U.S. suspects new weapons sites

[Kellanved]

WASHINGTON — Iraqi scientists and documents from Saddam Hussein's regime are leading U.S. and allied investigators to new sites suspected of being part of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction program, the CIA's special adviser on the weapons search said Thursday.
No actual chemical or biological weapons have been found in six weeks of intensive searching and details of the new findings will remain classified until U.S. intelligence concludes they amount to an irrefutable case that can be presented to the public. But the probe has discovered new evidence of Iraqi efforts to hide its weapons programs from international inspectors — evidence being provided by the Iraqi officials who were in charge of concealing those programs.

...

Few of the sites now being investigated were known to U.S. intelligence before the war, said Kay, a former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations.
The secrecy surrounding Kay's initial findings stem in part from political pressure on President Bush to prove the charges he leveled against Iraq to justify the U.S.-led invasion.
...
"We do not intend to expose this evidence until we have full confidence that it is solid proof," Kay said. Specifically, evidence of Iraqi weapons efforts must be supported by testimony from multiple Iraqis, multiple documents that describe the weapons program and physical evidence associated with the weapons program.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-07-31-cia-weapons_x.htm

[Hobarticus]

1. Ten bucks says the UN already checked it out...

[ThorsteinVeblen]

2. Ten Bucks it is planted.

x

[Hobarticus]

3. You're on!

[I AM SPARTACUS]

10. hey, it takes time to fabricate evidence of this scale...but Smirko's

boneyard boys should be finished, say sometime before Nov 04...

[jono]

4. Oh, for crying out loud!

"We do not intend to expose this evidence until we have full confidence that it is solid proof," Kay said. Specifically, evidence of Iraqi weapons efforts must be supported by testimony from multiple Iraqis, multiple documents that describe the weapons program and physical evidence associated with the weapons program.

So in other words:
We won't release any information about these new sites until they're confirmed, but we'll put out the press release so that you'll THINK we've found something. But it's not confirmed. (Until we can get Ahmed Chalabi and some of his friends to "confirm" for us.)

:grr:

Give me an effin' break already!

[Hobarticus]

6. You know the drill...

1) Announce a major new find. The media trumpets it from on high.

2) Find out it's a bust.

3) The media forgets to announce that nothing was found.

4) The public, with their hamster-like attention spans, think we found WMD.

[atreides1]

8. I Take Offense to that Last Remark

My hamster has a good attention span. LOL

[Kellanved]

11. might be the 1st step for planting the Evidence

as well.
EOM

[section321]

5. This must be the "future's market" for Bush admin lies....

Futures markets seem to be all the rage.

Be sure to take a long position in this one... :-)

[wryter2000]

7. Notice the word "program"

They're looking for evidence of weapons programs. We were told there were weapons -- tons of them -- not programs.

[Hobarticus]

9. They'll find some old documents

..and hope no one notices that they're old.

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. They already have a record of using forgeries

They've done it before, I am sure they will do it again.

Besides having wet dreams about having a massive WMD program, is not an imminent threat to US National security.

[qb]

12. The "sources" are addicted to being stroked & coddled by the U.S.

Of course they'll come up with new "sites" to inspect.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. Question about WMDs

Would planting WMDs require lots of fertilizer?