Timeline of A Lie

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

On May 27, 2003:

The Washington Post reported last month that a U.S. fact-finding mission confidentially advised Washington on May 27, 2003, that two truck trailers found in Iraq were not mobile units for manufacturing bioweapons, as had been suspected.

So on May 27, 2003, the U.S. team informed Bush & Co that the two truck trailers were NOT for manufacturing bioweapons.

But two days later, on May 29, 2003, President Bush said:

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two."

And two days after that on May 31, 2003, the lie was repeated by Rumsfeld:

"We have teams of people that are out looking. They’ve investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories."

Condi also helped spread the lie a few days later, on June 3, 2003:

"But let’s remember what we’ve already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that — dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described."

And Powell repeated the lie on June 8, 2003:

"I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, ‘Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?’ Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment."

And Cheney on January 22, 2004:

"We know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we’re quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We’ve found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program."

Poke holes in that.