ace, Bush was citing the trailers as fact, at the end of May, 2003, after they were found and inspected. Powell was repeating the already discredited gibberish from "curvebal", in Powell's Feb, 3, 2003 UN presentation:
Quote:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...55C0A9659C8B63
Some Analysts Of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use
By JUDITH MILLER AND WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: June 7, 2003
....The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein 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, 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.....
....At the recent summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Bush cited the trailers as evidence of illegal Iraqi arms. .....
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