Iraqis near nuclear site took ore barrels home
In war's chaos, thirsty villagers drank from contaminated containers
New York Times via SF Chronicle -- June 8, 2003
Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times
"We had to find something to bring water," said Idris Saddoun, 23.
They say they broke into the warehouse, emptied hundreds of radioactive barrels of their yellow and brown mud, took them to wells and canals and filled them with water for cooking, bathing and drinking. The barrels had held uranium ores, low-enriched uranium "yellowcake," nuclear sludge and other dirty byproducts of nuclear research.
Transcript: Colin Powell Talks WMD
Fox News Sunday -- June 8, 2003
Spies threaten Blair with 'smoking gun' over Iraq
Senior intelligence officers kept secret records of meetings after pressure from No 10
The Independent -- June 8, 2003
By Kim Sengupta and Andy McSmith
reprint at Global Policy
Intelligence officers are holding a "smoking gun" which proves that they were subjected to a series of demands by Tony Blair's staff in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Kristol: Bush Made Misstatements on Iraq WMDs
NewsMax -- June 8, 2003
In comments sure to be seized upon by Bush administration critics at home and abroad, one of the leading proponents of the war in Iraq said Sunday that President Bush may have misstated the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. attacked.
"We shouldn't deny, those of us who were hawks, that there could have been misstatements made, I think in good faith," Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol told "Fox News Sunday."
Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs'
Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs
The Observer -- 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.
Defense Agency Issues Excerpt on Iraqi Chemical Warfare Program
DIA director Jacoby clarifies press reports on agency assessment
US Department of State -- June 7, 2003
The Defense Department released on June 7 an unclassified excerpt of an earlier Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) study on Iraq's chemical warfare (CW) program in which it stated that there is "no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has -- or will -- establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities."
But the excerpt, drawn from a classified DIA study published in September 2002, also Stated that "Iraq will develop various elements of its chemical industry to achieve self-sufficiency in producing the chemical precursors required for CW agent production." The full excerpt is based on the DIA's analysis titled: "Iraq -- Key WMD Facilities -- An Operational Support Study."
Ex-Official: Evidence Distorted for War
Associated Press via Common Dreams -- June 7, 2003
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war.
Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use
New York Times -- June 7, 2003
By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.
seen at
eschaton
reprint at Information Clearing House
Weapons dossier 'sent back six times'
BBC -- June 6, 2003
US Defense Intelligence: Never Any Doubt About Iraq's WMD Program
Voice Of America News -- June 6, 2003
"It is a sentence lifted out of the text," he said. "The single sentence was not intended to summarize the program. So what we are saying is, that in 2002 in September, we could not reliably pin down for someone who was doing contingency planning, specific facilities, locations, or production that was underway at a specific location at that point in time."
But Admiral Jacoby said his agency had no doubt about the existence of a weapons of mass destruction program in Iraq.
Data didn't back Bush's weapons claims, officials say
San Jose Mercury News -- June 6, 2003
"Some people higher up the food chain made the leap from suspicion to conviction," said a senior military official who is critical of how the intelligence was handled.
"I think they honestly believed that, based on how the Iraqis had always behaved in the past and not just because they wanted to scare the public into supporting the war," said the official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved.
DIA Report
BBC News (as seen on BBC America) -- June 6, 2003
"There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons."
US Defence Intelligence Agency, September 2002
Blix Interview
BBC News (as seen on BBC America) -- June 6, 2003
Newsreader: The controversy over western intelligence on Iraq has deepened. Now the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has cast doubt over the quality of US intelligence he received about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war. Mr. Blix told the BBC that his team followed up British and American leads at a large number of suspected weapons sites only to find nothing when they got there. But the US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld has again insisted that American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass desctruction has been good.
[snip]
Blix: Only in three of those cases did we find anything at all. And in none of these cases were there any weapons of mass destruction. And that shook me a bit, I must say. I was impressed by that. Because we had been told that they would give us the best intelligence that they had. So I thought, my god, if this is the best intelligence they have, and we find nothing, what about the rest?
The “Winnebagos of Death” Just Another Scam?
Taprock Peace Center -- June 5, 2003
UN INSPECTORS FOUND NO EVIDENCE OF PROHIBITED WEAPONS PROGRAMMES
AS OF 18 MARCH WITHDRAWAL, HANS BLIX TELLS SECURITY COUNCIL
United Nations -- June 5, 2003
Cheney’s CIA Visits May Have Influenced Reports, Analysts Say
Global Security Newswire -- June 5, 2003
Criminals delivered sand to Iraq instead of arms: South African expert
AFP via SpaceWar Jun 5, 2003
BLIX: NO EVIDENCE OF WMD
The Mirror -- June 5, 2003
Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix said today he had found no evidence Iraq had resumed its weapons of mass destruction programme before the outbreak of war.
He told delegates it was "not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for".
Iraq's WMD Intelligence
Senator Robert C. Byrd in the Nation -- June 5, 2003
Senator Byrd delivered these remarks on the Senate floor on June 5, 2003.
With each passing day, the questions surrounding Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction take on added urgency. Where are the massive stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other nerve agents that we were told Iraq was hoarding? Where are the thousands of liters of botulinim toxin? Wasn't it the looming threat to America posed by these weapons that propelled the United States into war with Iraq? Isn't this the reason American military personnel were called upon to risk their lives in combat?
Iraqi Weapons Expert Insists Search Is Futile
LA Times via Common Dreams -- June 4
Saeed, perhaps the most senior weapons scientist to speak to a reporter since the war, says he would gladly accept a $200,000 reward U.S. officials here have quietly offered to anyone who can lead them to the poison gases, germ weapons and other illegal weapons that President Bush repeatedly insisted were secretly deployed in prewar Iraq.
But Saeed said he cannot take them to what he insists no longer exists
Beware the TMD
Trailers of mass destruction, at home and abroad.
New York Press -- June 3, 2003
[Yet another weisenheimer.]
Credibility Gap, Anyone?
Jim Lobe at TomPaine.com -- June 3, 2003
Proof of WMD is Bush trailer trash
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia -- June 3, 2003