Damn!  Now "we'll" have to find another "nerve gas" factory to bomb.
There must be one around, eh Tresy?

--

Joseph Noonan
[log in to unmask]


---------- Forwarded message ----------

Tuesday, September 1, 1998
                                                                Sudan
Attack Claims Faulty, U.S. Admits
By PAUL RICHTER, L.A.Times Staff Writer
 WASHINGTON--With some close allies voicing deepening doubts, U.S.
officials acknowledged Monday that they erred in their original
explanation of how they picked a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan to be
destroyed by cruise missiles on Aug. 20.
     Officials said they were unaware when Tomahawk missiles
were fired at the Shifa Pharmaceutical plant in the Sudanese capital
that the facility produced human and veterinary medicines for the
impoverished nation. And they conceded that Clinton administration
officials initially overstated evidence that suspected terrorist
mastermind Osama bin Laden held a financial stake in the facility.
     Even so, officials insisted that the complex in northern
Khartoum was a legitimate target. And they stood behind their assertions
that a single soil sample secretly collected from just outside the
facility was sufficient proof that the factory was used to manufacture
the deadly nerve gas VX.
     "In retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight, it was the
right target," said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
     Since the attack, critics both in the United States and
abroad have challenged the administration's rationale and explanations
for the strike, which was aimed at punishing Bin Laden for the Aug. 7
bombings outside the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania he allegedly
coordinated--and at heading off expected further such assaults.
     The skeptics have come to include some British and German
officials, although those countries' governments officially support the
U.S. strike. Even the Japanese have indicated that they would support a
Sudanese proposal for an international investigation of whether the site
did, in fact, produce the nerve agents.
     Over the weekend, several German publications reported
that the German ambassador to Sudan, Walter Daum, challenged U.S.
assertions in a cable to his superiors reporting that the plant had
produced antibiotics, antimalarial and antidiarrheal drugs, intravenous
fluids and a few veterinary medicines.
     Some chemists dispute that the single sample of a
chemical called EMPTA, which is a precursor ingredient in making VX gas,
could prove that the Shifa facility was used to manufacture poison gas.
Some say that the EMPTA traces may signify only that VX was stored
nearby; others assert that the traces could be the degraded product of
another chemical.
     Some experts contend too that the substance is used in
everyday products.
     "It's fairly commonly known that these [substances] are
used in pesticides and herbicides," said Mike Hiskey, a chemist and
explosives expert at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
     U.S. officials said that at the time of the strike, they
knew that the plant had had a "grand opening" celebration to publicize
it as a major new source of medicines for Sudan, which has been rent by
a lengthy civil war.
     But the officials said they did not believe that the
plant actually produced such medicines, because they saw no evidence of
such an output when they accessed a Web site for it. Web sites for five
other pharmaceutical plants in Sudan listed the medicines produced at
those plants.
     Officials also acknowledged that the administration may
have initially overstated evidence of Bin Laden's ties to the factory
after the attack. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen said the plant
was chosen because Bin Laden had a direct financial interest in it.
     However, the officials asserted that there is strong
indirect evidence that Bin Laden had close connections to the plant. He
worked with the Sudanese in developing toxic substances, they said, and
provided large sums to underwrite the Military Industrial Corp.--in
effect, a large Sudanese defense contractor.
     According to intelligence, the Shifa plant's owner, Saleh
Idresse, is a front man or agent for Bin Laden, officials said.
     An official acknowledged that "some of this is indirect,
some of it is inferential. It's hard to hang your hat on any one nugget
of it." Even so, officials emphasized their belief that "there's
certainly a lot of information out there that points to the reason
people should be concerned. And that's why we collected a soil sample."
     Officials from several U.S. government agencies said it
was unclear whether President Clinton knew about the plant's other
products, or about the indirect nature of the evidence on Bin Laden,
when he made the final decision to target the plant.
     Clinton has said publicly that he agonized over the
decision, staying up until 2:30 a.m. to hear intelligence reports that
would indicate whether the plant had a night crew that might be killed
in any attack.
     Officials insisted that they retain high confidence in
their chemical analysis of the soil sample, which was done in a
commercial lab often used for such analyses. They said they undertook
three separate tests of the soil, which turned up EMPTA in
concentrations as high as 2.5 times the level needed to establish that
the substance was in the earth.
     They said they also had collected soil samples from five
other sites in Sudan, none of which turned up evidence of EMPTA.
     While some closely related chemicals are used in
commercial pesticides, officials disputed assertions that EMPTA is
present in any commercial products. While some published literature on
the chemical refers to commercial uses, "no one to date has shown us
one," an intelligence official said.
     Administration officials said they believe most allies
remain strongly behind the United States in the strikes, despite what
they called a continuing publicity campaign by the Sudanese.
     But some outsiders predicted that the administration will
be forced to provide more evidence to support its contentions.
     "There are just big question marks on this at the
moment," said Jonathan Tucker, a chemical weapons expert at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies and a former U.S. arms control
official. "They're going to have to provide more information. . . .
Their current situation is untenable."
Copyright 1998 Los Angeles Times.