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Allegations of Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories

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Purported Iraqi mobile weapons laboratories, actually for production of hydrogen to fill wind-sensing balloons.[1]

During the lead-up to the Iraq War, the United States had alleged that Iraq owned bioreactors, and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle. Subsequent investigations failed to find any evidence of Iraq having access to a mobile weapons lab.

In the run up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the main rationale for the Iraq War were allegations that Iraq had failed to transparently and verifiably cease their weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation before the United Nations showing a computer image of what were purported to be mobile weapons for creating biological agents. He said Iraq had as many as 18 mobile facilities for making anthrax and botulinum toxin, stating "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. [2] Following the invasion of Iraq two trailers were found and initially described as the alleged mobile labs.

Intelligence sources

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In the CIA briefing days before the 2003 United Nations 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.[3] 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"[3]

The information behind the mobile vehicles had come from the multiple informants but the main and most important one was known as Curveball. Curveball was an Iraqi refugee in Germany.[4] He claimed that after he had graduated at the top of his chemical engineering class at Baghdad University in 1994, he worked for "Dr. Germ," the pseudonym of British-trained microbiologist Rihab Rashid Taha.[4] He led a team that built mobile labs to create biological WMD[4] Curveball was never actually interviewed by American intelligence and 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."[3]

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.[5] 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.[6] 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.[6] 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.[7]

A fourth source existed but all information and details regarding the report are still classified.[7]

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."[3]

Investigations

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May 13, 2003, it was reported that a second suspected mobile weapons lab had been found in Iraq on April 19, 2003.[8]

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'.[9]

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."[10]

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.[11]

June 2, 2003, In the UK, Susan Watts broadcasts on the influential BBC2 News Night report which includes an anonymous experts (Dr David Kelly[12] ) opinion on the Mobile Weapons labs being for biological weapons. Dr Kelly is now only 40% certain the trailers are labs.[13]

June 5, 2003 Dr. David Kelly one of Britains foremost experts on Biological Weapons visited Iraq to examine the trailers and take photographs.[14]

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.[15]

June 8, 2003 The Observer newspaper picks up on the story with their piece "Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs' – Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs " [16] Placing more pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair over the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq.

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.[1] The artillery balloons were used to get detailed weather data to be used to accurately direct artillery shelling.[17]

June 20, 2003:[18]

June 23, 2003:[19]

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.

Dick Cheney's continued support for the allegations

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Powell's retraction

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I looked at the four [sources] that [the CIA] gave me for [the mobile bio-labs], and they stood behind them, ... Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid. At the time I was preparing the presentation, it was presented to me as being solid.[20] April 3, 2004 I feel terrible ... [giving the speech] ... It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now.[5]" 2005

— Colin L Powell

Powell retracted his

The Pentagon produced a secret report 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.[9][21]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Peter Beaumont, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff (June 15, 2003). "Iraqi mobile labs nothing to do with germ warfare, report finds". The Observer. London. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  2. ^ Greg Miller and Bob Drogin (April 29, 2003). "Truck Is Tested for Biological Agents". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  3. ^ a b c d Joby Warrick (June 25, 2006). "Warnings on WMD 'Fabricator' Were Ignored, Ex-CIA Aide Says". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
  4. ^ a b c "Complete timeline of the 2003 invasion of Iraq". cooperativeresearch.org. November 20, 2005. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-23. He speaks to his BND debriefers in Arabic through a translator, and also in broken English and German. Curveball says that he worked for Iraq's Military Industrial Commission after graduating first in his class from engineering school at Baghdad University in 1994 (He actually graduated last (see 1994)). A year later, he says, he was assigned to work for 'Dr. Germ,' British-trained microbiologist Rihab Rashid Taha, to construct mobile biological weapons labs. But Curveball never says that he actually produced biological weapons or witnessed anyone else doing so and the BND is unable to verify his claims. Curveball's statements are recorded in German, shared with a local Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) team, and sent to the US, where they are translated into English for analysis at the DIA's directorate for human intelligence in Clarendon, Va. 'This was not substantial evidence,' one senior German intelligence official later recalls in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. 'We made clear we could not verify the things he said.' The reports are then sent to the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC), whose experts analyze the data and share it with artists who use Curveball's accounts to render sketches.
  5. ^ a b "Iraqi Mobile Production Facilities". Famous Pictures Magazine. 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  6. ^ a b Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel (May 31, 2007). "Former CIA director used Pentagon ties to introduce Iraqi defector". McClatchy DC. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  7. ^ a b John Pike (2006-12-04). "Mobile Biological Weapons Facilities - Winnebagos of Death". The Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-07-24. From January 2000 to September 2001, the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) Human Intelligence disseminated almost 112 reports from Curveball regarding mobile BW facilities in Iraq. These reports did not come directly from Curveball, however, but were transferred through a 'foreign liaison.'
  8. ^ "Second suspected mobile weapons lab found in Iraq". CNN. May 13, 2003. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  9. ^ a b Joby Warrick (April 12, 2006). "Lacking Biolabs, Trailers Carried Case for War". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  10. ^ CIA (May 28, 2003). "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants". Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original on June 12, 2007. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  11. ^ George W Bush (May 29, 2003). "Interview of the President by TVP, Poland". White House. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  12. ^ Hutton (August 13, 2003). "Hutton Inquiry Hearing Transcripts – Susan Watts". The Hutton Inquiry. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  13. ^ Susan Watts (June 2, 2003). "Susan Watts, Newsnight, 2 June 2003". BBC. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  14. ^ Hutton (September 24, 2003). "Hutton Inquiry Hearing Transcripts – Wing Commander John Clark". The Hutton Inquiry. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  15. ^ Judith Miller (June 7, 2003). "Some experts doubt trailers were germ lab". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  16. ^ Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett (June 8, 2003). "Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs'". The Observer. London. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  17. ^ Hutton (September 24, 2003). "Hutton Inquiry Hearing Transcripts – Peter Stuart Beaumont". The Hutton Inquiry. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  18. ^ Hansard (June 20, 2003). "Hansard – Written Answers". Hansard. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  19. ^ Hansard (June 23, 2003). "Hansard – Written Answers – Column 696". Hansard. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  20. ^ AFP (April 3, 2004). "Pre-war data given to UN 'not solid': Powell". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  21. ^ "From 'Biological Laboratories' to Harmless Trailers". The Washington Post. April 12, 2006. Retrieved 2013-08-30.
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