Powell: Evidence of Iraqi weapons labs may be wrong

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Powell: Evidence of Iraqi weapons labs may be wrong

US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged on Friday that the evidence he presented to the United Nations that two trailers in Iraq were used for weapons of mass destruction may have been wrong.

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US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged on Friday that the evidence he presented to the United Nations that two trailers in Iraq were used for weapons of mass destruction may have been wrong.

Powell also said he hoped a commission investigating the US intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction would reveal how the CIA ended up depending on unreliable sources for key evidence he used to argue for war.

Powell's dramatic case to the Security Council that Iraq had secret arsenals of weapons of mass destruction failed to persuade the council to directly back the US-led war. But it helped mobilize sentiment among the American people for going to war.

In Iraq, UN inspectors were unable to uncover the weapons, but US administration officials have insisted they still might be uncovered.

David Kay, who led the hunt for the weapons, showed off a pair of trailers for news cameras last summer and argued that the two metal flatbeds were designed for making biological weapons.

In face of mounting challenges to that theory, Kay conceded in October that he could have been wrong. He said he did not know whether Iraq ever had a mobile weapons program.

In February 2003, Powell made a major presentation of the US case against Iraq at a special session of the UN Security Council,where he said the United States had several sources showing mobilechemical weapons laboratories.

But on Friday, the top American diplomat said the evidence of the trailers has been shown to be shaky.

"Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid. But at the time I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as solid," Powell told reporters.

While doubts about the US sources of evidence for the laboratories have been raised for over a year, Powell's remarks were the most straightforward acknowledgment from the Bush administration that the information was probably wrong.

"That was the most dramatic of them and I made sure it was multi-sourced," he said. "Now if the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position."

"I hope (the commission) will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time," he said.

The failure to unearth banned weapons a year after the invasionhas fueled criticism of the Bush administration for misleading thecountry into a war that caused hundreds of US deaths and sparked adeadly insurgency against the American occupation.

Source: Xinhua

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