Don't we already know that the supposed
biological weapons labs discovered in Iraq were trailers most likely for hydrogen balloons? Yet, here it is posted as the main story at the Washington Post.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.
This is yet another instance of finding myself knowing something that is just now being released as public knowledge "for the first time." What the hell is going on here? Not even the news that the investigators won't speak publicly for fear of reprisal is really news given that the administration has shown repeatedly that it has a nasty vindictive streak.
None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission. The contents of the final report, "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers," remain classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons.
7 comments:
Okay. We now have the experts on centrifuges saying that the aluminum tubes weren't for centrifuges.
The experts on mobile biolabs say that these weren't biolabs.
But Preznit Whatzisname and friends continued to hawk them as evidence of Iraq's bad intentions.
Faith-based reasoning. Or lies?
How many more examples do we need?
CKR
Cheryl - but I'm still curious how it is that we - you, me, tens of thousands of people - knew already that there was little substance to these claims, and even had serious doubts as they were making the case for the war.
The thing that baffles me is that some study was done that somehow confirms what we knew and that's news? I think there's something going on here - like a massive attempt to cover their asses on the parts of the media, government brown-nosers, those who feared for their jobs, and the few people remaining in the administration with any self-respect.
But also, the fact that we knew just underscores either how incompetent and delusional the administration is or that the term "misleading" is finally too good for them in the eyes of the previous kowtowers.
Helmut--
Here's what's new:
Until these documents were made available to the Post, the Bush administration could claim that they believed that these were mobile weapons labs at the time they were making that claim.
Now we know that a team was sent in to investigate the claims, and reported back that these were not bio weapons labs. Their report came before President Bush publicly stated that bio weapons labs had been found.
The administration continued to claim that these were bio weapons labs for months.
The administration will try to claim that they still thought that the weight of the evidence was on the side of these trucks being labs. That's crap. No amount of surveillance photos would outweigh the investigation of nine experts physically inspecting the trucks.
And the info was definitely relayed to the top of the administration. Maybe not to Bush, because he's on a "need to know" basis. But definitely to Cheney. How do we know? Because nobody sends a research team to Iraq to investigate the most promising "smoking gun" evidence yet uncovered and just forgets to read their report.
So we've known for some time that there were no WMD, and no WMD programs. Most of us who aren't kool-aid drinkers knew that they were lying when they told us that they were relaying the best intelligence available, but there was no actual proof (just a veritable mountain of circumstantial evidence).
But now we have smoking gun evidence that Bushco was aware that there was no WMD program, even as they told us the opposite.
Largest pair of sand toilets in the world. Loved that line. I think the point is that this is 'new' because it proves Bush & Co. had this information all along and that they were lying. Nothing new in that, of course, except this sort of makes it official.
Given that the White House is blaming the press today for accusing Bush of lying, I think answering this question of Josh Marshall's is going to be crucial:
"When did the administration let Congress in on the fact that those mobile weapons labs weren't bio-weapons labs at all and that we'd just been conned by some emigres on the make?"
I can't wait until we learn that W dodged military service during the Vietnam war. They denounced CBS for lying about that too. And to think we ever thought W doesn't do nuance.
What? That coke-snortin' partyboy I knew as "the godafather of the nickel bag" back in Texas never finished military service?
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