Bush: 'We Found' Banned Weapons
President Cites Trailers in Iraq as Proof
The Washington Post -- May 31, 2003
By Mike Allen
KRAKOW, Poland, May 30 -- President Bush, citing two trailers that U.S. intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have "found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the United States' primary justification for going to war.
In remarks to Polish television at a time of mounting criticism at home and abroad that the more than two-month-old weapons hunt is turning up nothing, Bush said that claims of failure were "wrong." The remarks were released today.
"You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons," Bush said in an interview before leaving today on a seven-day trip to Europe and the Middle East. "They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.
"And we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said. "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."
Bush arrived today in Poland, a U.S. ally in the Iraq war and the first stop on his trip. Later he will meet with fellow heads of government in St. Petersburg, Russia's second city, and Evian, a resort city in the French Alps, before presiding over a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan.
Bush administration officials have recently been stressing a hunt for "weapons programs" instead of weapons themselves. Among the officials who have hedged their claims in recent public statements is Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who said this week that deposed president Saddam Hussein may have destroyed all the weapons before the war.
U.S. authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon. In the interview, Bush said weapons had been found, but in elaborating, he mentioned only the trailers, which the CIA has concluded were likely used for production of biological weapons.
The agency reported that no pathogens were found in the two trailers and added that civilian use of the heavy transports, such as water purification or pharmaceutical production, was "unlikely" because of the effort and expense required to make the equipment mobile. Production of biological warfare agents "is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles," the CIA report concluded.
Preparing for Bush's visit to the Middle East, administration officials said they were assembling a team of 24-hour-a-day monitors to mediate between the parties and measure performance in implementing the "road map" peace plan that aims to create a Palestinian state and permanent peace in the region.
Powell said the move stopped short of naming a "major envoy, with constant negotiations." But it would deepen U.S. responsibility in the peacemaking process. Powell, joining Bush aboard Air Force One today, said the head of the U.S.-led team would be chosen soon.
Recounting his February speech to the U.N. Security Council, which included the display of satellite images and the playing of communications intercepts, Powell said that he "went out to the CIA, and I spent four days and four nights going over everything that they had as holdings." Powell said he had access to "a roomful of analysts, the raw documents, the papers."
"Where I put up the cartoons of those biological vans, we didn't just make them up one night," he said. "Those were eyewitness accounts of people who had worked in the program and knew it was going on, multiple accounts.
"I have been through many crises in my career in government and there are always people who come after the fact to say, 'This wasn't presented to you,' or 'This was politicized or this wasn't,' " Powell continued.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said during a brief visit to Warsaw today that he was confident that illegal weapons would be found and urged people to "have a little patience," the Reuters news agency reported.
"The idea that we authorized or made our intelligence agencies invent some piece of evidence is completely absurd," Blair said, referring to news media reports in London that British intelligence officials feel that Blair's office overstated the case in a dossier issued before the war. "Saddam's history of weapons of mass destruction is not some invention of the British security services."
Bush plans to use a speech in Krakow on Saturday to argue anew that the liberation of the people of Iraq was a legitimate cause for war, according to an administration official. He will speak after a solemn visit to the firing squad's "Death Wall" at the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and will draw a line from that to modern evil, including to Hussein and terrorists. Bush told Polish television that the visit's purpose is "to remind people that we must confront evil when we find it."
Bush began his sprint through six countries by offering conciliatory words to such traditional allies as France that tried to thwart the war in Iraq. But his aides said he planned to use the trip to continue projecting American might to try to change the world on his terms.
"I understand the attitudes of some, but I refuse to be stopped in my desire to rally the world toward achieving positive results for each individual," Bush told foreign reporters before leaving Washington.
A senior administration official said the theme underpinning the diplomatic tour was, "What does President Bush do with his military victory?" Bush will lay out his answers beginning with the speech in Krakow, where he will call for greater transatlantic cooperation on controlling AIDS, poverty and weapons of mass destruction.
"Together, we can achieve the big objective," he said Thursday in remarks to foreign reporters that the White House released today. "And that is peace and freedom."
From here, Bush heads Saturday afternoon to St. Petersburg for celebrations and a gathering of world leaders on the occasion of that city's 300th anniversary. Then he flies to Evian for the annual meeting of the heads of the Group of Eight industrial powers. There, supporters and opponents of the war in Iraq will try to work out continuing resentments.
copyright 2003 The Washington Post Company
Vanishing Agents
Did Iraq really have weapons of mass destruction?
Slate -- May 30, 2003
By Fred Kaplan
Enough already. Where are the weapons of mass destruction?
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appeared at the Council on Foreign Relations last Tuesday and, during the question-answer period, made the usual excuses for why his team of biochem-weapon hunters hasn't yet found any. "We've only been there seven weeks," he exclaimed. "It's a country the size of California—it's not as though we've managed to look everywhere," he added.
About those trailers?
What Really Happened -- May 30, 2003
[The "What Really Happened" site seems to lean a bit towards the conspiracy theories, but it does have high resolution photos of trailers.]
Rockefeller says Iraq's weapons should have been found by now
Associated Press via From the Wilderness -- May 29, 2003
2 trailers deemed biological arms labs
Washington Times -- May 29, 2003
Report links Iraqi trailers to weapons
The Boston Globe via Global Security -- May 29, 2003
CIA opens report on Iraq trailers
USA Today via Global Security -- May 29, 2003
"The administration has got a serious credibility problem," said John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-area think tank. Pike called the CIA report credible but added, "This long after the war, for them to come up with two rusting trailers, it's pretty thin."
State Dept. Daily Press Briefing for May 28
US Department of State via Scoop -- May 28, 2003
These vans were destined for biological -- to produce biological agents and not for other purposes.
It's very important to recognize that programs that we had said existed do exist; that the kind of equipment that we had said existed does exist.
Report Does Not Replace the Need for Independent International Inspections of Weapons Trailers
INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY -- May 28
However, no biological weapons agents were found on the trailers. Instead, the government's finding is based on eliminating any possible alternative explanations for the trucks, which is a controversial methodology under any circumstances. Given the high stakes for the United States to prove the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, this methodology is particularly suspect.
US Confident Saddam Had Mobile WMD Lab
FOX News - May 28, 2003
CIA Report Details Iraqi Mobile Biological Weapons Labs
US Dept. of State -- May 28, 2003
A new Central Intelligence Agency report says the three mobile laboratory facilities uncovered by coalition forces in Iraq provide "the strongest evidence to date" that Iraq had a biological warfare program and made substantial efforts to hide it.
["Strongest evidence to date"? This is all you've got? Sweet Jebus! The rusty trailer up on blocks counts too?]
Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants
CIA-DIA -- May 28, 2003
Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants
CIA-DIA via Global Security -- May 28, 2003
seen at Global Security's
Hot Documents page
Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants
CIA-DIA via American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise -- May 28, 2003
WMD Trail Leads Searchers To Trailers
CBS News -- May 21, 2003
Suspected Mobile Bio-Weapons Labs Discovered in Iraq
JINSA -- May 15, 2003
The equipment included a fermenter that could help to produce germ warfare agents, as well as gas cylinders to supply clear air for agent production and a system to capture and compress exhaust gasses to evade detection of weapons production.
101st providing safe environment in northern Iraq
Army News Service -- May 14, 2003
Soldiers from the 101st Airbourne Division found this mobile lab May 9 that could have been used for manufacturing biological weapons located just north of the city of Mosul.
[I hate to nitpick, but wouldn't it need wheels to qualify as a "mobile" lab?]
[This story has gone into the memory hole, but I found a few copies via google. David Kay, whose expertise lies in nuclear weapons, offered his impromptu analysis of alleged bio-weapons production trailers.]
Suspected bioweapons labs found; three trailers believed to be mobile laboratories
MSNBC -- May 11, 2003
Military teams searching for biological and chemical weapons in Iraq found three trailers believed to be mobile biological weapons laboratories capable of producing deadly germs for weapons, NBC News reported.
The teams found the trailers at a bombed-out rocket and missile factory near Mosul in northern Iraq. One of the trailers was missing its canvas cover, wheels and plumbing -- most likely taken by looters -- but the essential parts, including a compressor and dryer needed to produce weapons grade anthrax, were intact. Military teams were conducting tests for traces of biological weapons, according to NBC News.
Former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay told NBC there was no other possible purpose for the lab. "This is it," he said.
The New York Times, meanwhile, reported on what appears to be the same lab in its Sunday editions.
The newspaper quoted a leader of one of the teams of experts as saying the laboratory could be used for medicinal and peaceful purposes, as well as for making deadly germs for weapons. The paper quoted the unidentified special forces officer as saying that Iraq's failure to disclose the site showed that the ousted regime had violated U.N. disarmament demands.
"The failure to disclose such equipment is a clear violation of United Nations sanctions and an indication of ill intent," the Times quoted the team leader as saying.
Despite U.S. claims that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, none have been found since American-led forces seized Baghdad and toppled the regime a month ago. Many of Saddam's elite units failed to mount a credible resistance, leading to suspicions that some of them may be trying to reorganize.
The possible find also comes as the 75th Exploitation Task Force directing the search for weapons of mass destruction is making plans to head home in June,The Washington Post reported.
Last week, the Pentagon reported the discovery of another suspected mobile lab. That lab was scrubbed with a bleach-like substance to remove any possible trace of biological weapons, officials said, but was capable of producing them.
Weapons trailer may have been found
NBC News via WNDU -- May 11, 2003
The trailer is one of three that was found outside Mosul ...
U.S. Tests Suspected Bioweapons Lab
CBS News -- May 7, 2003