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"Dissent" Makes Another Appearance
06/09/2003

"Dissent" is now being heard among the ranks of "experts" who have investigated the "alleged" mobile weapons labs. While not a single source analyst is named for the report, the following gives some perspective:

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.

So the third team is "divided sharply," which seems to me to suggest the extent of the disagreement, not the numerical comparison of the two sides. Given that we aren't told how many "experts" were on the teams, three out of fifty would justify the phrase "several members expressing strong skepticism. And here's an ominous quotation offered by a laughably identified source:

"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political." This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

I'd say it can be presumed that if this "senior analyst" had been one of those on the team, the New York Times would have identified him as such. I also would hope that the Third Team would actually have the opportunity to see the trailers!

Here's what Colin Powell has to say:

"I can assure you that if those biological vans were not biological vans, when I said they were, on February 5, on February 6 Iraq would have hauled those vans out, put them in front of the press conference, gave them to the UNMOVIC inspectors to try to drive a stake in the heart of my presentation," he said. "They did not."

Later Sunday, Powell told reporters it was "nonsense" to call the intelligence reports "bogus" and that "the American people are quite assured" about their veracity.

"It's the media that invents words such as 'bogus,'" he said, adding that a 1,300-person team was in Iraq hunting for evidence of such weapons.

The media's activities are to be expected, even if they remain disappointing. What is maddening about this round of spinning is that people want to believe it.

Posted by Justin Katz @ 02:46 PM EST