Iraq: The "completely erroneous" evidence of Powell

posted by nmb on Thursday April 17, @08:17AM

US should be "embarrassed" over failure to find WMDs: ex-CIA

WASHINGTON, April 17 (AFP) -

"...The US government should be "embarrassed" over the apparent failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, retired intelligence officials who opposed the war said Thursday.

"It's going to be very embarrassing when it turns out they have nothing to declare," said Eugene Betit, a former defense intelligence analyst who belongs to Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), formed in January to speak out on the use of intelligence to justify the war.

Another, former CIA station chief Ray Close, said: "I'm hoping they will be embarrassed into acknowledging a role for some independent body. And who could it be but the UN?"

As the "smoking gun" continued to elude US sleuths in Iraq, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix called for experts to return to the country to determine whether the weapons allegations -- the main justification for going to war -- had any foundation.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday he was "reasonably sure" that proof will be found.

"We are quite confident of our intelligence," he told Jim Lehrer of PBS public television..."

Related Articles:

More on VIPS at http://www.counterpunch.org/vips02082003.html

Iraq: The "completely erroneous" evidence of Powell

http://www.skynet.be

(posted by ewing2001, webtranslated from French by co-correspondent Cuiller from Belgium)

Two UN inspectors, on mission in Iraq until the beginning of the war, qualified Monday of "completely erroneous" the evidence advanced by the American Secretary of State Colin Powell in his talk on Iraq on February 5th in front of the Security Council.

In an interview with the public German ARD TV channel, which will be aired Monday evening, the Norwegian Joem Siljeholm and a German inspector specialized in data processing wishing to preserve anonymity, in particular into question the assertions of Mr. Powell calling on the existence of mobile laboratories for prohibited weapons, installed in cars or trucks in order to dissimulate them.

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The two experts in disarmament, on mission in Iraq during three months until March 20th, affirm thus that they found these vehicles and that they were not special trucks: "It is not like if we had not found these trucks. We found them (...) But none of them was a truck of decontamination, even if the CIA (service of American information) affirms the opposite ".

The two inspectors, charged to check information of the American secret service, also refuted information on the supposed existence of factories of weapons of massive destruction, evoked by the American government on the faith of the presence of systems of ventilation installed on the roofs of certain buildings. "We sought according to the shown photographs, and it proved that that had nothing to do with weapons of massive destruction", the two scientific ones affirmed, qualifying the speech of Mr. Powell in front of UN on the Iraqi armament of "misleading and completely erroneous". (EDR)

Related Article:

'Powell misled UN in his speech on Iraq's WMD'

http://news.indiainfo.com/2003/04/14/14powell1.html

Mainz: Two UN weapons inspectors working in Iraq before the war contested as "completely wrong" parts of a speech given by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in February on the country's arms programmes.

There had been no factories making weapons of mass destruction as claimed by Washington based on a series of photographs showing ventilation systems on top of certain buildings, they said in an interview with German ARD television to be broadcast on April 14.

"We investigated the photos that were shown, and we found they had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction," said Joem Siljeholm from Norway, adding, parts of Powell's presentation were "misleading" or "completely wrong".

Mobile laboratories dealing with biological weapons described by Powell to the UN Security Council also did not really exist.

Siljeholm and a German inspector, who did not wish to be named, said the vehicles in question were spotted during their three-month mission in Iraq.

"It's not as if we couldn't find these trucks. We found them... but none of them were decontamination trucks, even if the CIA says otherwise," said the German, who had to verify information supplied by the US intelligence service.

Powell presented declassified intelligence material on February 5 in a dramatic bid to persuade the UN Security Council that Iraq should be disarmed by force, rather than letting inspections continue.

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