fact remains the same." And in fact, the IISS had finished a report, which was released the Monday after Bush's Saturday statement, which said Iraq could "assemble nuclear weapons within months if fissile material from foreign sources were obtained."

Mis-spoken, on an issue of this magnitude? He decided to omit the "If fissile materials were obtained" part for the sake of brevity and clarity, I guess.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of being "mis-spoken" to by my president.

CV

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by chris v:
I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of being "mis-spoken" to by my president.

CV

Damn! Another consistent Bush opponant opposing Bush. If more non-Bush voters continue to oppose Bush at this rate, nothing may change and he may be reelected.

[chris v]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Damn! Another consistent Bush opponant opposing Bush. If more non-Bush voters continue to oppose Bush at this rate, nothing may change and he may be reelected.

Thank you. Thankyouverrrymuch.

I didn't like being lied to by Clinton, either.

I'll be out on the streets working for Dennis Kucinich campaign through the primaries, then after that, we'll see if we've got a Democrat worth working for. The Greens are considering not fielding a national cadidate, and throwing their <sarcasm> whopping 2% </sarcasm> behind the dems (the difference in Gore losing, if you ask some of the sour-grapes centrists in the DNC) and I will be vocally supporting this idea amongst my local Greens.

I *just might* if I work hard, be able to change more than one vote.

</idealism>

I'm sure you'll be working equally as hard to counteract my every move, wherever you live. That's your constitutional right, and I wish you well in your endeavors.

CV

[boots]

I guess niether side has a monopoloy on hyperbole...

[Lerkfish]

-

[Troll]

Originally posted by moki:
He stated that Iraq after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all it's chemical and biological stocks, and the means to deliver them (stated in 1995). One look a the UNSCOM reports clearly shows that weapon stocks have been found and destroyed by inspectors well after the end of the Gulf War.

The implication in his statements is that after the Gulf War, there was nothing left of Iraq's WMD stockpiles. This is blatantly untrue.

Check out the excerpts from the various reports from Mr. Blix I've posted in a number of topics here. WMD have been being destroyed as recently as March 2003, and many questions remain.

I think you really need to go and read some of those UNSCOM reports, Moki. You keep saying or implying that UNSCOM and UNMOVIC knew that Iraq had WMD after 1997. I have just seen Blix on TV categorically deny that (BBC World interview). They had unanswered questions; they didn't know about any further WMD or destroy any WMD after 1997 ... except for some stuff they destroyed in February which they had marked for destruction in 1997 and was still there with the tags on it when they came back in 2003. Oh and of course the Al Samouds and those empty shells they found.

Read the post I just made in the Wolfowitz thread.

[Troll]

Compulsory watch, the BBC World interview I talked about.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/audio/39...lix07_blix.ram

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by chris v:
quote:Mis-spoken, on an issue of this magnitude? He decided to omit the "If fissile materials were obtained" part for the sake of brevity and clarity, I guess.

That's the best rebut you can come up with?

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
That's the best rebut you can come up with?

If you think its weak, then its a lob, and in your court. you gonna return it over the net or sit on your duff and complain?

[chris v]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
That's the best rebut you can come up with?

Do I need a better one? I don't think he "misspoke." I think he intentionally omitted mitigating evidence.

If he had said "They just might be trying to obtain equipment with which they could possibly build a nuclear bomb, that is, if they can find a way to illegally obtain enriched uranium in sufficient quantities on the black market, which we have no evidence of them actually trying to do," it wouldn't have had quite the same impact. He tailored his statement quite carefully. It's the notion that he "misspoke" that I take objection to.

CV

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
Damn! Another consistent Bush opponant opposing Bush. If more non-Bush voters continue to oppose Bush at this rate, nothing may change and he may be reelected.

Yeah , basically nothing has changed.

It's always the SAME ones.

I know when Bush is doing good, these same ones get more rabid.

[moki]

Originally posted by Troll:
I think you really need to go and read some of those UNSCOM reports, Moki. You keep saying or implying that UNSCOM and UNMOVIC knew that Iraq had WMD after 1997.

First of all, the statement of contention is whether Iraq destroyed all of their chemical, biological, and ballistic missile stockpiles after the end of the Gulf War, as this article says.

They clearly did not. Even in March 2003, the inspectors were finishing the destruction of small amounts of mustard gas. This was stated in the UNMOVIC report I quoted in another thread.

Looking at the UNSCOM summary where Iraq didn't even admit to a bio program until late 1995, and they actively sought to hide it, makes it clear again that his statement about Iraq destroying all stocks of WMD at the end of the Gulf War is untrue.

[moki]

Originally posted by Troll:
I think you really need to go and read some of those UNSCOM reports, Moki. You keep saying or implying that UNSCOM and UNMOVIC knew that Iraq had WMD after 1997. I have just seen Blix on TV categorically deny that (BBC World interview). They had unanswered questions; they didn't know about any further WMD or destroy any WMD after 1997 ... except for some stuff they destroyed in February which they had marked for destruction in 1997 and was still there with the tags on it when they came back in 2003. Oh and of course the Al Samouds and those empty shells they found..

Again, you are arguing something else. I am pointing out that the statements made in this article are false. Iraq did not destroy all chemical, biological, and ballistic missile stockpiles at the end of the Gulf War, as is contended here.

It's a matter of record.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by moki:
Again, you are arguing something else. I am pointing out that the statements made in this article are false. Iraq did not destroy all chemical, biological, and ballistic missile stockpiles at the end of the Gulf War, as is contended here.

It's a matter of record.

Which is beyond the scope of the criticism presented in the editorial. We are talkinig about the selective use of Kamel's testimony.

They quoted him on all the bad stuff Iraq had and then omitted the part of his testimoney where he said they had destroyed it.

Bush, Blair, Cheney and Powell all quoted Kamel's testimonry liberally to demonstrate the threat presented by Iraq but conveniently omitted the fact that Kamel said those things no longer existed.

If the NYT and Guardian are going to get blasted for the Dowdification of quotes, why is it wrong for us to point out when the administration does the same?

One sells papers. The other starts wars. I'll leave it to you to decide which bothers you more.

Regardless. I didn't intend this thread to be about the evidence itself, but about how the media played the roll of megaphone--relaying every bit of "evidence" without question. Now it's convenient for them to scream "scandal" and that we were lied to.

Have we already forgotten who it was that broadcast those lies without questioning them?

[moki]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
They quoted him on all the bad stuff Iraq had and then omitted the part of his testimoney where he said they had destroyed it.

Yeah, okay, but that doesn't change the fact that after the Gulf War, all of the WMD we indeed NOT destroyed.

I'm merely pointing out that in an article that intends to show all of the "lies" that we were sold, there are also factual errors.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
... its a lob, and in your court. you gonna return it over the net or sit on your duff and complain?

The ball landed way left.

Game, set, match. (standing ovation)

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by moki:
Yeah, okay, but that doesn't change the fact that after the Gulf War, all of the WMD we indeed NOT destroyed.

I'm merely pointing out that in an article that intends to show all of the "lies" that we were sold, there are also factual errors.

I see your point, but it's the matter of the "facts" presented. I never once heard an administration official say, "Kamel says all this stuff was destroyed. Here is the evidence that supports that. Here is the evidence that suggests otherwise."

No. All we heard is "this guy built them and he admits they have tons and tons of it, hurry hurry hurry before they kill us all!!!!"

And how do we trust a media that trumpeted every allegation like it was Divine Revelation until after the thousands are dead and the billions are spent. Now suddenly they have an attack of skepticism and investigative curiousity?

How do we as a nation protect ourselves when we obviously can no longer depend on the traditional watchdog?

[Troll]

Originally posted by moki:
Again, you are arguing something else. I am pointing out that the statements made in this article are false. Iraq did not destroy all chemical, biological, and ballistic missile stockpiles at the end of the Gulf War, as is contended here.

It's a matter of record.

Okay, okay, on the actual date that the Gulf War ended, you're correct. They destroyed the bulk in 1991 but it took them until 1998 to destroy the rest. The only stuff destroyed in February was stuff marked for destruction in 1998 that UNSCOM never got around to destroying.

[Troll]

BBC video has moved. Highlights of the interview are now here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/video/39...blixint_vi.ram

[moki]

Originally posted by Troll:
Okay, okay, on the actual date that the Gulf War ended, you're correct. They destroyed the bulk in 1991 but it took them until 1998 to destroy the rest. The only stuff destroyed in February was stuff marked for destruction in 1998 that UNSCOM never got around to destroying.

Yes. But what is printed in the article that claims to debunk "lies" is incorrect, and guilty of the same disingenuineness that they are decrying.

Anyway, you're right that they haven't found any WMD stockpiles since, but there is a "strong presumption" (Mr. Blix's words) that it is still there.

It isn't as if the Bush administration is alone in thinking this.

[Troll]

From Blix's 5 June report to the Security Council:

"the Commission has not at any time during the inspections in Iraq found evidence of the continuation or resumption of programmes of weapons of mass destruction or significant quantities of proscribed items whether from pre-1991 or later. I leave aside the Al Samoud 2 missile system, which we concluded was proscribed.

As I have noted before, this does not necessarily mean that such items could not exist. They might - there remain long lists of items unaccounted for - but it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for. "

[AutoJC]

Bush's fundamental mistake was pitching to the world community anything other than the need for America to strike back at its enemies in its defense.

Iraq is a major sponsor of world terrorism. We seldom heard this pitch.

Bush and his pragmatists felt it was easier to convince the world community that Saddam's threat was not in sponsoring terrorism but in concealing WMD- thereby corrupting a justification for going after Iraq.

After 9-11 we needed true leadership, not Bush's appeasement plan. It took too long for him to react to the treat of al Qaeda. That's why they're still a threat. So he raised a case in Iraq and spent a whole year pitching it.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Lerkfish:
Simey, the problem is this: we criticize a politician, and you attack the poster personally. Do you not see a difference?
Who's being the biggest @ss in that scenario?
If you object to our objections, then by all means address them. But this ad hominem attempt to derail intelligent conversation is tedious and says more about you than the issue.

Do you have a sense of humor? No, I didn't think so.

Next time, observe the "" It's there for a reason.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by chris v:
I'm sure you'll be working equally as hard to counteract my every move, wherever you live.

I doubt it. Too busy.

[chris v]

Originally posted by SimeyTheLimey:
I doubt it. Too busy.

Cool! Point Chris!



CV

[undotwa]

I myself am feeling quite betrayed by my government.

I gave them the benefit of my doubt. If they don't provide some solid proof that they were telling the truth, well, it will affect them very badly politically next election.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by undotwa:
I myself am feeling quite betrayed by my government.

I gave them the benefit of my doubt. If they don't provide some solid proof that they were telling the truth, well, it will affect them very badly politically next election.

Ahem It wasn't up to the US to provide the Proof. That was up to Iraq. Be upset at them for not complying. You know, what got them in trouble.

I find it funny that people would rather blame this administration than whos really at fault. It tells me a lot.

[Nicko]

I don't know if this article has been posted yet .... anyway, it talks about how those so called portable WMD labs, well propbably aren't:

-----------

Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use
Sat Jun 7, 8:58 AM ET

By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD The New York Times

American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq (news - web sites) were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

"Everyone has wanted to find the 'smoking gun' so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion," said one intelligence expert who has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He added, "I am very upset with the process."

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a white paper last week, it publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.

Now, intelligence analysts stationed in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the administration's conclusions in what appears to be a bitter debate within the intelligence community. Skeptics said their initial judgments of a weapon application for the trailers had faltered as new evidence came to light.

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites), said the dissenters "are entitled to their opinion, of course, but we stand behind the assertions in the white paper."

In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said.

In effect, early conclusions by agents on the ground that the trailers were indeed mobile units to produce germs for weapons have since been challenged.

"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political." This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for use as a weapon.

Finally, they said, the trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

Senior intelligence officials in Washington rebutted the skeptics, saying, for instance, that the Iraqis might have obtained the needed steam for sterilization from a separate supply truck.

The skeptics noted further that the mobile plants had a means of easily extracting gas. Iraqi scientists have said the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. While the white paper dismisses that as a cover story, some analysts see the Iraqi explanation as potentially credible.

A senior administration official conceded that "some analysts give the hydrogen claim more credence." But he asserted that the majority still linked the Iraqi trailers to germ weapons.

The depth of dissent is hard to gauge. Even if it turns out to be a minority view, which seems likely, the skepticism is significant given the image of consensus that Washington has projected and the political reliance the administration has come to place on the mobile units. At the recent summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Bush (news - web sites) cited the trailers as evidence of illegal Iraqi arms.

Critics seem likely to cite the internal dispute as further reason for an independent evaluation of the Iraqi trailers. Since the war's end, the White House has come under heavy political pressure because American soldiers have found no unconventional arms, a main rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) of Britain, who also used Iraqi illicit weapons as a chief justification of the war, has been repeatedly attacked on this question in Parliament and outside it.

Experts described the debate as intense despite the American intelligence agencies' release last week of the nuanced, carefully qualified white paper concluding that the mobile units were most likely part of Iraq's biowarfare program. It was posted May 28 on the Internet at www.cia (news - web sites).gov.

"We are in full agreement on it," an official said of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency at a briefing on the white paper.

The six-page report, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants," called discovery of the trailers "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."

A senior administration official said the White House had not put pressure on the intelligence community in any way on the content of its white paper, or on the timing of its release.

In interviews, the intelligence analysts disputing its conclusions focused on the lack of steam sterilization gear for the central processing tank, which the white paper calls a fermenter for germ multiplication.

In theory, the dissenting analysts added, the Iraqis could have sterilized the tank with harsh chemicals rather than steam. But they said that would require a heavy wash afterward with sterile water to remove any chemical residue - a feat judged difficult for a mobile unit presumably situated somewhere in the Iraqi desert.

William C. Patrick III, a senior official in the germ warfare program that Washington renounced in 1969, said the lack of steam sterilization had caused him to question the germ-plant theory that he had once tentatively endorsed. "That's a huge minus," he said. "I don't see how you can clean those tanks chemically."

Three senior intelligence officials in Washington, responding to the criticisms during a group interview on Tuesday, said the Iraqis could have used a separate mobile unit to supply steam to the trailer. Some Iraqi decontamination units, they said, have such steam generators.

The officials also said some types of chemical sterilization were feasible without drastic follow-up actions.

Finally, they proposed that the Iraqis might have engineered anthrax or other killer germs for immunity to antibiotics, and then riddled germ food in the trailers with such potent drugs. That, they said, would be a clever way to grow lethal bacteria and selectively decontaminate the equipment at the same time - though the officials conceded that they had no evidence the Iraqis had used such advanced techniques.

On the second issue, the officials disputed the claim that the mobile units could make only small amounts of germ-laden liquids. If the trailers brewed up germs in high concentrations, they said, every month one truck could make enough raw material to fill five R-400 bombs.

Finally, the officials countered the claim that the trailers had no easy way for technicians to drain germ concoctions from the processing tank. The fluids could go down a pipe at its bottom, they said. While the pipe is small in diameter - too small to work effectively, some analysts hold - the officials said high pressure from an air compressor on the trailer could force the tank to drain in 10 or 20 minutes.

A senior official said "we've considered these objections" and dismissed them as having no bearing on the overall conclusions of the white paper. He added that Iraq, which declared several classes of mobile vehicles to the United Nations (news - web sites), never said anything about hydrogen factories.

Some doubters noted that the intelligence community was still scrambling to analyze the trailers, suggesting that the white paper may have been premature. They said laboratories in the Middle East and the United States were now analyzing more than 100 samples from the trailers to verify the intelligence findings. Allied forces, they noted, have so far failed to find any of the envisioned support vehicles that the trailers would need to produce biological weapons.

One skeptic questioned the practicality of some of the conjectural steps the Iraqis are envisioned as having taken to adapt the trailers to the job of making deadly germs.

"It's not built and designed as a standard fermenter," he said of the central tank. "Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that's true of any tin can."

[Zimphire]

So out of three groups, SOME of the 3rd group doesn't agree. So the majority of the experts think it was used. Funny, how they went into detail about the small percentages that didn't agree, and didn't really go into detail as to why the people who DID agree it was being used as such came to that conclusion.

When you hear both sides of the story, you usually can call it a unbiased article.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Ahem It wasn't up to the US to provide the Proof. That was up to Iraq. Be upset at them for not complying. You know, what got them in trouble.

I find it funny that people would rather blame this administration than whos really at fault. It tells me a lot.

You do not understand.

I'm perfectly aware that Iraq failed to provide the evidence of destroying the weapons. However, the US/Australian/British government sold this war to me on the matter that they have or are developing weapon grade chemicals and/or uranium.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Nicko:
I don't know if this article has been posted yet .... anyway, it talks about how those so called portable WMD labs, well propbably aren't:

-----------

Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use
Sat Jun 7, 8:58 AM ET

By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD The New York Times

American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq (news - web sites) were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

"Everyone has wanted to find the 'smoking gun' so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion," said one intelligence expert who has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He added, "I am very upset with the process."

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a white paper last week, it publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.

Now, intelligence analysts stationed in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the administration's conclusions in what appears to be a bitter debate within the intelligence community. Skeptics said their initial judgments of a weapon application for the trailers had faltered as new evidence came to light.

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites), said the dissenters "are entitled to their opinion, of course, but we stand behind the assertions in the white paper."

In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said.

In effect, early conclusions by agents on the ground that the trailers were indeed mobile units to produce germs for weapons have since been challenged.

"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political." This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for use as a weapon.

Finally, they said, the trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

Senior intelligence officials in Washington rebutted the skeptics, saying, for instance, that the Iraqis might have obtained the needed steam for sterilization from a separate supply truck.

The skeptics noted further that the mobile plants had a means of easily extracting gas. Iraqi scientists have said the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. While the white paper dismisses that as a cover story, some analysts see the Iraqi explanation as potentially credible.

A senior administration official conceded that "some analysts give the hydrogen claim more credence." But he asserted that the majority still linked the Iraqi trailers to germ weapons.

The depth of dissent is hard to gauge. Even if it turns out to be a minority view, which seems likely, the skepticism is significant given the image of consensus that Washington has projected and the political reliance the administration has come to place on the mobile units. At the recent summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Bush (news - web sites) cited the trailers as evidence of illegal Iraqi arms.

Critics seem likely to cite the internal dispute as further reason for an independent evaluation of the Iraqi trailers. Since the war's end, the White House has come under heavy political pressure because American soldiers have found no unconventional arms, a main rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) of Britain, who also used Iraqi illicit weapons as a chief justification of the war, has been repeatedly attacked on this question in Parliament and outside it.

Experts described the debate as intense despite the American intelligence agencies' release last week of the nuanced, carefully qualified white paper concluding that the mobile units were most likely part of Iraq's biowarfare program. It was posted May 28 on the Internet at www.cia (news - web sites).gov.

"We are in full agreement on it," an official said of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency at a briefing on the white paper.

The six-page report, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants," called discovery of the trailers "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."

A senior administration official said the White House had not put pressure on the intelligence community in any way on the content of its white paper, or on the timing of its release.

In interviews, the intelligence analysts disputing its conclusions focused on the lack of steam sterilization gear for the central processing tank, which the white paper calls a fermenter for germ multiplication.

In theory, the dissenting analysts added, the Iraqis could have sterilized the tank with harsh chemicals rather than steam. But they said that would require a heavy wash afterward with sterile water to remove any chemical residue - a feat judged difficult for a mobile unit presumably situated somewhere in the Iraqi desert.

William C. Patrick III, a senior official in the germ warfare program that Washington renounced in 1969, said the lack of steam sterilization had caused him to question the germ-plant theory that he had once tentatively endorsed. "That's a huge minus," he said. "I don't see how you can clean those tanks chemically."

Three senior intelligence officials in Washington, responding to the criticisms during a group interview on Tuesday, said the Iraqis could have used a separate mobile unit to supply steam to the trailer. Some Iraqi decontamination units, they said, have such steam generators.

The officials also said some types of chemical sterilization were feasible without drastic follow-up actions.

Finally, they proposed that the Iraqis might have engineered anthrax or other killer germs for immunity to antibiotics, and then riddled germ food in the trailers with such potent drugs. That, they said, would be a clever way to grow lethal bacteria and selectively decontaminate the equipment at the same time - though the officials conceded that they had no evidence the Iraqis had used such advanced techniques.

On the second issue, the officials disputed the claim that the mobile units could make only small amounts of germ-laden liquids. If the trailers brewed up germs in high concentrations, they said, every month one truck could make enough raw material to fill five R-400 bombs.

Finally, the officials countered the claim that the trailers had no easy way for technicians to drain germ concoctions from the processing tank. The fluids could go down a pipe at its bottom, they said. While the pipe is small in diameter - too small to work effectively, some analysts hold - the officials said high pressure from an air compressor on the trailer could force the tank to drain in 10 or 20 minutes.

A senior official said "we've considered these objections" and dismissed them as having no bearing on the overall conclusions of the white paper. He added that Iraq, which declared several classes of mobile vehicles to the United Nations (news - web sites), never said anything about hydrogen factories.

Some doubters noted that the intelligence community was still scrambling to analyze the trailers, suggesting that the white paper may have been premature. They said laboratories in the Middle East and the United States were now analyzing more than 100 samples from the trailers to verify the intelligence findings. Allied forces, they noted, have so far failed to find any of the envisioned support vehicles that the trailers would need to produce biological weapons.

One skeptic questioned the practicality of some of the conjectural steps the Iraqis are envisioned as having taken to adapt the trailers to the job of making deadly germs.

"It's not built and designed as a standard fermenter," he said of the central tank. "Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that's true of any tin can."

That is a terribly written article. In fact, that article kinda supports the view that there were mobile chemical labs.

Basically what the article saids is that most people who investigated the labs now think they are mobile chemical labs, while there are a few sceptics.

[undotwa]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Ahem It wasn't up to the US to provide the Proof. That was up to Iraq. Be upset at them for not complying. You know, what got them in trouble.

I find it funny that people would rather blame this administration than whos really at fault. It tells me a lot.

Oh and another thing, I never trusted the Iraqi administration. It justs that our administration (actually yours, I'm not an american) has more credibility. If they make a claim, they have to back it up. You can't justify a war, by simply saying 'we're liberating them'. Because in the end, rebuilding a country is real hard work. And there is a lot of suffering in the process (I'm not just talking about the war here). But thank God the casualties in the war weren't large, they could of been, you know. Whether or not they cared if they had WMD or not, and they really did want to 'liberate' them from their oppressive government, I don't care, but the fact of the matter is that the reason why I 'approved' of this war was because THEY SAID THEY HAD SOLID PROOF THEY HAVE WMDs. NOW WHERE IS IT! I AM FURIOUS. I FEEL LIED TO. YOU CAN'T say 'Never mind the WMDs, because look how happy the Iraqis are now'. That is not the point. The point is, that the war was justified on the basis of the possession of WMDs.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by undotwa:
You do not understand.

I'm perfectly aware that Iraq failed to provide the evidence of destroying the weapons. However, the US/Australian/British government sold this war to me on the matter that they have or are developing weapon grade chemicals and/or uranium.

Actually I was given the impression that we was going to war because Iraq wasn't complying with the UN mandates. *shrug*

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by undotwa:
Oh and another thing, I never trusted the Iraqi administration. It justs that our administration (actually yours, I'm not an american) has more credibility. If they make a claim, they have to back it up. You can't justify a war, by simply saying 'we're liberating them'. Because in the end, rebuilding a country is real hard work. And there is a lot of suffering in the process (I'm not just talking about the war here). But thank God the casualties in the war weren't large, they could of been, you know. Whether or not they cared if they had WMD or not, and they really did want to 'liberate' them from their oppressive government, I don't care, but the fact of the matter is that the reason why I 'approved' of this war was because THEY SAID THEY HAD SOLID PROOF THEY HAVE WMDs. NOW WHERE IS IT! I AM FURIOUS. I FEEL LIED TO. YOU CAN'T say 'Never mind the WMDs, because look how happy the Iraqis are now'. That is not the point. The point is, that the war was justified on the basis of the possession of WMDs.

They did have proof they had WMDs. So what happens if right after they got their proof, or soon after said things were shipped away?

I don't think anyone has lied, I think things have yet to be found out. I am not saying any lying went on till it all comes out, and goes down. I wouldn't want to stick my foot in my mouth.

[Lerkfish]

-

[Logic]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Actually I was given the impression that we was going to war because Iraq wasn't complying with the UN mandates. *shrug*

But unfortunatly for you the UN didn't view it in that way. The UN didn't approve to this invasion since they didn't find Iraq in violation of 1441. So you are really just talking out of your ass........(as usual)