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Evidence casts doubt on germ-lab claims

A US Army soldier holds onto a portrait of toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein that he intends to keep as a souvenir on Saturday in front of Baghdad's Rashid Hotel. PHOTO: AFP

US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair face a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that they have repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production units are nothing of the sort.

The British intelligence agency MI6, defense officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are germ labs.

The British review comes amid doubts expressed by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have been used to make biological weapons.

Instead, it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to former president Saddam Hussein by Britain in 1987.

Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed allowing more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be mobile.

The British review follows access by UK officials to the vehicles which were discovered by US troops in April and last month.

"We are being very careful now not to jump to any conclusions about these vehicles," said one source familiar with the investigation. "On the basis of intelligence we do believe that mobile labs do exist. What is not certain is that these vehicles are actually them so we are being careful not to jump the gun."

The claim, however, that the two vehicles are mobile germ labs has been repeated frequently by both Blair and Bush in recent days in support of claims that they prove the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

During his whistle stop tour of the Gulf, Europe and Russia, Blair repeatedly briefed journalists that the trailers were germ production labs which proved that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But chemical weapons experts, engineers, chemists and military systems experts contacted over the past week say the layout and equipment found on the trailers is entirely inconsistent with the vehicles being mobile labs.

A separate investigation published by The New York Times on Saturday discloses that the trailers have been investigated by three different teams of Western experts, with the third and most senior group of analysts apparently divided sharply over their function.

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Inspectors survey Iraqi nuclear facility
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