Originally posted by spgoode:

Wow that's a stretch! Don't you know that in "politician-speak", "not solid" means totally off base.

No, not solid in "politican-speak" means PRECISELY that: not solid, circumstantial. It's close to "judicial-speak" in that not solid evidence has let a number of criminals walk in the past...

Originally posted by spgoode:

I was not aware of this, please show some evidence.



For some odd reason, it didn't get a lot of press:

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/05/07/Worldandnation/Bush_appoints_civilia.shtml

http://www.detnews.com/2003/nation/0305/07/a05-157990.htm

"The truck and the equipment inside it had been cleaned with bleach and did not show any identifiable residue of biological agents."

Those were the first two that came up for me; I'll be more than happy to dig up some more. I couldn't find the WSJ or NYT piece on this that I know I read...

Originally posted by spgoode:
Since when have I ignored a question? Yes mam, I'll answer it when you can show me evidence from a reputable source.



Taken from the Wall Street Journal around a year ago:

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/iraqitrailers.html

or are they not a reputable enough source of information?

Jane's had more stuff on this, though it takes a subscription to get to their knowledge repository. I really wish I could give you more than just this mainstream crap, though. Let's just say there was a lot of bickering in the US intelligence community over the uses of these; one camp didn't have a clue and would draw NO conclusions, while another was firmly convinced that they were dual-purpose weapons labs...

Originally posted by spgoode:

Like David Kay? Or the Secretary of State? I trust Colin Powell when he says he is wrong.

And you claim I'm reading too much into what he said?

He didn't say he was wrong; neither did Kay. He said that due to the lack of evidence, their position that these DEFINITELY were weapons labs could NOT firmly be stated, even though they could serve as little else, given some of the equipment found in them.

The fact is that the US can't claim 100% proof-positive of WMD without them physically in our hands or scientifically-proved evidence of them being created (i.e., residue).

I remember Kay stating that the lack of any residue in these trailers wouldn't permit him to certify them as FACTUAL "WMD wagons" as his mission was to find proof of them, not circumstantial evidence.

Originally posted by spgoode:
As for the Iraqi defectors, you must not read much if you think they were giving us truthful information. We are now finding out they lied to make a better case for us overthrowing Sadam. Chalabi(sp) the head of this group thought he would be appointed president of the new Iraq, but we now know that the Iraqi people will not accept these people that fled Iraq during the Sadam years to be their leaders.

Of course some lied and exaggurated to get the US to pull the trigger quicker but having a number of informants give very similar accounts during seperate times of these labs couldn't have been coordinated, since they didn't even KNOW each other. I've heard of little that pushed the supposition that Iraqi's lied about the "weapons wagons".

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