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A trailer found by the U.S. in Northern Iraq last year likely was used by Saddam Hussein's regime as a mobile biological weapons laboratory, and not to fill hydrogen balloons as some in Britain and the U.S. have charged, a view supported by exclusive photos obtained by WorldNetDaily that for the first time offer inside views of the trailer components. Kurdish forces seized the trailer in April 2003 at a checkpoint near Mosul in northern Iraq. At the time, the unit was hailed as the closest U.S. forces may have come to finding a "smoking gun" in their search for...

May 31, 2003 Powell Defends Information He Used to Justify Iraq WarBy JAMES DAO and THOM SHANKER ASHINGTON, May 30 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today fiercely defended the intelligence used by the Bush administration to justify war against Iraq, saying he spent several late nights poring over the Central Intelligence Agency's reports because he knew the credibility of the country and the president were at stake.The C.I.A.'s prewar assessments have been sharply questioned by some intelligence officials and lawmakers in recent days, as American forces have uncovered only limited evidence of unconventional weapons programs and Iraqi...

Blix dismisses Blair's weapons claim Former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has dismissed claims Saddam Hussein had laboratories for developing weapons of mass destruction. His comments came as Tony Blair said that the British-American Iraq Survey Group had already uncovered "massive" evidence of a network of secret laboratories. Mr Blair made the claim in an interview with the British Forces Broadcasting Service. He said: "I think in any event we have got to carry on the work that we are doing, because contrary to some of the things that appear, the Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence...

The report offered new details about the al-Qaeda-Iraq relationship and the commission also backtracked somewhat from an earlier staff report, which found no evidence of a "collaborative relationship." In the final report, the phrase was modified to say, "no collaborative operational relationship." Adding the word "operational" was an important shift. The panel found no proof that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's organization worked together to attack their common enemy, the United States. But the commission did find that the two had frequent contacts and a fairly well-developed relationship. There were Iraq-al-Qaeda ties. Bush looked at the evidence of links...

Chinese Diplomats Escorted Off N.M. Lab The Associated Press Tuesday, April 27, 2004; 4:12 PM LOS ALAMOS, N.M. - Two Chinese diplomats were escorted off restricted property at Los Alamos National Laboratory after they drove through an open security checkpoint, a lab spokesman said Tuesday. "This was not a major event," spokesman Kevin Roark said. The incident occurred Feb. 26 in an area where guards have stopped several people who mistakenly passed a temporary security booth that was set up on a formerly open road after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The diplomats, from the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles,...

Two Chinese diplomats, away from their Los Angeles consulate improperly, recently sped their vehicle past a Los Alamos National Lab guard post near classified facilities in what United States officials think was ian intelligence mission, the Washington Times has learned.The diplomats, identified as Hua Yu and Bo Lai, were on an intelligence mission that is raising new worries of Chinese nuclear spying against the United States, according to US officials familiar with the incident.Pajarito Road is the site of two sensitive facilities. One is the Critical Assembly Facility known as Technical Area 18, the other is the Plutonium Reasearch facility,...

A London accountant has described how Pakistan's disgraced nuclear hero Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan visited the West African state of Mali on three occasions between 1998 and 2000. Abdul Ma'bood Siddiqui accompanied A.Q. Khan on three mystery trips  between 1998 and 2000. Their final destination was Timbuktu, a remote outpost in the desert that has always been a magnet for explorers and adventurers from around the world. The mystery behind the visits has deepened following recent revelations that Khan is also the owner of a small hotel in the town that he has named after Hendrina, his Dutch-born wife and...

<p>U.S. intelligence agencies may have wrongly estimated Iraqi weapons stockpiles, but on other key assessments — such as Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions — the CIA was right, say current and former government officials.</p> <p>Proponents of ousting the Iraqi dictator say the fact Saddam was actively seeking an atomic bomb and operating chemical and biological programs were sufficient reasons to go to war.</p>

<p>A second former FBI agent who worked in counterintelligence has admitted having an affair with a suspected Chinese double agent arrested earlier this week with another ex-FBI agent in the passing of classified information to the People's Republic of China.</p>

Glowing green ooze, it's not. The thought of Los Alamos National Laboratory - the nation's premier nuclear weapons lab - developing a plant-growth technology at first sounds scary. Don't worry. There's nothing to fear, a scientist at the lab says. The product, called Take-Off, is a carefully thought-out, environmentally friendly substance that helps plants grow 10 percent to 35 percent faster than normal. The idea for it started with nuclear weapons technology, but that's where its relation to destructive power ends, said Pat Unkefer, the lab scientist who invented it. "When I came to work at the lab, I was...

Friday, August 8, 2003 Dog Ranch Gives Labradors Another Chance By Rozanna M. MartinezOf the Journal     Down on their luck Labradors may now have a chance at finding a loving home after being abused or neglected by their previous owners.     Lodestar Dog Ranch, created by Tijeras resident Tom Payne, focuses on saving Labradors and Labrador mixes.     Payne rescues the animals from shelters and from owners who no longer want them. He also takes in strays that have been dumped.     Lodestar Dog Ranch has been in operation about 10 months and has already placed 70 of its...

Iraqi trailers were not mobile WMD labs: reportA British scientist and biological weapons expert, who examined the trailers in Iraq, told the Observer: "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." Blair has for weeks been forced to defend himself against allegations by the media that his office embellished intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to beef up the case for war. Last week...

An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis have continued to insist. The conclusion by biological weapons experts working for the British Government is an embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who has claimed that the discovery of the labs proved that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction and justified the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. Instead, a British scientist and biological...

Iraq Had Secret Labs, Officer Says Goal was to someday rebuild chemical and biological weapons, general alleges. By Bob Drogin Times Staff Writer June 8, 2003 BAGHDAD -- Saddam Hussein's intelligence services set up a network of clandestine cells and small laboratories after 1996 with the goal of someday rebuilding illicit chemical and biological weapons, according to a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer. The officer, who held the rank of brigadier general, said each closely guarded weapons team had three or four scientists and other experts who were unknown to U.N. inspectors. He said they worked on computers and conducted...

Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs Peter Beaumont and Antony BarnettSunday June 8, 2003The Observer 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...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CIA stands by its assessment that complex mobile laboratories discovered in Iraq were designed and built to produce biological weapons, a senior CIA official told CNN on Saturday.</p> <p>Critics of the U.S. intelligence assessment "don't have the benefit of all of the intelligence" that has been collected on the trucks, the official said.</p>

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...

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...

<p>Democrats tempted to make a partisan issue out of the quality of U.S. intelligence prior to the Iraq war are setting themselves up for a question they don't want to answer: How many secret bioweapons labs are too many?</p> <p>Saddam had at least two.</p>

<p>The CIA yesterday concluded that two truck trailers seized by coalition forces in northern Iraq were designed by Saddam Hussein's regime to produce biological weapons agents.</p> <p>A six-page agency white paper said an examination of the trailers' equipment showed that "BW [biological weapons] agent production is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles."</p>