Mobile weapons laboratory
Mobile weapons laboratories are bioreactors and other processing equipment to manufacture and process biological weapons that can be moved from location to location either by train or vehicle. No such labs have ever been proven to exist.
"Iraqi Mobile weapons laboratories"
In the run up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the main rationale for the Iraq War was Hussein's Iraq failure to transparently and verifiably cease Weapons of Mass Destruction programs, and to destroy all materials relating thereto, as mandated in United Nations Resolution 1441. In February 2003 the then Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation before the United Nations showing a computer generated view of what the laboratories looked like. He said Iraq had as many as 18 mobile facilities for making anthrax and botulinum toxin. "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.Following the invasion of Iraq two trailers were found and initially described as the alleged mobile labs.
Non-Discovery of Iraqi mobile labs
May 13, 2003 it was reported that a second suspected mobile weapons lab had been found in Iraq on April 19, 2003.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'.
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.
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.
We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. 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. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.
May 29, 2003 "We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons." Tony Blair, Flying into Kuwait for morale boosting trip.
May 29, 2003 "My personal view is we're going to find them, just as we found these two mobile laboratories" Town Hall Meeting with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Infinity-CBS Radio.
June 2, 2003 In the UK, Susan Watts broadcasts on the influential BBC2 Newsnight report which includes an anonymous experts opinion on the Mobile Weapons labs being for biological weapons. Dr Kelly is now only 40% certain the trailers are labs.
But our source, who is in an excellent position to know, and spoke of being 90% confident these claims are correct on the day the Pentagon showed the trucks to the world, now put that confidence level at just 40%.
June 3, 2003 "But let's remember what we've already found. Secretary Powell on February 5th talked about a mobile, biological weapons capability. That has now been found and this is a weapons laboratory trailers capable of making a lot of agent that -- dry agent, dry biological agent that can kill a lot of people. So we are finding these pieces that were described." Condoleezza Rice, Capital Report, CNBC.
June 3, 2003 "We know that these trailers look exactly like what was described to us by multiple sources as the capabilities for building or for making biological agents. We know that we have from multiple sources who told us that then and sources who have confirmed it now. Now the Iraqis were not stupid about this. They were able to conceal a lot. They've been able to scrub things down. But I think when the whole picture comes out, we will see that this was an active program." Condoleezza Rice, Capital Report, CNBC.
June 5, 2003 "We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents" President G W Bush Talks to Troops in Qatar, White House.
June 5, 2003 Dr. David Kelly one of Britains foremost experts on Biological Weapons visited Iraq to examine the trailers and take photographs.
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.
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 " Placing more pressure on Prime Minister Tony Blair over the lack of Weapons of Mass Destruction found in Iraq.
June 8, 2003 "Already, we've discovered, uh, uh, trailers, uh, that look remarkably similar to what Colin Powell described in his February 5th speech, biological weapons production facilities." Condoleezza Rice, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC.
June 8, 2003 "We are confident that we -- I believe that we will find them. I think that we have already found important clues like the biological weapons laboratories that look surprisingly like what Colin Powell described in his speech." Condoleezza Rice, Meet the Press, NBC.
June 8, 2003 "We have uncovered the mobile vans and we are continuing to search." Colin Powell Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News.
June 8, 2003 "And I think the mobile labs are what I think is a good indication of the kind of thing they are doing." Colin Powell Remarks at Stakeout Following Fox News Interview, Fox News.
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. The artillery balloons were used to get detailed weather data to be used to accurately direct artillery shelling. A British scientist and biological weapons expert was quoted "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." It was confirmed later that this expert was Dr David Kelly
June 20, 2003 MP Paul Flynn: "To ask the Prime Minister what assessment has been made of the function of the two vehicles suspected of being biological weapons laboratories that were discovered in Iraq." The UK Prime Minister Tony Blair: "Investigations into their role are continuing."
June 23, 2003:
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.
September 8, 2003:
Dick Cheney continued to claim trailers were mobile labs
September 14, 2003:January 22, 2004: