Ex-WMD Inspector: Politics Quashed Facts

[Judi Lynn]

Ex-WMD Inspector: Politics Quashed Facts
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
4 minutes ago

A year after Bush administration claims about Iraqi "bioweapons trailers" were discredited by American experts, U.S. officials were still suppressing the findings, says a senior member of the CIA-led Iraq inspection team.

At one point, former U.N. arms inspector Rod Barton says, a CIA officer told him it was "politically not possible" to report that the White House claims were untrue. In the end, Barton says, he felt "complicit in deceit."

Barton, an Australian biological weapons specialist, discusses the 2004 events in "The Weapons Detective," a memoir of his years as an arms inspector, being published Monday in Australia by Black Inc. Agenda.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060513/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_wmd_trailers

[rodeodance]

1. what's up--an AP story writing about this!! whow

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. Yet another piece of evidence that proves the NeoCons lied about Iraq.

[rodeodance]

4. it keeeps piling up. But will our courageous media notice?

[rodeodance]

3. "This story quickly fell apart behind the scenes, it has since emerged."

Former senior CIA officials denied such information was stifled.

The debunking of the "mobile biolabs" claim began in classified reports long before the U.S. invasion, when German intelligence in 2001 and 2002 told U.S. officials that the story's source, an Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball," was unreliable, official investigations later found. U.N. inspectors determined in early 2003, before the war, that parts of Curveball's story were false.

In April 2003, however, two unusually equipped trailers were found in Iraq and the CIA declared they were the mobile biolabs described by the defector.

This story quickly fell apart behind the scenes, it has since emerged. Testing the equipment in early May 2003, U.S. experts found no traces of biological agents, and later that month the U.S. fact-finders filed their negative report from Baghdad.

[Gman]

5. Watch the thrashing and trashing this guy is going to get

from the right wing. "He's trying to sell a book", they will say. What he has to say will be lost in obfuscation.

[rodeodance]

6. Tenet people already denying it:

.Asked for comment on Barton's account, Duelfer said he decided not to report issues piecemeal, but in a final comprehensive report.

"I did not think those were mobile biological weapons labs," he said, but "I wanted to understand the issue of mobile BW production, whether it (the trailers) was part of a larger thing or not." He said he was not pressured by Washington.

Tenet declined to comment. But former CIA spokesman and Tenet associate Bill Harlow told The Associated Press, "There was no effort to stifle any reporting from the field by David Kay or anyone else."

Ultimately the truth about the trailers was disclosed in the Iraq Survey Group's final report in October 2004, more than 16 months after the first conclusive findings were made.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. Actually, the CIA was not the group that supported the "bio-lab"....

...story. That story was supported and pushed by the Pentagon-based NeoCon intelligence group known as OSP/OSI. The OSP/OSI was responsible for the final filter of intelligence data that reached the top levels of the NeoCon Junta.

Additionally, the CIA was not the group that pushed the story about WMDs in Iraq. Tenet's alleged "slam dunk" quote about WMDs in Iraq came from only one source, Bob Woodward, who claims he got it from one or more NeoCons at a Crawford ranch meeting.

The CIA under Tenet tried as hard as they could to debunk the WMD storyline, but they were swimming against the NeoCon tide.

[acmavm]

9. You're right. And who ran the OSP and controlled the 'intelligence' that

came out of that joke of an agency? Little Dougie Feith, that's who. The guy Gen. Tommy Franks (who is no whizbang himself) told the world 'is the stupidest mother f***er on this planet' or words to that effect.

[Speaker]

13. The actual final filter was "Shotgun" Cheney. n/t

[yorkiemommie1]

7. k & r

n/t

[bvar22]

10. The "mobile bio-weapons labs" was debunked online....

...the very same day that Colin Powell showed his cartoon drawings to the UN.

[deutsey]

11. Bush looked really hard for the WMDs, remember?

He looked under the couch in the Oval Office...remember how funny that was?

:sarcasm:

[Libby2]

12. Just one of the many things

that I deplore about that smarmy weasel.



Sorry weasels.