Mobile weapons laboratory
Encyclopedia
Mobile weapons laboratories are bioreactor
s and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train
or vehicle.
, the main rationale for the Iraq War
was Hussein's Iraq failure to transparently and verifiably cease Weapons of Mass Distruction (WMD - nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) programs, and to destroy all materials relating thereto, as mandated in United Nations Resolution 1441. In February 2003 the then Secretary of State
Colin Powell
gave a presentation before the United Nations
showing a computer generated view of what the laboratories looked like. He said Iraq had as many as 18 mobile facilities for making anthrax
and botulinum toxin
. "They can produce enough dry, biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people." Powell based the assertion on accounts of at least four Iraqi defectors, including a chemical engineer who supervised one of the facilities and been present during production runs of a biological agent.
Following the invasion of Iraq two trailers were found and initially declared as the alleged mobile labs.
security council presentation Colin Powell knew that all information included in the report had to be solid. "Powell and I were both suspicious because there were no pictures of the mobile labs," Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff said. Powell demanded multiple sources and the two CIA men present George Tenet
, then the CIA director and John E. McLaughlin
, then the CIA deputy director claimed to have multiple eye witness accounts and supporting evidence. Wilkerson claims that the two said, "This is it, Mr. Secretary. You can't doubt this one"
The information behind the mobile vehicles had come from the multiple informants but the main and most important one was known as Curveball
. Curveball an Iraqi asylum in Germany
claimed that after he had graduated top of his chemical engineer
ing class at Baghdad University in 1994 he worked for “Dr. Germ,” British-trained microbiologist
Rihab Rashid Taha
to led a team that built mobile labs to brew deadly bio WMD was never actually interviewed by the American intelligence and eventually in May 2004, over a year after the invasion of Iraq, the CIA concluded formally that Curveball's information was fabricated. Furthermore on June 26, 2006, the Washington Post reported that "the CIA acknowledged that Curveball was a con artist who drove a taxi
in Iraq and spun his engineering knowledge into a fantastic but plausible tale about secret bioweapons factories on wheels."
With information about the mobile labs the Bush administration then went and asked Ahmed Chalabi
's Iraqi National Congress (INC)
if they knew anything about this "threat". The INC provided an Iraqi defector, Mohammad Harith, who claimed that while working for the Iraqi government he had purchased seven Renault refrigerated trucks to be converted into mobile biological weapons laboratories. The INC used James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, to directly contact Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Linton Wells, of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
, with info about Mohammad Harith's account to avoid any scrutiny by the CIA. Harith's was met by a DIA
debriefer who concluded that it "seemed accurate, but much of it appeared embellished" and he apparently "had been coached on what information to provide." However, the line about Harith being coached was removed and one that he passed a lie detector added and as such became official evidence of mobile bio-labs even being used by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union message. Later Mohammad Harith like curveball evidence was labeled with a fabricator notice.
A third source, reporting through Defense HUMINT
channels and another asylum seeker, claimed that in June 2001 that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories however after the war in Oct 2003 the source recanted his testimony.
A fourth source existed but all information and details regarding the report are still classified.
All the sources depended on the Curveball
's account and were seen as supportive to it. When Tenet called Powell in late summer 2003, seven months after the U.N. speech, he admitted that all of the CIA's claims Powell used in his speech about Iraqi weapons were wrong. "They had hung on for a long time, but finally Tenet called Powell to say, 'We don't have that one, either,' " Wilkerson recalled. "The mobile labs were the last thing to go."
May 27, 2003 a fact finding mission to Iraq sent its report to Washington unanimously declaring that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. The report was 'shelved'.
May 28, 2003 the Central Intelligence Agency released a report on the supposed mobile weapons labs, stating:-
May 29, 2003 President George W Bush declared that they had found the weapons of mass destruction that had been claimed were in Iraq, these were in the form of mobile labs for manufacturing biological weapons.
May 29, 2003 "We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons." Tony Blair, Flying in to Kuwait for morale boosting trip.
May 29, 2003 "My personal view is we're going to find them, just as we found these two mobile laboratories” Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio.
June 2, 2003 In the UK Susan Watts
broadcasts on the influential BBC2 Newsnight report which includes an anonymous experts (Dr David Kelly ) opinion on the Mobile Weapons labs being for biological weapons. Dr Kelly is now only 40% certain the trailers are labs.
June 3, 2003 "But let's remember what we've already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that -- dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described.” Condoleezza Rice
, Capital Report, CNBC.
June 3, 2003 "We know that these trailers look exactly like what was described to us by multiple sources as the capabilities for building or for making biological agents. We know that we have from multiple sources who told us that then and sources who have confirmed it now. Now the Iraqis were not stupid about this. They were able to conceal a lot. They've been able to scrub things down. But I think when the whole picture comes out, we will see that this was an active program.” Condoleezza Rice
, Capital Report, CNBC.
June 5, 2003 "We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents” President G W Bush Talks to Troops in Qatar, White House.
June 5, 2003 Dr David Kelly one of Britains foremost experts on Biological Weapons visited Iraq to examine the trailers and take photographs.
June 7, 2003 Judith Miller reports that some scientists had doubts about the trailers in her piece - "Some experts doubt trailers were germ lab", Judith Miller and William J. Broad, New York Times.
June 8, 2003 The UK's Observer newspaper picks up on the story with their piece "Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' - Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs " Placing more pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair over the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq.
June 8, 2003 "Already, we've discovered, uh, uh, trailers, uh, that look remarkably similar to what Colin Powell described in his February 5th speech, biological weapons production facilities." Condoleezza Rice, This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC.
June 8, 2003 "We are confident that we -- I believe that we will find them. I think that we have already found important clues like the biological weapons laboratories that look surprisingly like what Colin Powell described in his speech.” Condoleezza Rice, Meet the Press, NBC.
June 8, 2003 "We have uncovered the mobile vans and we are continuing to search.” Colin Powell Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News.
June 8, 2003 "And I think the mobile labs are what I think is a good indication of the kind of thing they are doing." Colin Powell Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News.
June 15, 2003 It was revealed that the trailers discovered were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis had insisted all along. The artillery balloons were used to get detailed weather data to be used to accurately direct artillery shelling. A British scientist and biological weapons expert was quoted "They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons." It was confirmed later that this expert was Dr David Kelly
June 20, 2003 MP Paul Flynn: "To ask the Prime Minister what assessment has been made of the function of the two vehicles suspected of being biological weapons laboratories that were discovered in Iraq." The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair: "Investigations into their role are continuing."
June 23, 2003 MP Harry Cohen: "Will the Secretary of State consider sending some of the Territorials to look at the mobile labs in the form of two trailers in northern Iraq? A report in The Observer on 15 June said that the system was originally sold by a British company, Marconi, as a command and control system. If any Territorials investigated the trailers, would they find a "Made in Britain" stamp on them? If this is a smoking gun in terms of weapons of mass destruction, why did we apparently sell them?
MP Geoff Hoon
- I do not think that anyone suggested that this was an example of a smoking gun. It has rightly been suggested that this was a gun and that the mobile laboratories were wholly consistent with the description of mobile laboratories given by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his evidence to the United Nations Security Council. That remains the position as far as coalition forces are concerned."
July 17/18, 2003 Dr David Kelly, a key source for many of the newspaper articles doubting the Mobile weapons labs, is found dead. An inquiry into his death, The Hutton Inquiry, found his death to be suicide.
September 8, 2003
January 22, 2004 "In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program." Dick Cheney, Morning Edition, NPR.
Bioreactor
A bioreactor may refer to any manufactured or engineered device or system that supports a biologically active environment. In one case, a bioreactor is a vessel in which a chemical process is carried out which involves organisms or biochemically active substances derived from such organisms. This...
s and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train
Train
A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...
or vehicle.
Iraqi Mobile weapons laboratories
In the run up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, the main rationale for the Iraq War
Rationale for the Iraq War
The rationale for the Iraq War has been a contentious issue since the Bush administration began actively pressing for military intervention in Iraq in late 2001. The primary rationalization for the Iraq War was articulated by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress known as the Iraq Resolution.The...
was Hussein's Iraq failure to transparently and verifiably cease Weapons of Mass Distruction (WMD - nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) programs, and to destroy all materials relating thereto, as mandated in United Nations Resolution 1441. In February 2003 the then Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position. During his military...
gave a presentation before the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
showing a computer generated view of what the laboratories looked like. He said Iraq had as many as 18 mobile facilities for making anthrax
Anthrax
Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals...
and botulinum toxin
Botulinum toxin
Botulinum toxin is a protein produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, and is considered the most powerful neurotoxin ever discovered. Botulinum toxin causes Botulism poisoning, a serious and life-threatening illness in humans and animals...
. "They can produce enough dry, biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people." Powell based the assertion on accounts of at least four Iraqi defectors, including a chemical engineer who supervised one of the facilities and been present during production runs of a biological agent.
Following the invasion of Iraq two trailers were found and initially declared as the alleged mobile labs.
Intelligence Sources
In the CIA briefing days before the 2003 United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
security council presentation Colin Powell knew that all information included in the report had to be solid. "Powell and I were both suspicious because there were no pictures of the mobile labs," Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff said. Powell demanded multiple sources and the two CIA men present George Tenet
George Tenet
George John Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence for the United States Central Intelligence Agency, and is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University....
, then the CIA director and John E. McLaughlin
John E. McLaughlin
John Edward McLaughlin is the former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence and former Acting Director of Central Intelligence. McLaughlin is an accomplished magician and lectured on magic at the 2006 International Brotherhood of Magicians Annual Convention in Miami, Florida...
, then the CIA deputy director claimed to have multiple eye witness accounts and supporting evidence. Wilkerson claims that the two said, "This is it, Mr. Secretary. You can't doubt this one"
The information behind the mobile vehicles had come from the multiple informants but the main and most important one was known as Curveball
Curveball (informant)
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi , known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass...
. Curveball an Iraqi asylum in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
claimed that after he had graduated top of his chemical engineer
Chemical engineer
In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is the profession in which one works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products, and deals with the design and operation of plants and equipment to perform such work...
ing class at Baghdad University in 1994 he worked for “Dr. Germ,” British-trained microbiologist
Microbiologist
A microbiologist is a scientist who works in the field of microbiology. Microbiologists study organisms called microbes. Microbes can take the form of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protists...
Rihab Rashid Taha
Rihab Taha
Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azawi is an Iraqi microbiologist, dubbed Dr. Germ by United Nations weapons inspectors, who worked in Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program. A 1999 report commissioned by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency named her as one of the...
to led a team that built mobile labs to brew deadly bio WMD was never actually interviewed by the American intelligence and eventually in May 2004, over a year after the invasion of Iraq, the CIA concluded formally that Curveball's information was fabricated. Furthermore on June 26, 2006, the Washington Post reported that "the CIA acknowledged that Curveball was a con artist who drove a taxi
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
in Iraq and spun his engineering knowledge into a fantastic but plausible tale about secret bioweapons factories on wheels."
With information about the mobile labs the Bush administration then went and asked Ahmed Chalabi
Ahmed Chalabi
Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi is an Iraqi politician. He was interim oil minister in Iraq in April-May 2005 and December-January 2006 and deputy prime minister from May 2005 until May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was...
's Iraqi National Congress (INC)
Iraqi National Congress
The Iraqi National Congress is an umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi. It was formed with the aid and direction of the United States government following the Gulf War, for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.-History:INC was set up following the...
if they knew anything about this "threat". The INC provided an Iraqi defector, Mohammad Harith, who claimed that while working for the Iraqi government he had purchased seven Renault refrigerated trucks to be converted into mobile biological weapons laboratories. The INC used James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, to directly contact Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Linton Wells, of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)
Defense Intelligence Agency
The Defense Intelligence Agency is a member of the Intelligence Community of the United States, and is the central producer and manager of military intelligence for the United States Department of Defense, employing over 16,500 U.S. military and civilian employees worldwide...
, with info about Mohammad Harith's account to avoid any scrutiny by the CIA. Harith's was met by a DIA
Dia
Dia is free and open source general-purpose diagramming software, developed originally by Alexander Larsson. Dia uses a controlled single document interface similar to GIMP and Sodipodi.- Features :...
debriefer who concluded that it "seemed accurate, but much of it appeared embellished" and he apparently "had been coached on what information to provide." However, the line about Harith being coached was removed and one that he passed a lie detector added and as such became official evidence of mobile bio-labs even being used by Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union message. Later Mohammad Harith like curveball evidence was labeled with a fabricator notice.
A third source, reporting through Defense HUMINT
HUMINT
HUMINT, a syllabic abbreviation of the words HUMan INTelligence, refers to intelligence gathering by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as SIGINT, IMINT and MASINT...
channels and another asylum seeker, claimed that in June 2001 that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories however after the war in Oct 2003 the source recanted his testimony.
A fourth source existed but all information and details regarding the report are still classified.
All the sources depended on the Curveball
Curveball (informant)
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi , known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass...
's account and were seen as supportive to it. When Tenet called Powell in late summer 2003, seven months after the U.N. speech, he admitted that all of the CIA's claims Powell used in his speech about Iraqi weapons were wrong. "They had hung on for a long time, but finally Tenet called Powell to say, 'We don't have that one, either,' " Wilkerson recalled. "The mobile labs were the last thing to go."
Discovery of Iraqi mobile labs?
May 13, 2003 it was reported that a second suspected mobile weapons lab had been found in Iraq on April 19, 2003.May 27, 2003 a fact finding mission to Iraq sent its report to Washington unanimously declaring that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. The report was 'shelved'.
May 28, 2003 the Central Intelligence Agency released a report on the supposed mobile weapons labs, stating:-
Despite the lack of confirmatory samples, we nevertheless are confident that this trailer is a mobile BW production plant.
May 29, 2003 President George W Bush declared that they had found the weapons of mass destruction that had been claimed were in Iraq, these were in the form of mobile labs for manufacturing biological weapons.
We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.
May 29, 2003 "We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons." Tony Blair, Flying in to Kuwait for morale boosting trip.
May 29, 2003 "My personal view is we're going to find them, just as we found these two mobile laboratories” Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio.
June 2, 2003 In the UK Susan Watts
Susan Watts
Susan Janet Watts is the science editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme, joining the programme in January 1995.-Early life:She went to Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Girls' School. She has a BSc in Physics from Imperial College London....
broadcasts on the influential BBC2 Newsnight report which includes an anonymous experts (Dr David Kelly ) opinion on the Mobile Weapons labs being for biological weapons. Dr Kelly is now only 40% certain the trailers are labs.
"But our source, who is in an excellent position to know, and spoke of being 90% confident these claims are correct on the day the Pentagon showed the trucks to the world, now put that confidence level at just 40%."
June 3, 2003 "But let's remember what we've already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that -- dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described.” Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
, Capital Report, CNBC.
June 3, 2003 "We know that these trailers look exactly like what was described to us by multiple sources as the capabilities for building or for making biological agents. We know that we have from multiple sources who told us that then and sources who have confirmed it now. Now the Iraqis were not stupid about this. They were able to conceal a lot. They've been able to scrub things down. But I think when the whole picture comes out, we will see that this was an active program.” Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
, Capital Report, CNBC.
June 5, 2003 "We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents” President G W Bush Talks to Troops in Qatar, White House.
June 5, 2003 Dr David Kelly one of Britains foremost experts on Biological Weapons visited Iraq to examine the trailers and take photographs.
June 7, 2003 Judith Miller reports that some scientists had doubts about the trailers in her piece - "Some experts doubt trailers were germ lab", Judith Miller and William J. Broad, New York Times.
June 8, 2003 The UK's Observer newspaper picks up on the story with their piece "Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' - Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs " Placing more pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair over the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq.
June 8, 2003 "Already, we've discovered, uh, uh, trailers, uh, that look remarkably similar to what Colin Powell described in his February 5th speech, biological weapons production facilities." Condoleezza Rice, This Week with George Stephanopolous, ABC.
June 8, 2003 "We are confident that we -- I believe that we will find them. I think that we have already found important clues like the biological weapons laboratories that look surprisingly like what Colin Powell described in his speech.” Condoleezza Rice, Meet the Press, NBC.
June 8, 2003 "We have uncovered the mobile vans and we are continuing to search.” Colin Powell Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News.
June 8, 2003 "And I think the mobile labs are what I think is a good indication of the kind of thing they are doing." Colin Powell Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News.
June 15, 2003 It was revealed that the trailers discovered were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis had insisted all along. The artillery balloons were used to get detailed weather data to be used to accurately direct artillery shelling. A British scientist and biological weapons expert was quoted "They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were - facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons." It was confirmed later that this expert was Dr David Kelly
June 20, 2003 MP Paul Flynn: "To ask the Prime Minister what assessment has been made of the function of the two vehicles suspected of being biological weapons laboratories that were discovered in Iraq." The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair: "Investigations into their role are continuing."
June 23, 2003 MP Harry Cohen: "Will the Secretary of State consider sending some of the Territorials to look at the mobile labs in the form of two trailers in northern Iraq? A report in The Observer on 15 June said that the system was originally sold by a British company, Marconi, as a command and control system. If any Territorials investigated the trailers, would they find a "Made in Britain" stamp on them? If this is a smoking gun in terms of weapons of mass destruction, why did we apparently sell them?
MP Geoff Hoon
Geoff Hoon
Geoffrey "Geoff" William Hoon is a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Ashfield from 1992 to 2010...
- I do not think that anyone suggested that this was an example of a smoking gun. It has rightly been suggested that this was a gun and that the mobile laboratories were wholly consistent with the description of mobile laboratories given by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his evidence to the United Nations Security Council. That remains the position as far as coalition forces are concerned."
July 17/18, 2003 Dr David Kelly, a key source for many of the newspaper articles doubting the Mobile weapons labs, is found dead. An inquiry into his death, The Hutton Inquiry, found his death to be suicide.
September 8, 2003
Dick Cheney continued to claim trailers were mobile labs
September 14, 2003 "Same on biological weapons--we believe he'd developed the capacity to go mobile with his BW production capability because, again, in reaction to what we had done to him in '91. We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We've, since the war, found two of them. They're in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack." Dick Cheney, Meet the Press, NBC.January 22, 2004 "In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program." Dick Cheney, Morning Edition, NPR.
Powell retraction
Pentagon report
In 2006 a Washington Post article claimed that the Pentagon had produced a secret report in later in 2003 entitled Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers that found that the trailers were impractical for biological agent production and almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen.See also
- Curveball (informant)Curveball (informant)Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi , known by the Central Intelligence Agency cryptonym "Curveball", is an Iraqi citizen who defected from Iraq in 1999, claiming that he had worked as a chemical engineer at a plant that manufactured mobile biological weapon laboratories as part of an Iraqi weapons of mass...
- Iraqi aluminum tubes
- Niger uranium forgeries
- Plame affairPlame affairThe Plame Affair involved the identification of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer. Mrs. Wilson's relationship with the CIA was formerly classified information...