More Double-talk by the Bush administration and intelligence community. U.S. Report Raises Doubts About Iraq Weapons By Sue Pleming WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the Bush administration was pushing last fall for a war against Iraq because of alleged weapons of mass destruction, a defense department report said it did not have enough "reliable information" Iraq was amassing chemical weapons, a defense official said on Friday. News of the classified September 2002 report by the Defense Intelligence Agency has added to claims the White House and Pentagon slanted U.S. intelligence on Baghdad's weapons program to justify the war. No such weapons have been found since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was ousted in April but President Bush has said repeatedly he believes U.S. forces will find them. Reacting to the report, National Security Council spokesman Mike Anton said any charges the United States slanted intelligence were "nonsense." "The White House and the Pentagon did not slant intelligence ... This report is consistent with the judgment of the intelligence community, with what the president was saying, with what the U.N. was saying, with what foreign governments believed and assessed about Iraq," said Anton. Around the time of the DIA report, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went to Congress to press his case that Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons. "What this report is saying is that there's not enough reliable information to move things into the category of things we know (about WMDs in Iraq)," said a defense official of the report, a summary of which was leaked to U.S. media this week. However, he said the 80-plus page report said intelligence indicated Iraq probably did have chemical and other weapons but that there was just not enough reliable intelligence to fully back up this claim. "What's been reported is accurate but you have to take it in context of the entire report, which is classified," said the official, who asked not to be named. "The way it's briefed is in the category of 'hey we think this is going on' (but we don't have absolute proof)." "LESS RELIABLE INTELLIGENCE" When U.N. weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the defense official said the United States lost the ability to "see things on the ground" and turned to "less reliable intelligence avenues." A small team of U.N. nuclear experts returned to Iraq on Friday but they said their role was to check on looting at a research facility that may have caused radioactive contamination and was not to look for any weapons. On Friday, the Senate's Armed Services Committee held a closed-door hearing focusing on initial efforts by U.S. forces to find weapons and the role of the new "Iraq Survey Group" in the so-far fruitless bid to find chemical and biological arms. This group will be staffed by about 1,400 people from the United States, Britain and Australia. Surprise at the lack of chemical weapons has been expressed by the U.S. military, which launched its war expecting possible chemical or biological attacks. Last week, U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. James Conway said U.S. intelligence was "simply wrong" in leading the military to believe the invading troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons. CIA Director George Tenet has defended his agency's intelligence on chemical and biological weapons, saying the "integrity of our process was maintained throughout."
Whoops, treeman, the mobile weapons trailer story may be unraveling too. Oh well. June 7, 2003 Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq 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 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. 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 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 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.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, 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." The reporting for this article was carried out by Judith Miller in Iraq and Kuwait and by William Broad in New York. Her agreement with the Pentagon, for an "embedded" assignment, allowed the military to review her copy to prevent breaches of troop protection and security. No changes were made in the review. Copyright 2003 The New York Times
When Iraqi scientists told the US about a secret missile program that was a smoking gun it was hyped as absolute fact, but the US hadn't even looked at the main Iraqi Missile factory. Why can we not believe that these trucks were used to produce Hydrogen for weather balloons? The Iraqi scientists are telling us the purpose yet we try to invent these impossible scenarios for a mobile biolab. We ignore facts that do not support the US view, this is just another intelligence failure backed by lies. More hype over poor evidence. His opinion will be ignored, and like all dissent of the Bush administration he'll be viewed as anti-American for his expert views. Meanwhile the Anthrax terrorist living in the US, with weapons grade Anthrax roams free.
KC- To be fair, this is not evidence that the chem lab scenario is "impossible". I do not think that this proves anything except that the previous claims by tree et al that this proves anthing are themselves false. If those in position to analyze the intel are themsleves not universal, it can hardly be presented as proof...espcially when even those who presented it in the first place acknowledged that the vans were not evidence of a WMD program, merely probablilites. Two of the more interesting claims are those which support the many who have concluded that Washington isn't interested in objective intel, merely intel which supports their position..and the fact that some people who originally supported these vans as probable WMD links have shifted...indicating a certain level of objectivity on their part. But when you consider the claims made by the White House before the war...and the literally dozens of claims since, that Iraq has an active program to develop nukes, and was only months away...of the hundreds ( or was it thousands) of tons of chem weapons...of troops being issued with chem weapons...of the US knowing exactly where the WMD were, and how much there was....of the top Iraqi officials and scientists who were captured and who would as such be able to lead us to them...etc...When you consider all of that, the fact that a couple of vans which may or may not have been built to develop chem weapons at some point, and may or may not have ever been used as such...when you consider these as being, as the White House themselves claimed, the "strongest proof" they have of the WMD justification for the war...well, that pretty much speaks for itself.
Good point(s) MacBeth-- The continual rush to judgement, with constant leaks to the media about "finds" and "proof" while the real investigation has yet to prove anything is disturbing. At the very least its poor public relations on a worldwide scale. The hyping of unsubstantiated finds will only bring more scrutiny on the teams that are investigating weapon sites, etc. making their jobs much more difficult. I also think its safe to assume the teams are under intense pressure to find something and find it fast from the current administration. If this does boil down to the US invading a country over two low tech labs, while a terrorist in our own country has weapons grade Anthrax...I believe that speaks for itself as well.
I think Judith miller is doing penance here after running several fake "finds" and then having to back off.
i know i dont post much in this forum, but i sure do lurk here a lot, and as a fairly "unbiased" perspective, i've got to agree w/ a la here. i've read several (but by no means all) of these war debates and it seems that johnheath's unquestioned loyalty to the conservative-Republicans running this country inhibits him from logically assessing the current situation. to him, this administration can do no wrong, and to imply so would be "un-american." there is no winning w/ a train-of-thought like that. i just dont understand how anyone can just sit here w/ all this damning evidence refuting nearly every "fact" this administration used as the justification for this war and not have something critical to say....... it simply baffles me. p.s. - i voted for bush (and regretably so), but fortunately my beliefs aren't based on a political party.
More trouble for Bush & company: http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/06/findlaw.analysis.dean.wmd/ The heat is turned up another notch on the Bush administration. The questions and scrutiny are not going to ease on an issue as powerful as invading nations on a hunch or bad intelligence.
It does directly apply and support many of the debates in this thread that have taken place over the past couple months. I saw it and came straight to this thread to support some of the opinions posted here. I didn't notice it in the other thread before posting it here, no intentional hijacking. KC
That's cool, Cheetah. I knew what you were doing. Almost did it that way myself, but I didn't want it to get buried.
Check it out, even neocon uberhawks seem to be accepting reality. Could our own resident WMD hunters be far behind? Joe Conason's Journal Another hawk turns: Kristol suddenly "very skeptical" we'll ever find those WMD. - - - - - - - - - - - - June 10, 2003 | Bill Kristol's pre-emptive spin After tirelessly promoting the imminent threat posed by Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" in his magazine, on television, on various websites and even in a quickie book, William Kristol now confesses doubt. On Fox News Sunday -- while host Brit Hume indulged in his characteristic imbecile bluster -- Kristol blurted out several near-truths. (I found his startling admissions in an article on Newsmax.com, which I checked for accuracy with the Nexis transcript.) "We shouldn't deny, those of us who were hawks, that there could have been misstatements made, I think in good faith," said the Weekly Standard editor, attributing those "erroneous" statements about WMD to "the president and the secretary of state." (For some reason he left out Rumsfeld, Rice and Cheney.) "I hope [the WMDs] are found," he said, "but I'm very skeptical." As he acknowledged, "We have interrogated a lot of people and we haven't found a single person who said he participated in disposing, destroying the stock of weapons of mass destruction. Or in hiding them." This unsettling realization has led Kristol -- who is far smarter than the average Fox dittohead -- toward a partial, limited rethink: "People like me, who were hawks, said the war was both just, prudent and urgent. I think just and prudent - fine. But it is fair to say that if we don't find serious weapons of mass destruction capabilities, the case for urgency, which Bush and Blair certainly articulated, is going to be undercut to some degree." His rationalization is that the fault lies with inaccurate intelligence rather than political distortion of the information that was available. "I don't think we need to be apologetic about the war," he concluded. Perhaps not about the war itself, since he advocated military action for reasons that went well beyond any UN resolution. But for branding honest skeptics as cowardly appeasers, Kristol and his ilk will owe many apologies if, as he now worries, those vaunted weapons are never found.
"We shouldn't deny, those of us who were hawks, that there could have been misstatements made, I think in good faith," said the Weekly Standard editor, attributing those "erroneous" statements about WMD to "the president and the secretary of state." (For some reason he left out Rumsfeld, Rice and Cheney.) "I hope [the WMDs] are found," he said, "but I'm very skeptical." Ok NeoConvicts start bashing this traitor and his inaccurate biased statements. Or just ignore the oncoming tidalwave and tread water for the next year or so.
haven't a bunch of us been saying, "misstatements in good faith" for quite some time now?? remember all the talk about the clinton administration relying on the same data? remember rocketman tex saying he didn't think the administration actually lied, but was just relying on bad data?? data they justifiably relied on?? we've been swimming in the sea of posts over this stuff for like 8 months now, cheetah.
Yep, And no one has changed their minds....still the public agrees with the President. Oh well, silent majority I guess. DD
DD, half the public also believed there is documented proof of Saddam's involvment in 9-11, your faith in polls rivals that of Bill Clinton.
SamFisher, We do not know whether or not Iraq had anything to do with 9-11, we do know that he had connetions to Al-Queda. That alone does not make him guilty, but it does show where he stood. I think the world is better off without him in charge of a country, history will tell if the silent majority is right. DD
Relying on bad data in good faith and knowingly relying on bad data (and exaggerating/twisting it etc) are different animals. We seem (though a few diehards here may believe otherwise) have established the bad data part of it, it is the intent that is debatable
My point being that a majority of americans think (thought) that we know definitively that they did, hence the limited value of citing polls as justification.
