Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use

New York Times ^ | 06-07-03

[Brian S]

By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

"Everyone has wanted to find the 'smoking gun' so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion," said one intelligence expert who has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He added, "I am very upset with the process."

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a white paper last week, it publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.

Now, intelligence analysts stationed in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the administration's conclusions in what appears to be a bitter debate within the intelligence community. Skeptics said their initial judgments of a weapon application for the trailers had faltered as new evidence came to light.

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said the dissenters "are entitled to their opinion, of course, but we stand behind the assertions in the white paper."

In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said.

In effect, early conclusions by agents on the ground that the trailers were indeed mobile units to produce germs for weapons have since been challenged.

"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political." This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for use as a weapon.

Finally, they said, the trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

Senior intelligence officials in Washington rebutted the skeptics, saying, for instance, that the Iraqis might have obtained the needed steam for sterilization from a separate supply truck.

The skeptics noted further that the mobile plants had a means of easily extracting gas. Iraqi scientists have said the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. While the white paper dismisses that as a cover story, some analysts see the Iraqi explanation as potentially credible.

A senior administration official conceded that "some analysts give the hydrogen claim more credence." But he asserted that the majority still linked the Iraqi trailers to germ weapons.

The depth of dissent is hard to gauge. Even if it turns out to be a minority view, which seems likely, the skepticism is significant given the image of consensus that Washington has projected and the political reliance the administration has come to place on the mobile units. At the recent summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Bush cited the trailers as evidence of illegal Iraqi arms

Critics seem likely to cite the internal dispute as further reason for an independent evaluation of the Iraqi trailers. Since the war's end, the White House has come under heavy political pressure because American soldiers have found no unconventional arms, a main rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who also used Iraqi illicit weapons as a chief justification of the war, has been repeatedly attacked on this question in Parliament and outside it.

Experts described the debate as intense despite the American intelligence agencies' release last week of the nuanced, carefully qualified white paper concluding that the mobile units were most likely part of Iraq's biowarfare program. It was posted May 28 on the Internet at www.cia.gov.

"We are in full agreement on it," an official said of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency at a briefing on the white paper.

The six-page report, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants," called discovery of the trailers "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."

A senior administration official said the White House had not put pressure on the intelligence community in any way on the content of its white paper, or on the timing of its release.

In interviews, the intelligence analysts disputing its conclusions focused on the lack of steam sterilization gear for the central processing tank, which the white paper calls a fermenter for germ multiplication.

In theory, the dissenting analysts added, the Iraqis could have sterilized the tank with harsh chemicals rather than steam. But they said that would require a heavy wash afterward with sterile water to remove any chemical residue - a feat judged difficult for a mobile unit presumably situated somewhere in the Iraqi desert.

William C. Patrick III, a senior official in the germ warfare program that Washington renounced in 1969, said the lack of steam sterilization had caused him to question the germ-plant theory that he had once tentatively endorsed. "That's a huge minus," he said. "I don't see how you can clean those tanks chemically."

Three senior intelligence officials in Washington, responding to the criticisms during a group interview on Tuesday, said the Iraqis could have used a separate mobile unit to supply steam to the trailer. Some Iraqi decontamination units, they said, have such steam generators.

The officials also said some types of chemical sterilization were feasible without drastic follow-up actions.

Finally, they proposed that the Iraqis might have engineered anthrax or other killer germs for immunity to antibiotics, and then riddled germ food in the trailers with such potent drugs. That, they said, would be a clever way to grow lethal bacteria and selectively decontaminate the equipment at the same time - though the officials conceded that they had no evidence the Iraqis had used such advanced techniques.

On the second issue, the officials disputed the claim that the mobile units could make only small amounts of germ-laden liquids. If the trailers brewed up germs in high concentrations, they said, every month one truck could make enough raw material to fill five R-400 bombs. These were a standard Iraqi munition for anthrax.

Finally, the officials countered the claim that the trailers had no easy way for technicians to drain germ concoctions from the processing tank. The fluids could go down a pipe at its bottom, they said. While the pipe is small in diameter - too small to work effectively, some analysts hold - the officials said high pressure from an air compressor on the trailer could force the tank to drain in 10 or 20 minutes.

A senior official said "we've considered these objections" and dismissed them as having no bearing on the overall conclusions of the white paper. He added that Iraq, which declared several classes of mobile vehicles to the United Nations, never said anything about hydrogen factories.

Some doubters noted that the intelligence community was still scrambling to analyze the trailers, suggesting that the white paper may have been premature. They said laboratories in the Middle East and the United States were now analyzing more than 100 samples from the trailers to verify the intelligence findings. Allied forces, they noted, have so far failed to find any of the envisioned support vehicles that the trailers would need to produce biological weapons.

One skeptic questioned the practicality of some of the conjectural steps the Iraqis are envisioned as having taken to adapt the trailers to the job of making deadly germs.

"It's not built and designed as a standard fermenter," he said of the central tank. "Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that's true of any tin can."

The reporting for this article was carried out by Judith Miller in Iraq and Kuwait and by William Broad in New York. Her agreement with the Pentagon, for an "embedded" assignment, allowed the military to review her copy to prevent breaches of troop protection and security. No changes were made in the review.

[maestro]

UR#2...........Right!

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding a program for (R&D) biological warfare.

In effect, early conclusions by agents on the ground that the trailers were indeed mobile units to

produce germs for (R&D) weapons have since been challenged.

"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior research analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political." This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

The skeptical experts said the mobile (R&D) plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological (MASS) production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between (MASS) production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small (R&D) amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other ( Many Other Trailors NOT yet found) factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for (MASSIVE PRODUCTION) use as a weapon.

Finally, they said, the (2=only two) trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

?.....Where is the rest of the trailor 'fleet'....?

(Maybe on 3 mystery ships,....or now at the bottom of the ocean?)

/sarcasm

[BOOTSTICK]

The Iraqis were using them to make Scotts roundup, no wait, err they were chili wagons......IDIOTS

[AntiGuv]

Exactly. If they were legitimate and innocent, why were they scrubbed clean?

Well, the only reason I'm aware of to assume that they were "scrubbed clean" is if one has ascertained they were bioweapon plants. The failure to find any evidence of biological agents - once you've already concluded that they're bioweapon plants - leads to the assumption that they were scrubbed clean.

Circular argument, anyone?

[kesg]

The very worst one can say about this report is that the intelligence was ambiguous and largely circumstantial, but with a majority of analysts still fearing the worst.

Okay, you are the President of the United States, responsible for the national security of a nation of 280 million in the post 9/11 world. Saddam and his regime are pyschopaths, they are a terrorist organization, they support other terrorist organizations, they have developed and used WMDs before, they are suspected of attempting to acquire and use these weapons again, and they failed to cooperate fully and proactively with Resolution 1441 even though their very survival was at stake.

Given these circumstances, do you give Saddam the benefit of the doubt, thus assuming the risk of a future WMD attack if you happen to be wrong? Or do you assume the worst unless and until proven otherwise, with the side effects of of a "mistake" nevertheless including (1) eliminating said psycopaths with extreme prejudice, (2) enforcing the Bush Doctrine (and sending a message to other wannabe rouge states who support terrorism, such as Syria and Iran), (3) eliminating the underlying threat of WMDs, and (4) liberating a nation of over 24 million people?

This one should be a no-brainer. In fact, it was.

[Buckeroo]

Weapons of Mass Destruction are free in the air, you breathe. GWBush can't deny his pointless assertions ... so he will find a method; I will eager fertilizer shall create the method.

[Buckeroo]

wager, even.

[Mark17]

Clearly these were icecream trucks. Scrubbed meticously clean to remove any evidence of. . . Saddam Hussein's secret new ice cream flavor.

Maybe they were mobile baby milk factories. After all, we blew up all their fixed baby milk factories. (sarcasm off)

[JmyBryan]

The funny part of the whole WMD fiasco is that it actually proves the veracity of the Bush contention. It would have been ridiculously easy for US and Britain to have faked evidence, which had and has been implied by the opposition since day one.

When the actual evidence turns up, and I'm very confident that it will, the opposition will contend it is fake, just like with these labs.

And they have no position other that anti-US idiocy.

[Mark17]

When the actual evidence turns up, and I'm very confident that it will, the opposition will contend it is fake, just like with these labs.

That is true. No matter what evidence they come up with, it will not be enough. The left wing liberal socialists will claim all of it is false. Why even bother to try to convince those scum sucking dirt bag leftists?

[McGavin999]

If these are not the mobile labs, then where are they. The mobile labs were reported by defectors who described what they looked like and the trucks we found matched that description.

[Shermy]

German Made Mobile Labs Sold to Saddam

[Shermy]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/030514/170/422ip.html
A manufacturer's plate details the serial number and date of production for a fermenting machine found in a suspected mobile biological weapons lab inside the al-Kindi rocket and missile research center near Mosul on May 9, 2003. U.S. forces in northern Iraq (news - web sites) found the suspected mobile biological weapons production laboratory that a top commander described on Tuesday as almost identical to another found nearby last month. Picture taken May 9. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. REUTERS/US Army/Robert Woodward

[lepton]

Well, the only reason I'm aware of to assume that they were "scrubbed clean"

It was said when the anouncements were first made of the trucks, that some sort of caustic material was used to wipe down interior surfaces, and on the outside, fresh paint applied. This would be an EXAMPLE of their having been scrubbed clean.

[Shermy]

If it was for producing hydrogen, I doubt it was for weather balloons. Rather for UN-restricted missle fuel.

[SwordofTruth]

It would have been ridiculously easy for US and Britain to have faked evidence, which had and has been implied by the opposition since day one.

I really don't think it would be that easy to fake this evidence and not get caught.

[A CA Guy]

Clearly these were mobile poodle washing trucks for the poor.

[HatSteel]

Easy to fix.

Get a team of experts in anthrax production to go there and make anthrax with the equipment on that truck. If they can do so, then there you have it.

[HatSteel]

They were declared scrubbed because of the dectection chemical for that purpose. Memory says I read that in an early report.

[ApesForEvolution]

Obviously, these mobile bars were to share carefully concocted libations with the down trodden in far reaching areas of Iraq. The secret compartment and devices inside were to make certain that the high octane cocktails were a well kept secret in elite Iraqi bartending circles. And then a monkey crawls out of the man's butt.

[The Great Satan]

 

One of these two photographs depicts an elaborate piece of stagecraft featuring an actor playing the role of his life in an extraordinary charade calculated to distract a gullible public from the embarassing reality of a catastrophic failure in national defense planning. The other is a picture of Saddam Hussein.