06-12-2003, 11:27 AM
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#8 (permalink)
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The GrandDaddy of them all!
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Quote:
Originally posted by Lebell
Oh, no evidence of mobile weapons labs.
Hmmm, like the two we found.
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they havent proven anything about those labs.
i've posted on another thread
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/1941172
Quote:
Analysts have doubts Iraqi trailers were germ labs
By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
New York Times
U.S. and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that two mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely 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 forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a "white paper" analysis last week, the administration publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.
Now, intelligence analysts in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the germ evidence 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 CIA, said the dissenters "are entitled to their opinion, of course, but we stand behind the assertions in the white paper."
At least three teams of Western experts have examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the evidence were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended to make germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts disagreed sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said.
"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank which the first investigators thought had been used to multiply 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 but had 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.
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 debate came as the U.N. nuclear agency returned to Iraq Friday after a three-month absense. Representatives from the International Atomic Energy Agency -- operating this time under continuous U.S. military escort -- will assess what's missing from the nation's biggest nuclear plant and how to find any missing materials.
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And I guess president Clinton didn't have access to the same intelligence that president Bush does.
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obviously, clinton didnt think the intelligence pointed to an "imminent threat"
__________________
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal
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