Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Mobile Biological Laboratories, Sand Toilettes, or Hydrogen Balloon Plant? The Bush Admin lied to us Again

For 3 years now, the Bush administration has pointed to two trailers as the “mobile biological laboratories” that were proof of Iraqi WMDs. And when it was determined that no WMDs were inside of Iraq, I assumed, as I’m sure many people did, that the Bush administration had, after numerous tests and a great deal of research, determined that these trailers were not used for biological weapon manufacturing. Little did I know that the Bush administration knew this all along.


I can still remember on May 29, 2003 (I didn’t know the date, just remember the speech) Bush getting up and telling the world that proof had been found of WMDs in Iraq. He pointed to pictures of these trailers, and said that these two trailers were clearly mobile laboratories for creating biological weapons. His approval rating, and the approval rating for the war, jumped significantly that day. I, too, remember thinking that maybe I had been wrong about the war, maybe it was worthwhile after all.


What I didn’t know, what none of us knew, was that two days earlier, a pentagon-sponsored mission to investigate these trailers had concluded definitively that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. With that knowledge in hand, the Bush administration lied to the American people, and pointed to the trailers as proof for the validity of the war.


A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq, not made public until now, had 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 assert that the trailers were weapons factories.


The authors of the reports — nine US and British scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making biological weapons — were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defence Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers.


The contents of the final report, Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers, remain classified, but interviews with six government officials and weapons experts, who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it, reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons.


"There was no connection to anything biological," said one expert who studied the trailers. Another recalled an epithet that came to be associated with the trailers: "the biggest sand toilets in the world".



White House intelligence officials, showing the irony of their name, say that the intelligence received from the team was not manipulated in any way to reinforce the war effort.


You’ve got to be kidding me? What other reason could there be for completely falsifying the nature of these trailers, but to reinforce the war? Even in 2004, when evidence was returned to the White House that these trailers were for the creating of hydrogen weather balloons, no information was passed on to you, I, or other American citizens.


Take a look at one of the trailers above. Now admittedly, I’m no scientist, and I have no idea what goes into creating a biological weapon. But normally, the places where one would undertake such an endeavor would be air tight, with vacuums and air cleaning devices to protect the people working on the weapon and the population at large. Does this trailer really look like it could be used for creating biological weapons? In my layman’s view, no way!


We have this information today because 6 of the 9 British scientists have decided to speak up, and I commend them for it, though I wish they had done so earlier. As for President Bush, I must ask if he believes that he has an obligation to tell us the truth about anything going on in the world. Because at present, he seems completely comfortable lying to support his maneuvers. And that is despicable, in my book.


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Posted by Scottage at 11:36 AM / | |