WMD's found, but they're not WMD's they're empty trailers..., page 1

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Topic started on 1-6-2003 @ 01:58 AM by Thorfinn Skullsplitter

Bush: 'We Found' Banned Weapons
President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 31, 2003; Page A01

KRAKOW, Poland, May 30 -- President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.

In remarks to Polish television at a time of mounting criticism at home and abroad that the more than two-month-old weapons hunt is turning up nothing, Bush said that claims of failure were "wrong." The remarks were released today.

"You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons," Bush said in an interview before leaving today on a seven-day trip to Europe and the Middle East. "They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.

"And we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said. "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."

Bush arrived today in Poland, a U.S. ally in the Iraq war and the first stop on his trip. Later he will meet with fellow heads of government in St. Petersburg, Russia's second city, and Evian, a resort city in the French Alps, before presiding over a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan.

Bush administration officials have recently been stressing a hunt for "weapons programs" instead of weapons themselves. Among the officials who have hedged their claims in recent public statements is Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said this week that deposed president Saddam Hussein may have destroyed all the weapons before the war.

U.S. authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. In the interview, Bush said weapons had been found, but in elaborating, he mentioned only the trailers, which the CIA has concluded were likely used for production of biological weapons.

The agency reported that no pathogens were found in the two trailers and added that civilian use of the heavy transports, such as water purification or pharmaceutical production, was "unlikely" because of the effort and expense required to make the equipment mobile. Production of biological warfare agents "is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles," the CIA report concluded.

Preparing for Bush's visit to the Middle East, administration officials said they were assembling a team of 24-hour-a-day monitors to mediate between the parties and measure performance in implementing the "road map" peace plan that aims to create a Palestinian state and permanent peace in the region.

Powell said the move stopped short of naming a "major envoy, with constant negotiations." But it would deepen U.S. responsibility in the peacemaking process. Powell, joining Bush aboard Air Force One today, said the head of the U.S.-led team would be chosen soon.

Recounting his February speech to the U.N. Security Council, which included the display of satellite images and the playing of communications intercepts, Powell said that he "went out to the CIA, and I spent four days and four nights going over everything that they had as holdings." Powell said he had access to "a roomful of analysts, the raw documents, the papers."

"Where I put up the cartoons of those biological vans, we didn't just make them up one night," he said. "Those were eyewitness accounts of people who had worked in the program and knew it was going on, multiple accounts.

"I have been through many crises in my career in government and there are always people who come after the fact to say, 'This wasn't presented to you,' or 'This was politicized or this wasn't,' " Powell continued.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said during a brief visit to Warsaw today that he was confident that illegal weapons would be found and urged people to "have a little patience," the Reuters news agency reported.

"The idea that we authorized or made our intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd," Blair said, referring to news media reports in London that British intelligence officials feel that Blair's office overstated the case in a dossier issued before the war. "Saddam's history of weapons of mass destruction is not some invention of the British security services."

Bush plans to use a speech in Krakow on Saturday to argue anew that the liberation of the people of Iraq was a legitimate cause for war, according to an administration official. He will speak after a solemn visit to the firing squad's "Death Wall" at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and will draw a line from that to modern evil, including to Hussein and terrorists. Bush told Polish television that the visit's purpose is "to remind people that we must confront evil when we find it."

Bush began his sprint through six countries by offering conciliatory words to such traditional allies as France that tried to thwart the war in Iraq. But his aides said he planned to use the trip to continue projecting American might to try to change the world on his terms.

"I understand the attitudes of some, but I refuse to be stopped in my desire to rally the world toward achieving positive results for each individual," Bush told foreign reporters before leaving Washington.

A senior administration official said the theme underpinning the diplomatic tour was, "What does President Bush do with his military victory?" Bush will lay out his answers beginning with the speech in Krakow, where he will call for greater transatlantic cooperation on controlling AIDS, poverty and weapons of mass destruction.

"Together, we can achieve the big objective," he said Thursday in remarks to foreign reporters that the White House released today. "And that is peace and freedom."

From here, Bush heads Saturday afternoon to St. Petersburg for celebrations and a gathering of world leaders on the occasion of that city's 300th anniversary. Then he flies to Evian for the annual meeting of the heads of the Group of Eight industrial powers. There, supporters and opponents of the war in Iraq will try to work out continuing resentments.