WP: Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War

[kskiska]

Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01

On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

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.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. They knew and they continued to lie

How come we knew these pics were bogus but no one else did?

[rodeodance]

10. the regular media ignored stuff like the pic you posted.

How come we knew these pics were bogus but no one else did?

[saigon68]

39. The sheep however bought the lies

And still believe this Chimpanzee is a great Jesus believer rather than a Murderer and War Criminal

[lumpy]

55. That's what I'd like to know.

Thought this was debunked long ago. Anyone have the history of this bogus claim ?

[Terre]

61. How 'bout this?

Not sure if it answers your question, but I just posted this on another thread in Politics:

This was known 3 years ago.

Timeline entry for 5/29/03 at DowningStreetMemo:

Interview of the President by TVP, Poland, published 05-29-2003

Q: But, still, those countries who didn't support the Iraqi Freedom operation use the same argument, weapons of mass destruction haven't been found. So what argument will you use now to justify this war?

THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and 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.

For follow-up to this statement, please see entry dated 6/15/03 "Iraqi mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds" and which links to article in The Guardian.

Wonder if the WaPo is going through the timeline, looking for material they previously ignored?

Better late than never I suppose, and actually, had it come out before, there probably would have been alot of shoulder shrugging.
Maybe now it'll get a bit more traction.

[lumpy]

72. Thanks, very helpfull..

v

[IndianaGreen]

2. Weapons experts fearful of losing their jobs if they go public

None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized.

Does this remind any of you of what it was to live in Nazi Germany? Everyone was afraid of doing something that would offend the Fuehrer.

[rodeodance]

7. so they put troops in harms way--and many have been blown to bits.

[0007]

80. Isn't that the truth? And to consider the fact that this is just

getting MSM attention big time now.

Talk about slow motion!

[rodeodance]

3. Their subtitle should be the main headline!

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War

Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

[rodeodance]

4. whow. this is important--another drip drip-on the heals of Leaker-in chief

[rodeodance]

5. rec.

[rodeodance]

6. and on page A01

[sabra]

8. lies lies and more lies... it's interesting this is all coming out now.

[IndianaGreen]

9. The Bush people used the term "backsliding" which is a fundie word

Kay, in an interview, said senior CIA officials had advised him upon accepting the survey group's leadership in June 2003 that some experts in the DIA were "backsliding" on whether the trailers were weapons labs. But Kay said he was not apprised of the technical team's findings until late 2003, near the end of his time as the group's leader.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888_2.html

Backsliding is a fundie word used to describe church members that are no longer as enthusiastic for the fundie Jesus as they used to be, for example, those that quit attending the fundie church in order to attend a more mainstream church.

[rodeodance]

19. the things i learn on this board.

[Solly Mack]

81. The use of the word "backslide" is very telling

and very interesting

going against the accepted faith....dropping out of favor....no longer part of the group...turning their backs on the group..."sinning" instead of being faithful...breaking ranks...

Disturbing.

[Pirate Smile]

11. Kick - needs one more GP vote. Another blatant lie exposed.

The lying sack of crap song from Stephanie Miller is running through my head.

[rodeodance]

12. see

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=910197&mesg_id=910254

[Pirate Smile]

13. Now we just need a WP editorial citing these "WMD" trailers as a

justification for the war, while this article is on A1.

Just another day in the Washington Post's whacked neighborhood. :crazy: :wtf:

[burrowowl]

17. Hey!

What about those Katrina trailers not being used!?!?
:sarcasm:

[rodeodance]

21. te he

[LynnTheDem]

37. "But for those who say we haven't found the banned weapons, they're wrong"

We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and 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.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

MFing LIAR.

[LynnTheDem]

38. "We know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile weapons labs"

January 31, 2003, bush lied;

“We know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile weapons labs . . . designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors,”

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?specific_allegations=trailers&timeline=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq

[TacticalPeek]

14. K&R

Liar-in-Chief

[burrowowl]

15. Give me a BREAK!

Tarp covered trailers, BIOLABS!
This exceeds all logic, knowledge and understanding!

[rodeodance]

26. a different sort of pic is on the webpage of Wp.

[Dhalgren]

16. K&R...for all the good it will do...

[burythehatchet]

18. I AM SHOCKED!

[Mr_Spock]

20. They like to lie - it lets them do their favorite thing - kill

They lie so they can kill more innocent people.

[saigon68]

40. FREEDOM IS ON THE MARCH

[rodeodance]

22. I am simply gleeful -at the thought of people like Hannity et al trying to

spin this. Simple pleasures.

[rodeodance]

24. more. "Primary Piece of Evidence"

Primary Piece of Evidence

The story of the technical team and its reports adds a new dimension to the debate over the U.S. government's handling of intelligence related to banned Iraqi weapons programs. The trailers -- along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was believed to be a nuclear weapons program -- were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.

Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied allegations that intelligence was hyped or manipulated in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But officials familiar with the technical team's reports are questioning anew whether intelligence agencies played down or dismissed postwar evidence that contradicted the administration's public views about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Last year, a presidential commission on intelligence failures criticized U.S. spy agencies for discounting evidence that contradicted the official line about banned weapons in Iraq, both before and after the invasion.

[rodeodance]

25. CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency both declined to comment.

....Spokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency both declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified. A spokesman for the DIA asserted that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The survey group's final report in September 2004 -- 15 months after the technical report was written -- said the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were "almost certainly intended" for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.

"Whether the information was offered to others in the political realm I cannot say," said the DIA official, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said. "It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

[donkeyotay]

69. Bunch of a-holes on the internets said they were for weather balloons

Two teams of military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said.

How can it be that any idiot can discover what two teams of military experts couldn't?

Starts to look like a pattern of lies told for war... oh, but the internets knew that before we invaded.

[leftchick]

44. Phase II investigation of cherry picking intelligence

plays out in the media! Take that roberts, you chicken shit bastad!

[w4rma]

67. And since it's their job, they'll *have* to try to spin it. (nt)

[swag]

23. Homepage, por favor.

[Scout1071]

27. Don't forget to rate it up. nt

[rodeodance]

28. yes yes yes

[rodeodance]

30. look at the ending:

In the end, the final report -- 19 pages plus a 103-page appendix -- remained unequivocal in declaring the trailers unsuitable for weapons production.

"It was very assertive," said one weapons expert familiar with the report's contents.

Then, their mission completed, the team members returned to their jobs and watched as their work appeared to vanish.

"I went home and fully expected that our findings would be publicly stated," one member recalled. "It never happened. And I just had to live with it."

Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[xyboymil]

29. Gee look, yet another story that Bush lied. Another nail. He has

absolutely no shame.

[rodeodance]

31. dddrip, drip---I am waiting for the THUG

[Canuckistanian]

32. Bravo!

Now, when will we learn of the TRUE story of the aluminum tubes?

Or the non-existant "meeting" between Mohammed Atta and the Saddam General in Prague? I particularly want to see that one, which will totally make Cheney look like the clueless fool that he is.

[donkeyotay]

70. And when will the true story of the UN be told? nt

[rodeodance]

33. AP now has picked it up. should get some wider circulation

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_weapons;_ylt=Aqy_5GREwgCyXKZYHPBQ05as0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

[rodeodance]

34. White House Shelved Iraqi Trailers Report (yahoo headline-AP)

[okoboji]

35. A new Day, and one more Lie

and were in the hell is the Democratic Out Cry?

because the thief in the WH has never had sex it's ok that * lies to the world?


the ultimate injustice to all.... it just makes me sick.

[LynnTheDem]

36. Tests rule out suspect bio-labs - Apr. 15, 2003.

April 2003.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.no.labs/

[lumpy]

57. Thanks for posting this.

I thought it had been made public early on that this part of Powells presentation at the UN was a lie.

[Behind the Aegis]

41. Report: U.S. intel knew Bush 'WMDs found' claim probably untrue

The Bush administration claimed trailers captured soon after the fall of Baghdad proved Iraq had weapons of mass destruction even though U.S. intelligence officials had strong evidence that was not the case, The Washington Post has reported.

When the two small trailers were seized in late May 2003, President George W. Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq.

The administration said they were mobile "biological laboratories," and Bush declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was cited at the time as supporting evidence for the decision to go to war.


more...

[rodeodance]

64. gov agencies are not resposing to calls about this

Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied claims that intelligence was exaggerated or manipulated in the months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Asked about the Post report, a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Lt. Cmdr. J.D. Gordon, referred calls to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Attempts to reach someone from the DIA late Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

The Post quoted a DIA spokesman as saying the team's findings were
incorporated into the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The survey group concluded the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were probably intended for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/705411.html

[rodeodance]

65. so, the Mideast is following this story also. great.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/705411.html

[llmart]

42. Oh, yeah, now the Washington Post is writing about this.....

when before they were kissing the Bush cabal's ass.

They have lost all respect from me. They didn't do their jobs as they should have.

I respect Seymour Hersch as a journalist.

[leftchick]

43. "pushed notion"? It is called LYING!!!!

MFEers! Had it been a blue dress the L word would have been used. :grr:

[alcibiades_mystery]

45. Here's what we went to war over

Satisfied, America?

The douchebags in the punditry and in the government who compared any of this to World War II should be made to account for their statements.

[GeorgeGist]

46. What's it been...

two years since the last time this was Late Breaking News on DU?

[underpants]

47. Paper: Bush touted WMD find despite conflicting evidence

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 Posted: 1135 GMT (1935 HKT)


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration claimed trailers captured soon after the fall of Baghdad proved Iraq had weapons of mass destruction even though U.S. intelligence officials had strong evidence that was not the case, The Washington Post reported.

When the two small trailers were seized in late May 2003, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq. The administration said they were mobile "biological laboratories," and Bush declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."

The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was cited at the time as supporting evidence for the decision to go to war.

But a secret mission to Iraq had concluded the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission sent their findings to Washington in a report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement, the Post reported.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/04/12/iraq.weapons.ap/

[rodeodance]

48. good headling (it was the subline in WPost)

[HuffleClaw]

53. doubts?

thats crap. the finding was unanimous. stupid cnn.

[warpigs]

49. Look at the timeline

This says it all....



<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/04/12/GR2006041200165.html>

[HuffleClaw]

50. old news to many but NEW news to most of the public

particularly how they knew yet continued to lie about it. just one more proof of bush lies and one more thing to support his eventual impeachment.

[silvermachine]

51. Incredible...

...really incredible. The wheels are really coming off now. The months to come should be very, very interesting. Every day it seems to be some other revelation about the dishonest nature of this administration. Last night Chris Matthews (who for the record, I can't fucking stand) recited this incredible laundry list of falsehoods and deceptions by these liars and I'll tell you, it was damning and powerful. He seemed to be hinting that impeachment could now start to look like a very real possibility should the Dems do well enough in the upcoming election to take the House and Senate. And he also seemed to be acknowledging that things are going so poorly for the GOP that should impeachment proceedings take place, the people of this nation could get behind it in a big way. They are running away from Bush and Cheney in droves every day.

[RedEarth]

52. "Liar in Chief".... the "leaker in chief" didn't tell the truth

what a surprise....

[RedEarth]

54. Bush administration lies in graphic form

[silvermachine]

56. Great!

Thanks for posting this!:headbang:

[lumpy]

58. Thanks for the timelines.

"The proof is in the pudding" and it isn't chocolate.

[DS1]

59. Obviously we had a Trailer-Gap

so they needed bombing

We got guys who can bring those big ugly things right over the treetops, it's a wonderful sight

[glitch]

60. Finally printing this now will not exonerate them at their trials for

COLLABORATION.

[opihimoimoi]

62. BUT BUT Today, Scotty was poo poo ing it off as OLD SHIT

and he lied his ass off he did..all through the Press Con.... They must pay well for him to be disgraceful in the manner he does....

He does his name no good....but then, thats the least of a Whores Worry.

[rodeodance]

66. Scotty demands an apology from WP for "irresponsible" Iraq trailers report

posted earlier

Scotty demands an apology from WP for "irresponsible" Iraq trailers report

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12285521 /

<snip>

Apology demanded

McClellan dismissed the Post article and a report based on it that aired on ABC News Wednesday morning as irresponsible. He said ABC News should apologize and took issue with the way the Post story was written.

“The lead suggested that what the president was saying was based on something that had been debunked, and that is not true,” McClellan said. “In fact, the president was saying something that was based on what the intelligence community — through the CIA and DIA — were saying.”

McClellan said information for public reports from the CIA comes from many sources and takes time to vet.

“It’s not something that, they will tell you, turns on a dime,” McClellan said.

[opihimoimoi]

76. Its the Defense by ATTACK Card...use attack to cover ones own ass

If ya got no defense...go on the attack thingy....

[hedgehog]

63. I would love a video of the collected lies of George Bush

This is not rhetoric or hyperbole. You literally can not believe a word that comes out of his mouth about anything.

[pinniped]

68. What's this, look, another link on another website:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/04/12/national/w141324D30.DTL

[OKNancy]

71. Kick

[Patsy Stone]

73. kskiska

Rose Siding posted your thread about this from the archives here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x918855

No one bought it then, either. :)

[flyarm]

74. the fraud by our media about these labs!! links from my files!

i am cross posting this from another thread i posted this to..

the fraud by our media about these labs!! links from my files!
and our media knew nothing about this ????????? bullshit Tony Blair was in big trouble about these mobile labs and it was all over the papers in Britian ..and yet we heard not a word in our USA media!..and our media is just now finding put Powell lied to the un..bullshit pure bullshit! our media has the blood of our troops dripping from its hands..i hope their souls rot in hell!
from my files..


http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,971...
Blix attacks Blair warnings over Iraqi weapons

Nicholas Watt, John Hooper and Richard Norton-Taylor
Friday June 6, 2003
The Guardian
snip:
A former UN inspector, Bernd Birkicht, 39, said he believed the CIA had made up intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to provide a legal basis for the war. He told the Guardian how supposedly top-secret, high-quality intelligence had led the inspectors on an absurd wild goose chase.

"We received information about a site, giving the exact geographical coordinates, and when we got there we found nothing. Nothing on the ground. Nothing under the ground. Just desert."

He said the so-called decontamination trucks which figured in satellite photographs presented to the security council were fire engines.

President Bush, in Qatar, yesterday, said: "We'll reveal the truth. But one thing is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because it is no more."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,973110,00.html
Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs'
Observer, Sunday June 8 2003
Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett
Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort. The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been (...)

(...) fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of...be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units...Atlantic that the trucks could have (...)
Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not (...)


http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4893659-103532,00.ht...
Germans accuse US over Iraq weapons claim

Luke Harding in Berlin
Friday April 2, 2004

Guardian

snip:

An Iraqi defector nicknamed Curveball who wrongly claimed that Saddam Hussein had mobile chemical weapons factories was last night at the centre of a bitter row between the CIA and Germany's intelligence agency. German officials said that they had warned American colleagues well before the Iraq war that Curveball's information was not credible - but the warning was ignored.
It was the Iraqi defector's testimony that led the Bush administration to claim that Saddam had built a fleet of trucks and railway wagons to produce anthrax and other deadly germs. In his presentation to the UN security council in February last year, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, explicitly used Curveball's now discredited claims as justification for war. The Iraqis were assembling "mobile production facilities for biological agents", Mr Powell said, adding that his information came from "a solid source".

These "killer caravans" allowed Saddam to produce anthrax "on demand", it was claimed. US officials never had direct access to the defector, and have subsequently claimed that the Germans misled them. Yesterday, however, German agents told Die Zeit newspaper that they had warned the Bush administration long before last year that there were "problems" with Curveball's account. "We gave a clear credibility assessment. On our side at least, there were no tricks before Colin Powell's presentation," one source told the newspaper.

Officially, Germany's intelligence agency, the BND, has refused to comment. The revelation is embarrassing for the Bush administration and appears to bolster the contention that it used dubious intelligence in a partisan manner in the critical few weeks before the invasion of Iraq.



and our "MEDIA" is just now reporting on this????????????
http://www.guardian.co.uk/butler/story/0,,1258766,00.ht...
Did our spies let us down?

This week, Lord Butler will deliver his verdict on how the West came to misjudge Saddam's arsenal of deadly weapons. Intelligence agencies are in the firing line. But the government, too, may have cause to fear his findings. Special report by Gaby Hinsliff, Jason Burke, Paul Harris and Antony Barnett

Sunday July 11, 2004
The Observer
snip:

There was only one point of substance on which the British disagreed with the US: the claim in the September dossier that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Niger, seized on as evidence of an attempt by Saddam to build a nuclear bomb. MI6 believed it; American analysts did not. However, the British view still has some support: last week's Senate report appeared to confirm that some Iraqi inquiries were made. The British also strongly resisted American conclusions that Saddam had co-operated with al-Qaeda, a claim British ministers went out of their way to knock down.

Bush eventually ignored the CIA's concerns and raised the Niger issue in his State of the Union address, but he was careful to source the claim to Britain, giving the administration room to back away from it when the CIA's scepticism became public.

'Calling the Niger intelligence somewhat flawed is being very polite about what happened. "Fucked up" would be more accurate,' said Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and ex-deputy director of the State Department's Office of Counter-Terrorism.

snip********************
A third defector unearthed said he had helped develop mobile weapons labs in specially imported Renault refrigerator trucks, a claim that surfaced not only in the British dossier, but also in a speech by Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, to the UN in February 2003 setting out its case for war. They turned out to be control systems for weather balloons.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,953605,00.html
US rivals turn on each other as weapons search draws a blank

One key argument for war was the peril from weapons of mass destruction. Now top officials are worried by repeated failures to find the proof - and US intelligence agencies are engaged in a struggle to avoid the blame

Paul Harris and Martin Bright in London, Taji and Ed Helmore in New York
Sunday May 11, 2003
The Observer


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

proof powell is a lying sac of crap from my files!! i have saved in my files ..for this day to prove powell is a lying sac of garbage!! fly


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


UK war dossier a sham, say experts
British 'intelligence' lifted from academic articles

Michael White and Brian Whitaker
Sunday February 9, 2003

Guardian
snip:

Downing Street was last night plunged into acute international embarrassment after it emerged that large parts of the British government's latest dossier on Iraq - allegedly based on "intelligence material" - were taken from published academic articles, some of them several years old.
Amid charges of "scandalous" plagiarism on the night when Tony Blair attempted to rally support for the US-led campaign against Saddam Hussein, Whitehall's dismay was compounded by the knowledge that the disputed document was singled out for praise by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, in his speech to the UN security council on Wednesday.

Citing the British dossier, entitled Iraq - its infrastructure of concealment, deception and intimidation in front of a worldwide television audience Mr Powell said: "I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities."

But on Channel 4 News last night it was revealed that four of the report's 19 pages had been copied - with only minor editing and a few insertions - from the internet version of an article by Ibrahim al-Marashi which appeared in the Middle East Review of International Affairs last September.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4600667-103550,0 ...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Downing St admits blunder on Iraq dossier
Plagiarism row casts shadow over No 10's case against Saddam

Michael White, Ewen MacAskill and Richard Norton-Taylor
Monday February 10, 2003

Guardian



snip:
It emerged yesterday that the dossier issued last week - later found to include a plagiarised section written by an American PhD student - was compiled by mid-level officials in Alastair Campbell's Downing Street communications department with only cursory approval from intelligence or even Foreign Office sources.

Though it now appears to have been a journalistic cut and paste job rather than high-grade intelligence analysis, the dossier ended up being cited approvingly on worldwide TV by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, when he addressed the UN security council on Wednesday.

Downing Street yesterday toughed it out, insisting that what mattered was that the facts contained in the document were "solid" and helped make the case Tony Blair rammed home on BBC Newsnight. But the middle section of the dossier, which describes the feared Iraqi intelligence network, was taken, much of it verbatim, from the research of Dr Ibrahim al-Marashi without his knowledge or permission.

"In retrospect we should have acknowledged . The fact that we used some of his work does not throw into question the accuracy of the document as a whole, as he himself acknowledged on Newsnight last night, where he said that in his opinion the document overall was accurate," the No 10 spokesman conceded. "We all have lessons to learn," he added. The four officials originally named on the website version of the 19-page dossier include Alison Blackshaw, Mr Campbell's senior assistant, and Murtaza Khan, described as a news editor on the busy Downing Street website.

Professor Michael Clark, director of the International Policy Institute at King's College London, said presenting such intelligence material "invalidates the veracity" of the rest of the document. The shadow foreign secretary, Michael Ancram, called for a cabinet minister to oversee government information on Iraq.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4601552-103690,0 ...




xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

US claims on Iraq called into question
Inspectors pick holes in Powell allegations and call for patience in carefully coded message to council

Jonathan Steele
Monday February 17, 2003

Guardian


http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4606426-103550,0 ...

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

75. The poor freeps.

It is so hard on them. They are living through/in sheer denial.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1614162/posts

[oasis]

77. Drip, drip drip.

[neuvocat]

78. Why is this news?

I seem to recall that this story was debunked quite a while ago.

[radfringe]

79. questions

-- The White House is claiming "BUSH DIDN'T KNOW" until after making his announcement finding mobile-bio labs that they weren't mobile-bio labs. Somebody knew about it - why wasn't Bush informed of this, or his speech corrected prior to bush giving it? Was he informed and chose to ignore it? Did someone else chose it ignore it and not tell Bush?

-- Assuming someone chose NOT to pass the information to Bush - what does this say about White House communitcations?

-- Assuming Bush really didn't know until after the fact - why didn't they come out an correct the statements, in the Public Interest's to know the truth? They did very little to correct it.

side question on current dick-wagging with Iran:

How much of the failure in Iraq is actually "embolding Iran" to be more confrontational? If we were able to effectively and efficiently 'win the peace' in Iraq, instead of finding ourselves embroiled with an insurgency/civil war - would IraN be as confrontational?