13 May 2003
U.S. Troops Find Second Biological Weapons Trailer Near Mosul
(Defense Department Report) (520)
Washington -- Troops from the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division - -
stationed in northern Iraq and headquartered in Mosul -- have found
what military authorities believe may be a second mobile biological
weapons laboratory, says the division commander.
"The suspected mobile biological agent production lab found on 9 May
in our area was found by one of our infantry units during operations
at the al-Kindi Rocket and Missile Research and Development Center,"
Major General David Petraeus said May 13 during a briefing from Mosul.
"Our own chemical section looked at the trailer and confirmed it as a
trailer that was very close to identical to the first trailer that was
found by Special Forces southeast of here last week."
Petraeus said he spoke with experts May 13, and they have a
"reasonable degree of certainty that this is in fact a mobile
biological agent production trailer."
LinkOf course those biological weapons labs Petraeus claims to have found were not biological weapons labs at all, and it appears that he probably knew that was the case before he went to the media to announce the "find".
On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile "biological laboratories." He declared, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction."
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
snip
Spokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified. A spokesman for the DIA asserted that the team's findings were neither ignored nor suppressed, but were incorporated in the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, which led the official search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The survey group's final report in September 2004 -- 15 months after the technical report was written -- said the trailers were "impractical" for biological weapons production and were "almost certainly intended" for manufacturing hydrogen for weather balloons.
LinkAnd so now the man who told us that a weather balloon station was actually a biological weapons lab is supposed to be our "credible source" that is going to tell us whether or not the "surge" is working.
For the media to present this guy as having even an ounce of credibility is shameful. Petraeus is a liar. Period. There is no reason for people to be anticipating his report, because we already know what his report is going to say. There is a reason Bush choose Petraeus for this job, and if you think Bush chose Petraeus for his objectivity then you don't know who Bush is. Petraeus was chosen for this job because he is more than willing to lie to the public and present the case Bush wants him to present.
We can not fall for the lies that are going to be fed to us over the next week, it is our duty to call Petraeus on his bullshit and I expect our Democrats to question him very vigorously when he testifies. If Petraeus is not forced to explain why he told the media that biological weapons labs were found in Iraq then our Congress is not doing it's job. The man is a liar, and they can not allow a liar to be taken seriously.
The occupation of Iraq needs to end, and people like Petraeus and Bush need to be sent to the Hague for their war crimes trials. They sure as hell should not be treated as credible sources, and it is time we call the media on their bullshit.
