Gość: dokt0r
IP: *.pth0110.pth.iprimus.net.au
20.02.04, 01:50
Oto artykul z Biuletynu Naukowcow Atomowych
(http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2003/ja03/ja03rothstein.html) o
amerykanskich poszukiwaniach broni masowego razenia w Iraku. Kalendarium tylko
do maja, pozniej koalicja sie troche ostudzila, ale tez byly nowe kwiatki.
Oczywiscie do calej listy bledow trzeba zaliczyc 'przyjacielski ogien' i wiele
innych wpadek, w tym udzial mediow w tworzeniu komedii :)
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This one’s for the history books, folks. While it’s always possible that some
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction or WMD—which posed such an immediate threat
to the United States that the Bush administration was compelled to invade that
country—may some day be found, so far the weapons have proved elusive. Just
for the record, (and in case in a few years no one can believe what happened,
or the story becomes confused with the plot of a Marx Brothers movie), here’s
a representative sample of reports from the U.S. and British news media since
the search for Iraq’s WMD began:
April 7: The Washington Post relays the Pentagon announcement that it has
found the “smoking gun”—the 101st Airborne has located a large cache of
chemical weapon-laden missiles southwest of Baghdad; buried “bioweapons labs”
are also reported found.
April 10: U.S. military commanders announce they have secured the Tuwaitha
nuclear facility.
April 11: U.S. military commanders reveal that before April 10, Tuwaitha, a
site known to contain various radioactive materials, was left unguarded for
days. During that time Iraqi civilians looted the facility, almost certainly
carrying away contaminated materials.
April 12: The Guardian reports that the U.S. and British governments have
rejected the idea that experienced U.N. weapon inspectors should return to
Iraq. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Saddam Hussein’s science
adviser, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi has surrendered, but insists Iraq had no WMD.
April 13: The Washington Post reports that the “smoking gun” chemical weapon
found on April 7 is some sort of pesticide, probably used to combat mosquitos;
as for the April 7 report that chemical weapons missiles had been found, the
Pentagon “denies any knowledge of this alleged discovery.”
April 15: CNN reports that buried bioweapons labs turn out to be crates of
new, unused laboratory equipment (test tubes and the like).
April 20: The Washington Post says the Pentagon intends to form a 1,000-man
“Iraq Survey Group” to hunt for weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile,
Britain’s Independent sums up what has been discovered about Iraqi WMD so far:
The U.S. intelligence report that the nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha had been
rebuilt was a “sham”; a claim that Iraq had bought uranium in Niger was based
on falsified documents; and the aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were not for
gas centrifuges to produce weapon-grade uranium. The United States claimed
that Iraq was expanding its chemical facilities, but in reality the chemical
site at Al Qaqaa was bombed during the first Gulf War, and its chemical
weapons were then removed and destroyed by the United Nations. As for the
pre-war claim that Iraq was building a dangerous unmanned aerial vehicle for
the purpose of spraying bioweapons into the atmosphere, a single dismantled
drone found by U.N. inspectors was not reported because it was not a
prohibited item. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claim at the United Nations
in February, that Iraq had weaponized ricin, was misleading, to say the least.
The truth, surely known to U.S. intelligence, was that Iraq conducted a single
test in November 1990, which failed, after which the ricin project was
abandoned. Similarly, no evidence to date supports Powell’s other claims— that
Iraq engaged in research on smallpox, or that it had any VX, mustard gas,
botulin, or anthrax.
April 21: Questions are raised about how seriously the U.S. government
believed its own claims about WMD, considering that, as the New York Times
reports, weapons search teams do not have adequate transport and are having to
rely on borrowed helicopters. On the same day, in the same paper, reporter
Judith Miller declares that an unnamed Iraqi scientist has identified an
unnamed site where, he says, Iraq destroyed unnamed chemical and biological
weapons before the war. Miller calls this the “most important discovery to
date in the hunt for illegal weapons.”
April 24: The Washington Post reports that the reason U.S. forces waited three
weeks after reaching Tuwaitha before inspecting it was due to an internal U.S.
government dispute about who would be in charge. The BBC quotes the editor of
Jane’s Intelligence Digest, Alex Standish, who says reports of Iraq’s WMD were
“politically driven.”
April 25: President George W. Bush says WMD may not ever be found in Iraq.
April 27: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says it doesn’t matter if
no WMD are found. On the other hand, Raymond Whitaker, writing in the
Independent, says the road to war was paved with lies and that intelligence
agencies were at the mercy of political appointees who distorted intelligence
reports to fan the flames. The story about the purchase of uranium from Niger,
based on “crude forgeries,” had been known to be false for more than a year.
As for Scud missiles, not only were none fired, none were found. The Blair
government plagiarized outdated graduate student papers and called them a
dossier on Iraqi weapons. Other questionable information came from an exile
group, the Iraqi National Congress, which was paid to “come up with” claims.
It’s odd, Whitaker concludes, that if U.S. and British authorities were so
concerned about finding WMD that within a few days they diverted some of the
search teams to other tasks. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reports that
David Kay, a pre-war supporter of the administration’s position, says of the
U.S. WMD search: “My impression is this has been a very low priority so far,
and they’ve put very little effort into it.”
April 28: Associated Press reports that some 55-gallon drums previously found
in northern Iraq and described by U.S. military personnel as containing
“blister agent” contain rocket fuel.
April 29: Surrendered scientist Nassir Hindawi tells CNN he was the only
person in Iraq smart enough to make powdered anthrax (about which, he adds, he
kept quiet). Hindawi describes Rihab Taha, Iraq’s famous “Dr. Germ,” as a
former student of his who lacked practical abilities. British Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw is described by Independent correspondent Ben Russell as
“hinting” that WMD may never be found, although Straw continues to insist that
Iraq “had them recently.”
May 1: President Bush lands on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and
declares an end to major combat operations in Iraq. On the same day, but
reported in the May 17 Washington Post, U.S. special weapons hunters break
down the doors of “Special Security Organization Al Hayat.” The padlocked
innermost storage room is found to be filled with vacuum cleaners.
May 7: The Associated Press reports that Lt. Gen. William Wallace of the
army’s Fifth Corps says there is “plenty of documentary evidence” of WMD
coming from “lower-tier Iraqis.” Wallace offers no examples.
May 9: The Associated Press reports that Col. Richard McPhee says his teams
have found no chemical or biological weapons so far, and that they might never
be found, but he thinks they will find an “infrastructure.” Or, as Stephen
Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence says, a program for WMD
will be found,