IRAQ: US 'intelligence' is 'garbage' say inspectors

BY ROHAN PEARCE

A February 20 report by CBS News has revealed that United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq consider US "intelligence" — like that presented by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council on February 5 — to be "garbage". According to CBS, inspectors accuse the US of sending them on "wild goose chases".

CBS reported that "the US claim that Iraq is developing missiles that could hit its neighbours — or US troops in the region, or even Israel — is just one of the claims coming from Washington that inspectors here are finding increasingly unbelievable". Inspectors have found US intelligence "to be circumstantial, outdated or just plain wrong".

According to CBS News correspondent Mark Philips, US "intelligence" given to inspectors has been "garbage after garbage after garbage", adding that inspectors actually "used another, cruder word".

The CBS report cited three examples of US tips which have turned out to be bogus:

• according to the White House, satellite photos showed a revitalised Iraqi nuclear program but "when the UN went into the new buildings they found 'nothing'.";

• Washington provided specific coordinates of areas inside Saddam Hussein's presidential palace where it claimed evidence of weapons of mass destruction would be found, but the inspectors found "nothing"; and

• in relation to persistent US claims that aluminium tubes imported by Iraq were meant for the construction of a gas centrifuge for enriching uranium, CBS reported that their anonymous UN source, the "Iraqi alibi [that the tubes are for conventional rockets] is air tight".

From Green Left Weekly, March 5, 2003.

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From GLW issue 528