I have nothing to say. It speaks for itself.Officials: Trailers weren't labs
JOBY WARRICK
The Washington Post
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/KARIM KADIM
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. 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.
A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.
The three-page field report and a 122-page final report three weeks later were stamped "secret" and shelved. Meanwhile, for nearly a year, administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories.
The authors of the reports were nine U.S. and British civilian experts -- scientists and engineers with extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons -- who were dispatched to Baghdad by the Defense Intelligence Agency for an analysis of the trailers. Their actions and findings were described to a Washington Post reporter in interviews with six government officials and weapons experts who participated in the mission or had direct knowledge of it.
None would consent to being identified by name because of fear that their jobs would be jeopardized. Their accounts were verified by other current and former government officials knowledgeable about the mission.
Spokesmen for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency both declined to comment on the specific findings of the technical report because it remains classified.
The contents of the final report, "Final Technical Engineering Exploitation Report on Iraqi Suspected Biological Weapons-Associated Trailers," remains classified. But interviews reveal that the technical team was unequivocal in its conclusion that the trailers were not intended to manufacture biological weapons. Those interviewed took care not to discuss the classified portions of their work.
"There was no connection to anything biological," said one expert who studied the trailers.
Separately, the U.S. military announced Tuesday the deaths of five soldiers in Iraq, bringing the number of troops killed this month to at least 32. That figure already surpasses the U.S. military deaths for all of March.
When 31 troops died last month, it was the second-lowest monthly death toll of the war for the U.S. forces, and the fifth month in a row of declining fatalities, according to statistics from the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an independent organization.
But the number of deaths has begun to increase.
Many of the fatalities this month have taken place in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the heart of the Sunni Arab insurgency.
This report includes material from The New York Times.
My sarcasm radar is currently down.
