Powell Not Sure Iraq Trailers Were Labs

guardian ^ | 4/2/04

[knak]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell conceded Friday evidence he presented to the United Nations that two trailers in Iraq were used for weapons of mass destruction may have been wrong.

In an airborne news conference on the way home from NATO talks in Brussels, Belgium, Powell said he had been given solid information about the trailers that he told the Security Council in February 2003 were designed for making biological weapons.

But now, Powell said, ``it appears not to be the case that it was that solid.''

He said he hoped the intelligence commission appointed by President Bush to investigate prewar intelligence on Iraq ``will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time.''

Powell's dramatic case to the Security Council that Iraq had secret arsenals of weapons of mass destruction failed to persuade the council to directly back the U.S.-led war that deposed the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But it helped mobilize sentiment among the American people for going to war.

As it turned out, U.N. inspectors were unable to uncover the weapons, but administration officials have insisted they still might be uncovered.

David Kay, who led the hunt for the weapons, showed off a pair of trailers for news cameras last summer and argued that the two metal flatbeds were designed for making biological weapons.

But faced with mounting challenges to that theory, Kay conceded in October he could have been wrong. He said he did not know whether Iraq ever had a mobile weapons program.

Powell told reporters that as he worked on the Bush administration's case against Iraq U.S. intelligence ``indicated to me'' that the intelligence was solid.

``I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed and I made sure, as I said in my presentation, these are multi-sourced'' allegations, Powell said.

The trailers were the most dramatic claims, ``and I made sure that it was multi-sourced,'' he said.

``Now, if the sources fell apart we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position,'' he said.

``I have discussions with the CIA about it,'' Powell said, without providing further details.

The trailers were the only discovery the administration had cited as evidence of an illicit Iraqi weapons program.

In six months of searches, no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons were found to bolster the administration's central case for going to war: to disarm Saddam of suspected weapons of mass destruction.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Powell made these concessions when the trailers showed up at the Texas Motor Speedway on Friday.

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[Pan_Yans Wife]

ping

[DentsRun]

I remember reading that Powell, just before his U.N. presentation, threw his speech up in the air in frustration, saying "This is all bullsh*t" (or words to that effect). He knew his speech was horse puckey. He can't pretend now he never had a clue.

[sharktrager]

Has anyone ever explained why the Iraqis buried trailers that were just used to produce hydrogen for weathe balloons?

[tcuoohjohn]

Well...I think he gonna give it the old college try anyway.

[tcuoohjohn]

Because it was easier than trying to cut them up for scrap?

A more logical question would be if they were intended for conversion to " Mobile Bioweapons Of Mass Destruction Production Facilities" ( MBOMDPFS Mark I) then why weren't they pickled for preservation?

[nuconvert]

Thanx

Bump

LoL

[GraniteStateConservative]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell has acknowledged that pre-war information he gave the United Nations on Iraq's mobile chemical and biological weapons laboratories to justify the US-led war on Iraq was not "solid."

Before the US-led war on Iraq, Powell had presented the UN with data proclaiming to prove that Iraq was engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction.

"Now it appears not to be the case, that it was that solid," Powell told reporters on the plane taking him back to Washington from a trip to Brussels.

"But at the time I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as being solid," he said.

Powell said that before his February 5 2003 speech to the UN he had asked the CIA for data that would show the danger of the weapons of mass destruction Iraq was supposedly developing, and which have never been found in Iraq.

The presence of mobile labs capable of escaping the notice of international inspectors was "the most dramatic" element of his presentation to the UN, he said, "and I made sure it was multi-sourced."

"Now, if the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position," he said. "I've had discussions about it with the CIA."

[GraniteStateConservative]

weather balloons -or- rocket fuel.

[GraniteStateConservative]

This sort of thing will probably be covered in Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward this month. It supposedly discusses differences between Powell and Rumsfeld/Cheney on Iraq.

[xzins]

not sure they were labs

Incorrect title, imo. It should read, not sure they were biological weapons labs.

They're sure they were labs that were used to produce hydrogen.

see the link, Laughably, Iraqi Trailers Said to (Inefficiently) Make Hydrogen via BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES, Not Biological Arms

[PLMerite]

Iraqi artillery units got their Hydrogen in cylinders from a central point, why did they need to manufacture it in the field?

[Jorge]

The trailers were the only discovery the administration had cited as evidence of an illicit Iraqi weapons program.

Huh? What about the photos of entire Kurdish towns wiped out by Saddam's WMDs? Women and children laying in the streets?

Since when are the "trailers" the only evidence?

[BlackVeil]

What about the photos of entire Kurdish towns wiped out by Saddam's WMDs? Women and children laying in the streets?

That incident was from 1986, before the Gulf War and the bans on Iraq having WMDs. Iraq was an ally then, indeed, immediately after that massacre was awarded weapons contracts and trade credits by the US.

[kcvl]

2 trailers deemed biological arms labs

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

May 29, 2003

The CIA report said the two truck trailers matched the description supplied to the United States by spies, including an Iraqi chemical engineer who managed one of the plants where the equipment was made.

"Our analysis of the mobile production plant found in April indicates the layout and equipment are consistent with information provided by the chemical engineer, who has direct knowledge of Iraq's mobile BW program," the CIA concluded yesterday.

In New York, U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told Reuters news agency that the mobile labs in the CIA report were not disclosed by the Iraqis, as required by U.N. resolutions after Iraq's eviction from Kuwait in 1991.

Based on past intelligence reports, U.N. weapons inspectors had asked the Iraqis about such labs. "There were a number of trucks that they showed to us and they had pictures of. But these do not correspond to the ones that are now published by the coalition. They are different," Mr. Blix said.

The CIA report said, "Examination of the trailers reveals that all of the equipment is permanently installed and interconnected, creating an ingeniously simple, self-contained bioprocessing system. Although the equipment on the trailer found in April 2003 was partially damaged by looters, it includes a fermenter capable of producing biological agents and support equipment such as water supply tanks, an air compressor, a water chiller and a system for collecting exhaust gases."

The CIA paper specifically sought to rebut a lead editorial in the May 13 editions of the New York Times. The New York Times has been a persistent critic of President Bush, and in particular his decision to go to war to oust Saddam.
The editorial quoted weapons authorities who said the trailers could have been built to produce biological pesticides near farmland, or as mobile factories to refurbish antiaircraft missiles.

The CIA said its specialists investigated both theories and found them unsubstantiated. "The experts cited in the editorial are not on the scene and probably do not have complete access to information about the trailers," the agency report said.

The CIA report discussed three mobile facilities: a production trailer found by Kurdish troops in April near Mosul in northern Iraq; a second trailer discovered by American troops at Mosul's Kindi Research, Testing and Development and Engineering facility; and a mobile truck laboratory found in Baghdad that could support biological weapons research or legitimate research.

The report said the United States is looking for another type of trailer. This mobile factory would receive the "unconcentrated liquid slurry" produced in the first trailer and use it to grow and harvest the biological agents. These trailers likely would contain tanks, centrifuges and spray dryers.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030529-122922-6267r.htm

[Jorge]

That incident was from 1986, before the Gulf War and the bans on Iraq having WMDs. Iraq was an ally then, indeed, immediately after that massacre was awarded weapons contracts and trade credits by the US.

Then what were the WMDs Clinton was trying to hit with missiles in the 90's and the UN weapon inspectors looking for?

What were the WMDs nearly ever intelligence agency from France, Germany, Russia, China the UK etc. agreed existed?

You actually don't believe there were any WMDs?

[kcvl]

Thursday, June 26, 2003

WASHINGTON — The White House said Thursday that the discovery of documents and parts from Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons efforts supported the Bush administration's contention that Saddam Hussein's (search) government had concealed weapons programs.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency interpreted the find as proof that Iraq's nuclear weapons effort had never been revived.

Starting in May, a former Iraqi nuclear scientist, Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, provided parts and documents to CIA (search) officers in Baghdad, U.S. officials said.

He said he kept them buried in his backyard, on the orders of Saddam's government, as "part of a high-level plan to reconstitute the nuclear weapons program once sanctions were ended," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Fleischer, confirming reports by U.S. intelligence officials, said that Obeidi claimed the parts and documents "represented a complete set of what would be needed to rebuild a centrifuge uranium enrichment program."

Obeidi turned over a two-foot-tall stack of documents that includes detailed designs for centrifuges, intelligence officials said. Obeidi told intelligence officials the parts from his garden were among the more difficult-to-produce components of a centrifuge.

"What's notable in that this case illustrates the extreme challenge that the world community faces in Iraq as we search for evidence of WMD programs that were designed to elude detection by international inspectors," Fleischer said. "Throughout the entire inspection process, Iraqis were scared to death to talk because they would die if they would."

Separately, CIA officials said Thursday they stood by their findings that two truck trailers recovered in Iraq in the war's aftermath were mobile biological weapons laboratories. U.S. officials acknowledged that some analyst's in the State Department's intelligence bureau had sent a June 2 memo casting doubt on those conclusions.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,90440,00.html