Wieder ein Lüge/Propaganda made bei U.K , USA

Geschrieben von peacemaker2002 am 26. März 2002 22:48:28:

das mit den ABC Labor der Taliban, ist wieder mal so eine suggerierende Lüge...
toll was..??

Britain accused on terror lab
claim

Story of find in Afghan cave 'was made up' to justify
sending marines

Peter Beaumont and Ed Vulliamy in New York
Sunday March 24, 2002
The Observer

Britain was accused last night of falsely claiming that al-Qaeda
terrorists had built a 'biological and chemical weapons'
laboratory in Afghanistan to justify the deployment of 1,700
Royal Marines to fight there.

The allegation follows a Downing Street briefing by a senior
official to newspapers on Friday which claimed US forces had
discovered a biological weapons laboratory in a cave in eastern
Afghanistan after fighting near the city of Gardez this month.

A 'senior Whitehall source' gave detailed claims of how
American soldiers had found the cave following heavy fighting for
al-Qaeda positions around the village of Shah-e-Kot.

One report quoted the source as saying: 'We know from
documents found in Kabul and the lab in the cave that Osama
bin Laden has acquired a chemical and biological weapons
capability.'

The newspapers reported that the find was one of the main
reasons the Government had decided to send the Marines to
Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. The claim,
carried by a number of newspapers yesterday, was denied
emphatically last night by Pentagon and State Department
sources.

A White House spokesman, drawn into the row, said 'no
evidence' had yet been uncovered in Afghanistan that Al Qaeda
had succeeded in producing anthrax or other biological or
chemical agents.

A Pentagon official told The Observer there was no intelligence
to support claims from London that al-Qaeda was developing
biological weapons in the Shah-e-Kot area. 'I don't know what
they're saying in London but we have received no specific
intelligence on that kind of development or capability in the
Shah-e-Kot valley region - I mean a chemical or biological
weapons facility,' said an official in the Army department in
Washington.

The US rebuttal came as Opposition spokesmen demanded that
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon address the House of Commons
to 'clarify' the claims, amid growing backbench unrest about the
way in which the decision to send the marines was made.

The first of them are due to arrive in Kabul in the next few days
to join US combat troops already fighting on the ground, amid
concern among MPs about the 'open ended' nature of their
mission.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell,
who called for Hoon to make a statement, said: 'The House will
feel, with some justification, that this claim was leaked to the
media to justify the deployment after the event.

'There are too many unanswered questions about the military
justification for this deployment and growing unease. Mr Hoon
owes the House a clarification."

The Tories demanded that Downing Street stick strictly to the
truth in its efforts to promote the military campaign. 'Spinning
doesn't work for the NHS, so why do they think it is going to
work for the war on terrorism?' said Bernard Jenkin, Shadow
Defence Secretary.

Doubts about the story surfaced almost immediately after it was
published, as US officials first expressed bafflement and then
denied any such lab had been found. Some speculating to the
New York Times that the story might have been planted to
justify the deployment of the marines. British intelligence,
Ministry of Defence and Foreign Office sources denied any
knowledge of the lab.

The only evidence of a biological weapons laboratory was the
discovery last December of an abandoned, half-finished building
containing medical equipment, near the Taliban's former power
base of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. This had been
reported previously.

The Observer has established that the source of the claims was
an off-the-record briefing by Tony Blair's senior foreign policy
adviser, David Manning.

A Downing Street spokesman said it 'stuck by the thrust of the
story' - that it had evidence al-Qaeda was 'interested' in
acquiring such weapons. But Manning had 'not actually told'
reporters a cave lab had been discovered.

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