The Washington Post story is misleading and quite incomplete in a few
critical areas.

I draw your attention to paragraph 12:

"Intelligence analysts involved in high-level discussions about the trailers
noted that the technical team was among several groups that analyzed the
suspected mobile labs throughout the spring and summer of 2003. Two teams of
military experts who viewed the trailers soon after their discovery
concluded that the facilities were weapons labs, a finding that strongly
influenced views of intelligence officials in Washington, the analysts said.
"It was hotly debated, and there were experts making arguments on both
sides," said one former senior official who spoke on the condition that he
not be identified."

So here the author, Joby Warrick, finally tells the reader that there were
not one but 3 teams who inspected the trailers, thus the group who expressed
an opinion that the trailers were not bio-labs was the minority report.  In
other words, 2 out of 3 groups agreed they were mobile bio-labs.

Since we know the Washington Post doesn't do original reporting we need to
look for other stories from which Joby extracted his story.

Well, well, the vaunted New York Times had a story on June 7, 2003 by Judith
Miller (is the name familiar?).  I will quote some parts:

"American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the
evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq
were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said
the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged
that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.
 
"Everyone has wanted to find the 'smoking gun' so much that they may have
wanted to have reached this conclusion," said one intelligence expert who
has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not
be identified. He added, "I am very upset with the process." "

And then there was this paragraph in Miller's story:

"In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the
trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the
trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the
purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts
divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members
expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said"

Whoops, Joby must have dropped that line from his story.  It seems that
having the third group "divided sharply over the function of the trailers"
would be a line that would greatly weaken his opinion piece.

So the minority report itself was far from unanimous.  Interesting.

It should also be noted that the DIA endorsed the analysis to which I linked
earlier and this was the agency that sent in that third team.  The DIA stood
behind the original analysis, perhaps because their group was definitely not
unanimous in their conclusion.

And the report I mentioned was posted on May 28, 2003, the day before W's
speech mentioned in the WaPo story and it is still posted at the CIA web
site.

Denys


-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Wirt Atmar
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2006 6:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Cheney Aide Says Bush OK'd Leak

Jerry writes:

> On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:00:03 -0500, Denys Beauchemin 
>  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>  
>  >http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraqi_mobile_plants/paper_w.pdf
>  
>  The CIA no longer stands by that 2003 report
>  
>  The comprehensive 2004 report is different:
>  
>  http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap5.html

Even more importantly, the CIA knew in 2003 that the "mobile biological 
laboratories" weren't that and either covered up that fact or did nothing to

contradict Bush and Cheney's claims. Indeed, Cheney was still claiming on
the "Meet 
the Press" four months later that they had found the mobile biological labs 
even though he knew it wasn't true.

The following is an article from yesterday's Washington Post:

========================================

Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War
Administration Pushed Notion of Banned Iraqi 
Weapons Despite Evidence to Contrary

By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 12, 2006; A01

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."

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