Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs'

Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort.

The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are germ labs.

The British review comes amid widespread doubts expressed by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have been used to make biological weapons.

Instead The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.

The British review follows access by UK officials to the vehicles which were discovered by US troops in April and May.

'We are being very careful now not to jump to any conclusions about these vehicles,' said one source familiar with the investigation. 'On the basis of intelligence we do believe that mobile labs do exist. What is not certain is that these vehicles are actually them so we are being careful not to jump the gun.'

The claim, however, that the two vehicles are mobile germ labs has been repeated frequently by both Blair and President George Bush in recent days in support of claims that they prove the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

During his whistle stop tour of the Gulf, Europe and Russia, Blair repeatedly briefed journalists that the trailers were germ production labs which proved that Iraq had WMD.

But chemical weapons experts, engineers, chemists and military systems experts contacted by The Observer over the past week, say the layout and equipment found on the trailers is entirely inconsistent with the vehicles being mobile labs. Both US Secretary of State Colin Powell, when he addressed the UN Security Council prior to the war, and the British Government alleged that Saddam had such labs.

A separate investigation published by the New York Times yesterday discloses that the trailers have now been investigated by three different teams of Western experts, with the third and most senior group of analysts apparently divided sharply over their function.

'I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter,' a senior analyst said of a tank supposed to be capable of multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he said, 'was a rushed job and looks political'. The analyst had not seen the trailers, but reviewed evidence from them.

Another intelligence expert who has seen the trailers told the US paper: 'Everyone has wanted to find the "smoking gun" so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion. I am very upset with the process.'

Questions over the claimed purpose of trailer for making biological weapons include:

· The lack of any trace of pathogens found in the fermentation tanks. According to experts, when weapons inspectors checked tanks in the mid-Nineties that had been scoured to disguise their real use, traces of pathogens were still detectable.

· The use of canvas sides on vehicles where technicians would be working with dangerous germ cultures.

· A shortage of pumps required to create vacuum conditions required for working with germ cultures and other processes usually associated with making biological weapons.

· The lack of an autoclave for steam sterilisation, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

· The lack of any easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

One of those expressing severe doubts about the alleged mobile germ labs is Professor Harry Smith, who chairs the Royal Society's working party on biological weapons.

He told The Observer 'I am concerned about the canvas sides. Ideally, you would want airtight facilities for making something like anthrax. Not only that, it is a very resistant organism and even if the Iraqis cleaned the equipment, I would still expect to find some trace of it.'

His view is shared by the working group of the Federation of American Scientists and by the CIA, which states: 'Senior Iraqi officials of the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul were shown pictures of the mobile production trailers, and they claimed that the trailers were used to chemically produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.'

Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed allowing more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be mobile.

The Observer has discovered that not only did the Iraq military have such a system at one time, but that it was actually sold to them by the British. In 1987 Marconi, now known as AMS, sold the Iraqi army an Artillery Meteorological System or Amets for short.

Who said that anything was scrubbed? It's the people who were looking for some germs and found nothing. They therefore agreed that the whole thing was 'scrubbed'. I won't be surprised that if anyone in the media asks the briefers to define or described what they meant by 'scrubbing' you may see some bery fast back-pedalling.

It was well reported that the labs were scrubbed with bleach or ammonia in multiple articles when the labs were intitially discovered.

Let's see YOU backpedal now.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/907755/posts

THE ROAD ENDS FOR WMD ON WHEELS
New York Post ^ | 5/08/03 | NILES LATHEM

Posted on 05/08/2003 6:18 AM EDT by kattracks

May 8, 2003 -- WASHINGTON - A suspected mobile germ warfare factory has been seized by the U.S. military in northern Iraq - the first solid evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, the Pentagon said yesterday.

American forces in Iraq are conducting a battery of tests on what they believe is a mobile biological-weapons lab that is similar to the descriptions of vehicles provided to U.S. intelligence agencies by Iraqi defectors before the war.

At a Pentagon briefing, Undersecretary of Defense Stephen Cambone stopped short of calling the find a "smoking gun."

But he added: "They have not found another plausible use for it."

"While some of the equipment on the trailer could have been for purposes other than biological-weapons agent production, U.S. and U.K. tactical experts have concluded that the unit does not appear to perform any function beyond the production of biological agents," he added.

The suspected bioweapons trailer, which was painted in military colors and loaded onto a tank transporter, fell into U.S. hands on April 19 at a Kurdish checkpoint near Tall Kayf in northern Iraq.

Cambone said the lab contained a fermentor attached to the floor that is used to produce germ agents and a system to capture exhaust gases.

These are the same features of the mobile biological weapons labs that Secretary of State Colin Powell described to the U.N. Security Council in February.

Cambone said the information Powell gave to the Security Council "was based on information from a number of sources and it confirms what the source said."

"No traces of biological agents were initially discovered because the trailer was wiped clean with some kind of bleach Cambone said.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/13/sprj.irq.mobile.lab/index.html

Second suspected mobile weapons lab found in Iraq
Tuesday, May 13, 2003 Posted: 5:39 AM EDT (0939 GMT)

MOSUL, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. forces in northern Iraq have found a second suspected mobile chemical weapons laboratory, an American military official told CNN Tuesday.

There is "pretty conclusive evidence" that this is a mobile chemical weapons lab, the official said.

The trailer was discovered near Mosul Saturday by members of the Army's 327th Infantry at a former missile production facility that had been heavily looted. It was made up of refrigeration units and piping, compatible with chemical weapons production. What was also believed to be a spraying device was found nearby, the source said.

The suspected lab has been turned over to the military's mobile exploitation team.

Last week, U.S. officials seized another trailer in northern Iraq they suspect was used as a mobile biological weapons laboratory, a senior Defense Department official said.

According to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, the trailer matched descriptions of mobile biological laboratories provided by an Iraqi defector.

U.S. and British experts have concluded that the trailer "does not appear to perform any function beyond what the defector says it was for, which is the production of biological agents," Cambone said.

The trailer was captured at a Kurdish checkpoint on April 19 and has been brought to Baghdad, where it will be dismantled and subjected to further examination.

Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the defector's account of mobile laboratories to the United Nations in February in an effort to demonstrate that Iraq had violated U.N. resolutions requiring its disarmament.

Powell has since said the discovery "matches very closely" the information he presented at that time.

Last week's announcement came amid mounting questions for the Bush administration about the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

A mostly U.S. and British force invaded Iraq in March to oust longtime Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and strip the country of suspected caches of chemical and biological weapons, long-range missiles and efforts to develop a nuclear bomb.

Iraqi officials repeatedly insisted they had given up any efforts to produce banned weapons. No such weapons were used against advancing coalition troops, and none have so far been found by Pentagon experts.

No biological weapons were found inside the trailer, which Cambone said had been washed with "a very caustic substance." But he said it contained equipment not normally used for "legitimate biological processes" -- including exhaust gas recovery systems that could hide evidence of biological weapons production.

I imagine a discussion like this:

Analyst 1: It was a weapons lab. The hydrogen excuse doesn't work, because the metals in the vehicle show no sign of being exposed to hydrogen for any period of time.
Analyst 2: They show no sign of being exposed to biological agents either. Besides, one of the two we have in hand was obviously just constructed, and may not even have been finished. It is possible that these were constructed for the processing of hydrogen for weather balloons, but not yet used.
Analyst 1: That is possible, but it is so unlikely as to defy credulity. The Iraqis did not say they were building these vehicles to process hydrogen, they said that the vehicles they had were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. So by their own words, they had been using such vehicles. Where are the vehicles they were using for the purpose of gassing up weather balloons? Why have we not found any of these vehicles showing permeation of the vessels with hydrogen?
Analyst 2: I don't know, but I object to jumping to a conclusion because we have not found counter evidence. I concede we have found no evidence to support the claim they were used to produce hydrogen. But we have found no evidence to support the claim they were used to produce bioweapons.
Analyst 1: The difference is, they have an interest in hiding the vehicles from inspection if they were used for weaponry. No such interest exists if they were used for hydrogen processing. They clearly were not open to letting us inspect the vehicles (and accounting for all of them) prior to the war. And we still have not found any that were used for hydrogen processing. If they were telling the truth, they would be there for us to find. The only explanation that makes sense is that they had them, they were used for evil purposes, and then they either hid them or destroyed them.
Analyst 2: But that isn't the only possibility. As bizarre as it sounds, they may have had them for benign purposes and on principle hid them from us.

My mindset is along that of my fictional analyst 1.

You must agree that for these government employee, on government payroll, to express doubts after the man at the top of the government announced that those thingies were 'germ labs' is not something one would do ligthly.

Here is what I will agree. The government is full of people. And people are different. Some are sincere. Some are apolitical. And some are partisan. Fiercely.

Some partisans in government are Republicans.

Some are not.

What you seem to want everyone to do is to believe that the analysts who said "there are WMDs, no doubt, and these vehicles are mobile biolabs, no doubt" were being partisan or somehow lying, but the analysts who said "no, they are not" are just sincere professionals.

The fact that these analysts did not come forward before hand tells me one of three things. 1) They did not have enough confidence in their opinions to know they would be vindicated. 2) They didn't have the moral integrity to resign over what they perceived to be a sham, and they still don't have the integrity to do so, and they don't have the courage to even reveal their name so that they can be vetted by the media. 3) They are playing partisan politics.

Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use
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.

[The complete article was posted at FR yesterday]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.