IRAQ WAR - LOOKING GLASS NEWS
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Winnebagoes of lies
by Eli Stephens    left i on the news
Entered into the database on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 @ 15:53:43 MST
 

Untitled Document

George Bush, yesterday:

"I wanted people to see the truth and thought it made sense for people to see the truth. And that's why I declassified the document."

But, although it was at almost exactly the same time, strangely enough George's desire for people to "see the truth" didn't extend to another document:

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. and Kurdish 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.

Two things to note about that, aside from the obvious. First of all, it was obvious from day one that this story was false. Not just that a real weapons facility wouldn't be a "weapon of mass destruction," but the entire original claim (e.g., as presented by Colin Powell at the U.N.) posited sets of three trailers, each accomplishing a different part of the task. But the two captured trailers were identical, and each lacking the other two trailers. There were also, as I remember it, no traces whatsoever of any relevant chemicals or biological agents. In short, there was no reason whatsoever to believe these were intended to make biological weapons. None. That didn't prevent the media from dutifully repeating the claims of the government.

And the second is the "deathbed conversion" aspect of the story:

The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it. None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized.

If they weren't going to consent to be identified, why didn't they speak up in June, 2003? It's not like this information should have ever been classified in the first place. The analysis of an alleged bioweapons facility which was concluded unequivocally to be not a bioweapons facility could hardly contain any kind of national security information. The only security information it contained was job security information for George Bush and his cronies. And, knowing that, these six people kept silent for nearly three years while more than a hundred thousand people died.

The Washington Post ran this story on page one. The report it describes is still classified. Does the Post editorially call for its declassification? Not today, anyway.