Whitehouse knew all along “mobile biological laboratories” were BS
The spin…
On May 29, 2003, 50 days after the fall of Baghdad, President Bush proclaimed a fresh victory for his administration in Iraq: Two small trailers captured by U.S. and Kurdish troops had turned out to be long-sought mobile “biological laboratories.” He declared, “We have found the weapons of mass destruction.”
The claim, repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.
The findings from the weapons experts…
Team members and other sources intimately familiar with the mission declined to discuss technical details of the team’s findings because the report remains classified. But they cited the Iraqi Survey Group’s nonclassified, final report to Congress in September 2004 as reflecting the same conclusions.
That report said the trailers were “impractical for biological agent production,” lacking 11 components that would be crucial for making bioweapons. Instead, the trailers were “almost certainly designed and built for the generation of hydrogen,” the survey group reported.
The group’s report and members of the technical team also dismissed the notion that the trailers could be easily modified to produce weapons.
“It would be easier to start all over with just a bucket,” said Rod Barton, an Australian biological weapons expert and former member of the survey group.
Of course if Bush makes similar claims against Iran, is anybody going to believe him this time round?