Spinning around WMD...
Why you should always talk of something you really know
JoeUser Forums
Published in The Observer (1/02/2004)
Always good to confront yesterday speech to today's reality. Specially after the resignation of the former chief (David Kay) of the Iraqi Survey group saying that no WMD will be found...
Pre war allegation:
Iraq possesses 100-500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents
UN security Council presentation by Colin Powell (5/02/2003)
Status: Not found
Pre war allegation:
Iraq has hidden warheads containing 'biological warfare agent... in large groves of palm trees
UN security Council presentation by Colin Powell (5/02/2003)
Status: Not found
Pre war allegation:
Iraq possesses hidden factory equipped with thousands of centrifuges to make fissionable material for nuclear weapons
UN security Council presentation by Colin Powell (5/02/2003)
Status: Not found
Comment: In reality aluminium tubing was almost certainly for rocket production.
Pre war allegation:
Iraq was trying to procure uranium from Niger to produce fissionable material for nuclear weapon
President G. W. Bush, State of the Union Address (28/01/2003)
Status: Not found
Comment: It has subsequently emerged that US official knew the claim was based on forged documents a year earlier. Although British Intelligence made the same claim on the basis of independent intelligence to the fake documents, it has never explained what that was.
Pre war allegation:
Iraq possesses at least 7 mobile laboratories for producing biological warfare agents
UN security Council presentation by Colin Powell (5/02/2003)
Status: Not found
Comment:
Two trailers, originally believed to be mobile germ labs, were found not to fit Powell's description and were described by experts, including Dr David Kelly, as unsuitable for the production of germ agents
Post war allegation:
The Iraq survey group uncovered 'massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories in Iraq
Prime minister Tony Blair speaking to British troops in December 2003
Status: Not found
Comment:
Blair's claim was dismissed by Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer: 'I don't know where those words come from but that is not what [Iraq Survey Group chief] David Kay has said.'
Pre war allegation:
Iraq has developed unmanned drones capable of spraying biological or chemical weapons which could be launched at sea against the U.S.
President G. W. Bush, National Intelligence estimate, February 2003.
Status: Not found
Comment:
US Airforce Intelligence said the drones were not intended for germ warfare but for reconnaissance, in a report published six month earlier.
Pre war allegation:
Iraqi military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.'
British government dossier on Iraqi WMD, (24/09/2002)
Status: Not found
Comment:
The original intelligence referred to short range battlefield weapons, although this was not made clear. The head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, later admitted to Lord Hutton, that the claim was open to misinterpretation as ' weapon of a longer range