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| Iraq |
| More on the Mobile labs. |
| 2003-04-14 |
| U.S.: Mobile labs found in Iraq EFL. I’ll let you folks do the commentary. KARBALA, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. troops have found 11 mobile laboratories buried south of Baghdad that are capable of biological and chemical uses, a U.S. general said Monday. There were no chemical or biological weapons with the containerized labs, which measure 20 feet square. But soldiers recovered "about 1,000 pounds" of documents from inside the labs, and the United States will examine those papers further, said Brig. Gen. Benjamin Freakley of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. "Initial reports indicate that this is clearly a case of denial and deception on the part of the Iraqi government," Freakley told CNN's Ryan Chilcote. "These chemical labs are present, and now we just have to determine what in fact they were really being used for." Troops found the mobile laboratories near a weapons plant outside Karbala, about 50 miles south of Baghdad. Though buried, they appeared to contain about $1 million worth of equipment and were "clearly marked so they could be found again," Freakley said. In February, U.N. weapons inspectors "found nothing untoward" at an ammunition filling plant close to where the troops have found the mobile labs, a U.N. inspection team spokesman said Monday. Inspectors visited the site -- referred to as the Karbala Ammunition Filling Plant -- on February 23. "There was no hint by anybody, no special tip that led us there," one U.N. official said. No banned weapons or related materials were found there. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in February told the United Nations Security Council that U.S. intelligence indicated Iraq had production facilities for biological weapons "on wheels and on rails," and on at least 18 flatbed trucks. He insisted the labs existed and called them "most worrisome." "The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors," Powell said. "In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War." Powell said the evidence included firsthand accounts from four sources -- among them, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of the facilities and an Iraqi civil engineer "in a position to know the details of the program." U.N. weapons inspection chief Hans Blix said his inspectors never found evidence of such labs. On March 7, Blix told the U.N. Security Council, "Several inspections have taken place at declared and undeclared sites in relation to mobile production facilities. Food-testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen, as well as large containers with seed-processing equipment. No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found." |
| Posted by:Tadderly |
| #7 Humm.. so.. which governments haven't demanded any evidence of WMD? |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-04-14 16:47:28 |
| #6 Nope. They've found full warheads with traces of nerve agent around 'round inserts' -probably fill ports. They've found others with blister agents. Even MSNBC ran their own tests on a bombed out bunker and got positives. But then the stories are gobbled up. We're covering up. Something we're not very good at. And I don't know why. Possibly giving cover for the Axis, now that it's out that they were up to their neck in embargoed arms to Saddam. Behind the scenes, Powell might be extracting something we consider more valuable (like a free pass when we do Syria) I was hoping some 'imbedded blogger' would post some bombshell, here, for instance. It'll come out. |
| Posted by: Scott 2003-04-14 15:48:46 |
| #5 My guess is we have already found quite a bit of stuff, but we arent releasing it for general knowledge for one very good reason. Leverage. Imagine sitting in the french ambassadors office, with a big portfolio of pictures taken from a recovered bioweapons site in Iraq. Imagine having actual physical receipts,logs and ephemera from the Iraqis to the French( you dont really think Rhone-Polenc only makes insecticide, do you?). Then imagine telling the french ambassador to get his military HAZMAT team together and get in to clean it up, and oh, by-the-way "mr. ambassador", if we find out you're selling any of this stuff to anyone else, this portfolio hits the front pages of the newspapers tommorow morning. Imagine asking in the most condescending way possible for the french to tell us everything they know about any possible other sites int Iraq. Of course before you start, you should warn the french ambassador that this is not the only site we have found, and our attitude towards the french nation is likely to be reflected in how "honest and forthright" the french ambasssador is. Get my drift, Mr. Villepan? |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-04-14 15:44:57 |
| #4 Too true, OldSpook. The Weasels gave Iraq a lot of time, and there are still thousands of sites to check, and, apparently, a 1,000 pounds of interesting documents. Doing a thorough search necessarily will take MUCH longer than it took to get from Kuwait to Tikrit. |
| Posted by: FormerLiberal 2003-04-14 15:23:59 |
| #3 Does that mean that the reports of the Cyanide, and and Mustard Gas in the Euphrates where as bogus as the rest turned out to be? I always wondered why that got put to bed so quickly. And what about the underground compound that had a bunch of "nuculer" "stuff" in it? Crap too? |
| Posted by: Mike N. 2003-04-14 15:17:46 |
| #2 ... Freakley ... What a name. These labs and the documentation are important finds. They show the intent. And hopefully we can pick up the trail of where they sent the things they have made. The constant delays in action since November of last year have given the Iraqis time to partition, and hide or ship the weapons they made - possibly in Syria, but hopefully not with terrorists. Bio weapons are the hardest to deploy effectively, but the easiest to transport and store once they have been developed, especially in the case of Anthrax. Chemical ones, unless they are modern binary munitions like those of the US and Soviet era, are difficult to store for long periods. And nukes are very difficult to develop. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2003-04-14 15:11:32 |
| #1 Still no chemical or biological agents found, though. I am starting to seriously doubt that they exist. |
| Posted by: Tex 2003-04-14 14:44:04 |