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Saturday, June 07, 2003

Miller's crossing?
After being one of the leading disseminators of the theory that U.S. weapons teams had found evidence of an Iraqi WMD program, Judith Miller of the New York Times today publishes a story that goes some way to casting doubt on that theory.

A group of American and British intelligence experts are challenging the administration's view that the trailers found by American soldiers (and cited by George W. Bush as proof of an Iraqi WMD program) were, in fact, mobile WMD production plants. The doubters have cited technical problems with the government's theory (which was outlined in this administration white paper on the CIA website):

The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

For further reading, this report from the Fourth Freedom Forum examines evidence the U.S. and British governments chose to ignore when making their case for war in Iraq--information that would have weakened their case.

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