The British Foreign Secretary has been smoking some more, Changez_Like :smack:
Straw Hints That Weapons Will Never Be Found [wow, isn’t that convenient]
Ben Russell, The Independent, 29 April 2003
Iraq used an animal feed plant as a duel site to create Anthrax, thankfully the UN found out and shut one of these plants down years ago. My point being, in no way could the sanctions be lifted if Saddam stayed, as the above example shows how duel use of seemingly innocent materials were used by the Saddam regime to create WMD. This war was justified by the mere fact it caused (pending UN approval) the end of sanctions, something Saddam wouldn’t let happen. That said, WMD will be found and the regulars here will bitch and moan claiming it was planted by the U.S. no matter the evidence presented.
He doesn't seem too worried about the possibility that one evil Iraqi lab tech may have ran to Turkmenistan with some coffee cans full of nastiness.
That is the reason they need to be found. If we don't know where they are.. we don't know where they are. I'd hate to find them the hard way.
That is why we went into Iraq. To prevent terrorists from using Saddam's goods. It doesn't matter if Saddam is there or not.. hell, now the terrorists don't have to bribe Saddam.
Vilified Weapons Inspectors May Have Got It Right
Ben Russell, Sydney Morning Herald, 1 May 2003
Nadia, I think people need to see the last two paragraphs of that.. sums things up well without bias.
[QUOTE]
When Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, suggested Iraq's WMD program could be more fragmented and degraded, he was pilloried as naive or incompetent. When his inspectors talked of a more complex search for WMD, where components or precursors could be in the form of legal, dual-use chemical or biological agents that had to be monitored, they were dismissed as flatfooted and overcautious. Yet Dr Rice's descriptions of Iraq's weapons program is far closer to Dr Blix's analysis than she would want to concede. Throughout Dr Blix's reports to the Security Council he spoke of the need to track down the components of Iraq's old biological and chemical programs, the bits and pieces, and to monitor all activity at dual-use facilities.
Many international weapons experts believed that the threat from Iraq did not come from chemical-filled Scud missiles or aircraft, as sometimes cited in Washington. The threat was less direct. It was about whether Saddam was trying to maintain the core of a WMD program, both raw ingredients and scientific expertise, which he could reconstitute when the world got tired of containing him. For arms control experts around the world that threat was a very real one. But it was far less dramatic and threatening than that presented by the US to justify a pre-emptive war. Now the US, Britain and Australia, which have taken on the mission to find Iraq's WMD program, have to explain this more complex and diffuse threat to the world. Dr Rice's public comments will help. But the US's refusal to accept a role for Dr Blix and his team to verify what actually made up Iraq's WMD program in the last years will only encourage scepticism of all the coalition claims.
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i apprecate it. Thank you, Spoon, for quoting that.
Yep you are correct, the article is relatively unbiased (IMHO).
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Is DU the reason for these suits in your opinion?
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I think these suits were meant to defend against chemical weapons,
WMD are finished by UN, but not these suits. US made sure they dont have weapons so it was safe enough to attack.
US will not find any WMD but it will be very easy to plant such fake evidence and then show the media.
showdown very soon, just watch the news.
**Iraqis Won’t Admit to Banned Weapons **
Sat May 3, 2:26 PM ET Add World - AP to My Yahoo!
By DAFNA LINZER, Associated Press Writer
Before the war, the Bush administration pressured U.N. inspectors to question reluctant Iraqi scientists as part of the hunt for unconventional weapons. Once Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was removed, U.S. officials expected the scientists and others would feel free to reveal secrets about Iraq (news - web sites)'s suspected hidden arsenal.
But few have come forward. And U.S. officials say those in custody are sticking to their stories — that Iraq hasn’t had chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs in years.
While the major combat has ended, one of the war’s main goals — disarming Iraq of any weapons of mass destruction — has yet to be achieved.
Washington has not given up. “We’ll find them, and it’s just going to be a matter of time to do so,” President Bush (news - web sites) said Saturday. He expressed impatience with captives like Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who “still doesn’t know how to tell the truth.”
A military official involved with a small group of U.S.-led search teams in Iraq said they were under “intense pressure from Washington to come up with something.” The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the teams were overwhelmed with work and looking forward to planned reinforcements.
The teams are visiting suspect sites and testing for the presence of any weapons or indications that ingredients may have been destroyed there. Some are sifting through documents and intelligence reports for clues.
But those involved in what is known as “site exploitation,” aren’t interviewing the hundreds of Iraqi scientists whom U.S. officials have said would be the key to finding any banned weapons.
Two experts involved in the planning for the weapons hunt said a handful of top scientists already in U.S. custody are being questioned by intelligence officials, not by weapons experts or interrogators with strong scientific backgrounds.
Some senior working-level scientists and researchers have been interviewed by reporters in their Baghdad homes or at their offices. But few, if any, have been visited by Americans.
One reason may be that the current search teams are limited in their mission, expertise and staff, forcing them to wait for scientists to volunteer information rather than seeking them out.
In an effort to reach the larger scientific community, coalition radio in Iraq called on Iraqi scientists and engineers to come forward with any details that could prove useful.
“Anyone who provides information regarding weapons programs will be treated with respect and dignity to ensure Iraq’s complete and comprehensive disarmament.”
There is concern that some scientists are afraid to speak out.
“People we’ve heard from are scared of a situation like Guantanamo Bay” — that they will be imprisoned under austere conditions like those faced by terror suspects captured in Afghanistan (news - web sites), said Corey Hinderstein, senior analyst at the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
U.S. officials said this week that senior figures in custody — including Amer al-Saadi, Saddam’s alleged point man on chemical and biological agents; Amer Rashid, Iraq’s oil minister and a top missile expert and Jaffer Jaffer, the father of Iraq’s former nuclear weapons program — denied Iraq had any unconventional weapons in recent years.
The officials said they believe many of the prisoners are lying to protect themselves. Some may be trying to cut deals before agreeing to reveal information.
There has been discussion in the Bush administration and among disarmament experts about what to do with the scientists. Some feel that those who served at the very top could be prosecuted for war crimes but many believe the vast majority should be reintegrated into society and even prevented from leaving Iraq.
“They could work for other proliferators or terrorist groups if they’re allowed to leave,” said Jonathan Tucker, a former U.N. inspector and a bioweapons expert now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
Tucker and others said it was imperative that those involved in the weapons search start looking immediately for scientists who are known to have been involved in programs in the past.
“The U.S. made such an important point of getting the U.N. to talk to the scientists, and the fact that we seem, in a certain sense, not to be following our own advice is perplexing,” said Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard.
The government is in the process of beefing up the weapons search and plans to send in more than 1,000 people from the military and civilian sectors to help analyze new information, interrogate prisoners and scour suspicious sites. Known as the Iraq Survey Group, they will take control of the roughly 200 experts already on the ground.
But thus far, some of the former inspectors have said the U.S. teams are too small and lack sufficient expertise and equipment.
In November, it took U.N. inspectors only two weeks to be fully operational in Iraq and within days they were conducting multiple searches across the country. With more than 100 inspectors working at any given time, the U.N. teams were conducting up to 20 inspections a day by January.
United Nations (news - web sites) inspectors were also better equipped, with their own helicopters, a fleet of vehicles and extensive onsite laboratories.
Still, they were unable to find any evidence to support the administration’s claim that Iraq was concealing weapons. As it became clear they weren’t finding the weapons the administration said were there, France suggested beefing up the teams but the United States opposed it.
U.S. officials now say the weapons are either well hidden or were destroyed in the run-up to the war. There is no firm evidence they were moved to other countries, they say.
Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), under questioning before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, predicted prisoners would yet help U.S. forces find weapons.
“They will be found,” he said.
**
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those who will cooperate will be treated with dignity and those who won’t co-operate, they will be killed like dogs. Message is preety clear 
Neither bomb, nor Saddam
Very recently Bush was making noise of hidden weapon culture in Iraq.
Now he is projecting himself as a hero for freedom. A role that is already accepted by the world community.
Once again we are happy to prove that our memory is very short.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10888-2003May3.html
Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted
U.S. Team Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are Missing
NEAR KUT, Iraq, May 3 – A specially trained Defense Department team, dispatched after a month of official indecision to survey a major Iraqi radioactive waste repository, today found the site heavily looted and said it was impossible to tell whether nuclear materials were missing.
Re: Neither bomb, nor Saddam
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*Originally posted by yahudi: *
Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted
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I'm sorry, but isn't that worse than knowing Saddam has these kind of weapons? At least we knew where they were and whose ass to kick if something happened with them. Now we've already kicked ass but don't know who has the weapons. For all we know they've already been sold and are on their way to America... is that the end we want in a war that was fought for safety's sake??
U.S. Finds Iraqi Mobile Germ Warfare Lab
Well now. Seems the US has now confirmed that it has in its possession one of the Mobile WMD Labs referred to by Powell in his speech to the UN. Does anyone recall whether Saddam disclosed the existence of any such lab in his WMD Declaration to the UN?
Pentagon: U.S. Finds Iraqi Mobile Germ Warfare Lab
Wed May 7, 2003 02:55 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq have found a trailer used by the toppled government of President Saddam Hussein as a mobile biological weapons laboratory, a Pentagon official said on Wednesday
The announcement was made by Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, during a Pentagon briefing. Cambone said no actual germ warfare agents have yet been discovered in the lab but added that the trailer would be disassembled and searched extensively for evidence of weapons.
Cambone said a “mobile production facility” painted in a military color scheme came into the hands of U.S. forces on April 19 at a Kurdish checkpoint near the town of Tall Kayf in northern Iraq. The trailer was found on a heavy-equipment transporter typically used for carrying tanks, he added.
Aboard the trailer was equipment that can be used to make biological weapons – living microorganisms used deliberately to spread disease – including a fermenter that could be used for the germ warfare agents, Cambone said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=E0GX0VL0IP4OQCRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=2699599
Not surprised at all.
That fella wrote "U.S. Finds Iraqi Mobile Germ Warfare Lab"
No man that was a US hotdog stall, the troops gotta eat don't they?
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*Originally posted by Thap: *
That fella wrote "U.S. Finds Iraqi Mobile Germ Warfare Lab"
No man that was a US hotdog stall, the troops gotta eat don't they?
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May be the hot dogs were contaminated with DU dust.. That qualifys for bio weapons.
The weapons are coming, documented evidence is plentiful and will point the coalition right to them.
Underthedome.
Well I do hope that the WMD come in my lifetime!
I don't know about you, but if my documents told me that the pen was on the table, I surely wouldn't take hours to find it.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Malik73: *
**Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, lashed out at critics yesterday for claiming the discovery of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was necessary to justify the U.S.-led invasion.*
My my the cat is out of the bag now.
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Politics.
Re: U.S. Finds Iraqi Mobile Germ Warfare Lab
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by myvoice: *
Well now. Seems the US has now confirmed that it has in its possession one of the Mobile WMD Labs referred to by Powell in his speech to the UN. Does anyone recall whether Saddam disclosed the existence of any such lab in his WMD Declaration to the UN?
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Who gives a damn to what Saddam said? Everybody listened to BB, they said that they have irrefutable proof of existence of WMDs and its locations... this is perhaps the BEST shot!
[quote]
Cambone said no actual germ warfare agents have yet been discovered in the lab but added that the trailer would be disassembled and searched extensively for evidence of weapons....
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No WMDs found yet!
[thumb=B]biolabtruck.JPG[/thumb]
all i wanna know is why no one is wearing any protective gear?? 
PA,
I had the same question!
Apparently they used heavy protection at first, but found that the whole thing had been hosed down with bleach. It appears that the canvas covers can be rolled up, and the whole apparatus sprayed with a decontamination solutions. I don't imagine that the people working in the thing would like to have a lot of stray anthrax flying about as they roll down the road....