SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch

 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext  
To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (19737)5/30/2003 6:05:47 PM
From: Mannie  Read Replies (2) of 89467
 
We are led by a bunch of lying bastards....as previously pointed out.

US Intel 'Simply Wrong' on Chemical Attack-General

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence was "simply wrong" in leading
military commanders to believe their troops were likely to be attacked with
chemical weapons in the Iraq war, the top U.S. Marine general there said on
Friday.

But Lt. Gen. James Conway said in a teleconference with reporters at the
Pentagon that it was too early to say whether the United States also was wrong in
charging that Iraq had chemical and biological arms when the invasion began
2-1/2 months ago.

"We were simply wrong," he said of the assessment that chemical shells or other
weapons were ready in southern Iraq and likely to be used against invaders by
deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces.

"Whether or not we are wrong at the national level I think still very much remains to
be seen. ... 'Intelligence failure,' I think, is still too strong a word to use at this
point," added the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who was
speaking from Hilla, 62 miles south of Baghdad.

U.S. forces have been scouring Iraq -- thus far unsuccessfully -- for chemical and
biological weapons. The United States cited the need to rid Iraq of such weapons
of mass destruction as a key reason for the war.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have
expressed confidence that such arms will be found, although Rumsfeld this week
conceded that Iraq may have decided to destroy them ahead of the invasion.

Conway said he was convinced when U.S. and British troops swept into Iraq from
Kuwait that they would come under chemical or biological attack before they
reached Baghdad.

But such shells have not been found even in ammunition storage sites, he told
reporters.

"It was a surprise to me then. It remains a surprise to me now that we have not
uncovered weapons ... in some of the forward dispersal sites," said Conway.

"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been through virtually every ammunition
supply site between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad. But they're simply not there."

U.S. and British troops carried chemical masks and protective outfits into Iraq
during the invasion and donned them frequently early in the war in anticipation of
possible attack.

"What the regime was intending to do ... in terms of its use of weapons we thought
we understood," the general said.

"We certainly had our best guess -- our most dangerous, our most likely courses
of action -- that the intelligence folks were giving us."
Report TOU ViolationShare This Post
 Public ReplyPrvt ReplyMark as Last ReadFilePrevious 10Next 10PreviousNext