# Did everyone already know about these mobile labs, including weapons inspectors? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 3, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445 "2003-06-03T20:44:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![regnad\_kcin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@regnad\_kcin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regnad_kcin)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/1 "2003-06-03T20:44:26Z")
Did Iraq show the trailers that GWB is declaring as the long sought after WMD to the UN inspectors before the war? Did the UN let them be? If they were WMD production facilites, wouldnt the UN have asked for their destruction? > **[Newsday | Long Island's & NYC's News Source](https://www.newsday.com)** > > Breaking News, data & opinions in business, sports, entertainment, travel, lifestyle, plus much more. Newsday.com is the leading news source for Long Island & NYC. “Iraq also handed over videotapes of mobile biological weapons laboratories to inspectors. Iraq says the videos show the laboratories do not violate UN resolutions.” > **[Syria, Iran oppose attack on Iraq](https://www.dawn.com/news/88051/syria-iran-oppose-attack-on-iraq)** > > TEHRAN, March 16: The presidents of Iran and Syria met on Sunday, stressed their opposition to war in Iraq and ... "BAGHDAD, March 16: Iraq has given UN arms inspectors pictures and videotapes of mobile laboratories it says are for strictly for civilian purposes , hitting back at US and British charges that they are used to produce biological agents, a UN spokesman said Sunday. " Was one of these mobile labs in fact British? “Iraq has acknowledged importing a mobile laboratory in 2002 from Britain that Baghdad said is used by the commerce ministry to test food safety. This laboratory was mentioned by Baghdad in its lengthy declaration to the United Nations on its weapons programmes December 7.” (same source as above) ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/2 "2003-06-03T21:05:57Z")
These are the same mobile labs that Colin Powell mentioned in his presentation to the UN back in early February? ---
**Author:** ![regnad\_kcin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@regnad\_kcin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/regnad_kcin)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/3 "2003-06-03T22:10:53Z")
Good point. If they ARE the same ones AND they are WMD production facilities, why didnt Powell use this as an example of the UN inspectors blatantly ignoring something they were expressly shown and had documented evidence of? One would think this would have been exibit A of his presentation in order to discredit weapons inspections. I havent seen any reference to this anywhere since their “discovery”. ---
**Author:** ![MrTuffPaws](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@MrTuffPaws](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrTuffPaws)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/4 "2003-06-03T22:40:07Z")
Well here: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60140-2003May30.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60140-2003May30.html) “two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs.” The word “probably” holds a lot of weight here. The article also goes on to state: “U.S. authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon.” As the good people over at [spinsanity.org](http://spinsanity.org) say: “The existence of the labs is an important but separate issue. In the midst of a debate about whether the U.S. government misled the public and other governments over its reasons for invading Iraq, the President is now making a patently false claim about evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction.” AFAIK, the labs them selves are not banned by any UN resolution. ---
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/5 "2003-06-03T23:13:24Z")
All I will say is that those so-called two mobile labs are not good enough at all, considering the massive and extensive resources of the mighty U.S.A., to even so much as justify Bush still claiming that WMD’s exist. Anyway, there is still the possibility that continued search might unearth those WMD’s. And we must remember, was it Rumsfeld, who insisted that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And may we add: and is not evidence of presence, if we are talking about evidence, and which is what we are talking about. We cannot keep maintaining that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and go about feeling so justified as having evidence already. Susma Rio Sep ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/6 "2003-06-03T23:18:31Z")
I heard on the radio (I could probably dig up a cite if you insist) that the mobile labs that have been captured have roll-up canvas sides, which are not in keeping with bio-weapons, since they leak and would probably whack anything nearby. “More in keeping with missile fuel re-oxidation”, was what most of the military heads interviewed concluded. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/7 "2003-06-03T23:40:42Z")
As the cruel bully, Objective Truth, seizes the toy truck in little GeeDubya’s hands and begins to wrest it from his grasp he is heard to cry out plaintively: “NO! MINE! Its MINE, Uncle Karl gave it to ME! And its proof, it proves everything, you can’t have it, its MINE!!!” Lord, let me live long enough to hear his concession speech. Then I’m all yours. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/8 "2003-06-03T23:50:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*Lord, let me live long enough to hear his concession speech. Then I’m all yours. \*\* I’m waiting for Blair’s resignation speech, too. I suspect we’ll be waiting a while. ---
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/9 "2003-06-03T23:56:12Z")
Try this cite for Rumsfeld’s absence of evidence not evidence of absence: > [@](#): > > _The quote below from Donald Rumsfeld appeared in Lewis Lapham’s NOTEBOOK, “Power points” in the August issue of Harper’s. It was part of what he said in Brussels this June to reporters asking about the progress of the war on terrorism._ > > **"The message is that there are no “knowns.” There are things that we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. So when we do the best we can and pull all this information together, and we then say well, that’s basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns…There’s another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."** > > _I kid you not though Lapham claims Rumsfeld is being deliberately ridiculous when he spouts this stuff. Lapham, quite rightly, picks out the chilling last clause as cause for concern amidst the nonsense viz. “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”_ That makes my day. Susma Rio Sep ---
**Author:** ![Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Susma\_Rio\_Sep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Susma_Rio_Sep)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-everyone-already-know-about-these-mobile-labs-including-weapons-inspectors/179445/10 "2003-06-04T00:01:56Z")
Here is the WWW reference, a quote of the month competitor: [http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/pipermail/lnc/2002-August/000329.html](http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/pipermail/lnc/2002-August/000329.html) Sorry for the oversight. Susma Rio Sep