DEAN CALLS FOR DECLASSIFICATION RE WASHPOST PIECE

[kpete]

DEAN CALLS FOR DECLASSIFICATION RE WASHPOST PIECE. DNC Chairman Howard Dean this morning called on the Bush administration to declassify a 2003 Defense Intelligence Agency-sponsored report that undercuts a key administration claim about Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi weapons. As reported in this morning’s Washington Post, the DIA sent a team of experts to Iraq in May 2003 to examine trailers that were suspected of carrying equipment needed to make biological weapons. The team determined that the trailers did not contain such material, and reported that finding to Washington on May 27, 2003. Two days later, President Bush said, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.”

Dean, at this morning’s Prospect breakfast meeting with roughly two dozen journalists, said, "We are going to call, probably today, for the declassification of the report.” He wouldn’t say whether he had already spoken to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi about this strategy, but one source said that such conversations would commence today, and that Dean would likely appear on television this afternoon to press the claim. “If the story is accurate,” Dean said, “…then the onus is on the president to prove that he did not mislead the country.” He sharpened this point later, saying that if the Post was correct, then Bush did mislead the country, and it was either a case of “incompetence, or it was deliberate. And those are both very, very serious.”

The trailers, and their alleged ability to produce biological weapons, comprised a central administration claim on the urgency of the need to attack Iraq. The Post story does not make it explicitly clear that Bush would have known on May 29, when he claimed that the weapons of mass destruction had been found, that the DIA analysts had reached the conclusion that the trailers weren’t a threat. Dean wants to find out if Bush knew of their May 27 findings.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/04/index.html#009807

[helderheid]

1. K & R!

[Ivan Carter]

17. dean did not do anything special

dean did not do anything special. in fact, the continual focus should be on what messages have been communicated, and the facts, and having the current right wing leadership (in Congress and the WH) defend where the statements contradict, and don't align with the facts,and have them defend on the rhetorical manipulative political game playing engaged in (usually by accusing democrats of the same) to deflect issues (such as by accusing feingold of "ploys" when the NSA wiretap issue goes to the very heart of our Constitution http://www.pressthenews.com/dancing_on_the_edge.html ). this is what the democrats HAVE NOT been doing, and dean calls from one document,and the democratic party starts doing back flips,? what is wrong with you guys? get a grip. you want entertainment, go see a flick or play a sport. you want to get something done, communicate and focus on a message. in this instance, focus on that document, getting it out, the stonewalling, tie it into the declass of the wilson leak (declassified yet all but three people in the entire country were told it was declassified???) and tie it into the larger pattern by the current right wing leadership to mislead....and play rhetorical games with the american people
http://www.pressthenews.com

[cali]

18. OMG

Please learn how to communicate in clear, concise sentences. I read your post without grasping what your problem is with the tactic employed by Dr. Dean. Btw, welcome to DU.

[shraby]

2. Fertilizer is starting to hit the oscillating blades!!!

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

3. Go Dr. Dean!

Speaking up like you've got a spine! I like it!

[Joe Fields]

10. This is the type of leadership I like seeing. Go Howard.

But how far do you think he'll get?

[Zorra]

4. whitehouse.gov May 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.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

[kpete]

5. excellant find-thanks

[The Wielding Truth]

6. DEAN, you do not disappoint!

[Ivan Carter]

16. way to go dean?

dean did not do anything special. in fact, the continual focus should be on what messages have been communicated, and the facts, and having the current right wing leadership (in Congress and the WH) defend where the statements contradict, and don't align with the facts,and have them defend on the rhetorical manipulative political game playing engaged in (usually by accusing democrats of the same) to deflect issues (such as by accusing feingold of "ploys" when the NSA wiretap issue goes to the very heart of our Constitution). this is what the democrats HAVE NOT been doing, and dean calls from one document,and the democratic party starts doing back flips,? what is wrong with you guys? get a grip. you want entertainment, go see a flick or play a sport. you want to get something done, communicate and focus on a message. in this instance, focus on that document, getting it out, the stonewalling, tie it into the declass of the wilson leak (declassified yet all but three people in the entire country were told it was declassified???) and tie it into the larger pattern by the current right wing leadership to mislead....and play rhetorical games with the american people

[ThoughtCriminal]

7. Set the Wayback Machine Sherman

LAT June 2003

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3879.htm

<snip>
June 21, 2003: (Los Angeles Times) WASHINGTON -- In concluding that two trailers seized in northern Iraq were biological weapons labs, the United States rejected Iraqi claims that the vehicles were designed for making hydrogen for weather balloons.
</snip>

<snip>
The CIA and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency have described the two seized trailers as "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program." But some analysts involved in the examination of the vehicles reject that conclusion. And that inspection has failed to find any traces of anthrax, smallpox, tularemia or any other known pathogens.

One veteran intelligence official in Iraq said he is convinced that the seized trailers were indeed designed to produce hydrogen gas to fill weather balloons that were routinely used by Iraqi field artillery batteries.

The intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the trucks did not carry autoclaves or other equipment needed to sterilize laboratory equipment, as would be needed to grow sensitive pathogens used as germ agents.

In addition, he said, the canvas tarps covering the sides of the trucks appeared designed to be pulled away to let excess heat and gas escape during the production of hydrogen. The tarps would allow in far too much road dust and other contamination if the equipment inside were meant to produce biowarfare agents, he said.
</snip>

[EVDebs]

8. Bush will have to agree with Dean since Bush is after 'the truth'

And the people are entitled to the truth, aren't they ?

[Scriptor Ignotus]

9. but is this in the "public interest"?

:sarcasm:

[pacalo]

11. Way to go, Dean!

[Trevelyan]

12. K&R Good for Dean. He is offering Pelosi and Reid a chance to redeem

themselves for their cowardice and I hope they take it.

[Ganja Ninja]

13. Shut this government down!

Until the Republican congress holds this man responsible SHUT IT DOWN! Use whatever means you have available. Enough is enough!

[wicket]

14. Give 'em Hell Howard!!!!!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

He makes me proud to be a Dem :patriot:

[Sparkly]

15. Go, Doctor!!

"The onus is on the president to prove that he did not mislead the country." Exactly right, and I'm glad Dean's putting on the pressure.

(Btw, I expect the WaPo to print an editorial soon titled, "A Good Lie.")

[Virginian]

19. In WH press conference today,

Scotty called the Washington Post article "Irresponsible."

Now who am I going to believe The Post or Scotty. Hmmm, who has lied to me before? Who has a long record of lies?

[rodeodance]

22. I THOUGHT THE WH DID NOT COMMENT ON AN ONGOING INVEST?

[WorseBeforeBetter]

20. Trailers used for "manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons"...

posed a great threat to the U.S., dontcha know? Sounds like the Dean I love and the Dean the wingnuts love to hate:

“…then the onus is on the president to prove that he did not mislead the country.”

We may need to explain "onus" to the AIs and that we're talking about death and destruction, not blowjobs...

[flyarm]

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

i am cross posting this as the other thread has already gone off greatest...

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


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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 ...

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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 ...




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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 ...