[Mb-civic] Empty boasts on weapons labs - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Empty boasts on weapons labs

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  April 15, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

LAST WEEK, it was the allegation that President Bush himself authorized 
leaks of intelligence to attack Joseph Wilson, the government's envoy 
who found no evidence of nuclear material transfers between Niger and 
Iraq. Wilson said Bush's use of intelligence ''was twisted to exaggerate 
the Iraqi threat."

This week brings a new twist to the exaggerations. In his February 2003 
presentation to the United Nations the month before America invaded 
Iraq, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell cited ''firsthand 
descriptions" of Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories. ''The 
description our sources gave us of the technical features required by 
such facilities are highly detailed and extremely accurate," Powell 
said. ''We know what the fermenters look like, we know what the tanks, 
pumps, compressors, and other parts look like. We know how they fit 
together. We know how they work. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, these are 
sophisticated facilities. . . . They can produce enough dry biological 
agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people."

Powell's performance had key Democrats surrendering to the drums of war. 
''Compelling," said Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and 
Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. ''Real and compelling," said Senator 
John Kerry of Massachusetts. ''Irrefutable," said Senator Joseph Biden 
of Delaware. ''Very impressive," said Governor Bill Richardson of New 
Mexico. ''The administration threw the kitchen sink."

According to Wednesday's Washington Post, the Defense Intelligence 
Agency sent a secret team of nine US and British technical specialists 
to Iraq on May 25, 2003, to examine two trailers discovered in April. 
Early photos of the labs, plus assertions by the since-discredited 
informant ''Curveball," had some military specialists thinking they were 
weapons labs. But other Iraqi informants said they were merely for 
making hydrogen for weather balloons.

The DIA technical team, collectively possessing at least 90 years of 
experience in biological weapons, ended the debate decisively. ''Within 
the first four hours," a member of the team told the Post, ''it was 
clear to everyone that these were not biological labs."

In fact, a member said, ''There was no connection to anything 
biological." This was so far from weapons of mass destruction that the 
team called the trailers ''the biggest sand toilets in the world."

The team officially told their findings to superiors in Washington by 
e-mails and in a unanimous field report on May 27.

That unanimous report was never used. The next day, on May 28, the DIA 
and CIA published a public white paper, saying they were ''confident" 
the trailers were for ''mobile biological weapons production."

The day after that, Bush told Polish television, ''We found the weapons 
of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. . . . We've so 
far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for 
those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or 
banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."

The CIA and DIA would not talk to the Post about details of what that 
technical team found. One DIA official told the Post, ''Whether the 
information was offered to others in the political realm, I cannot say."

A month after Bush's boast to Polish television, Powell kept saying, ''I 
have confidence in the judgment of the CIA that they are for the purpose 
of developing biological weapons. It's been studied very thoroughly." In 
September 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney, pressed on NBC's ''Meet the 
Press" as to the whereabouts of the weapons of mass destruction, said, 
''We've since the war found two of them. They're in our possession 
today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax 
or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of 
developing the capacity for an attack."

In January 2004, Cheney told National Public Radio: ''We found a couple 
of semi-trailers at this point, which we believe were in fact part of 
that program. . . . I would deem that conclusive evidence, if you will, 
that he did in fact have programs for weapons of mass destruction."

That last assertion of ''conclusive evidence" was eight months after the 
DIA team determined ''within the first four hours" that there was ''no 
connection" of the trailers to anything biological.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan this week called the Post 
''reckless." The story of the technical team's report is conclusive 
evidence of the Nixonian recklessness of Bush and Cheney. The only thing 
missing is a tape saying, ''I want you to stonewall it."

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/04/15/empty_boasts_on_weapons_labs/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060415/1619a87b/attachment.htm