It seems those trailers aren't very suited to making weapons after all. <font color=purple>It's not built and designed as a standard fermenter," he said of the central tank. "Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that's true of any tin can."
nytimes.com.
"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. <font color=red>The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political."<font color=purple> This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.
The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.
Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for use as a weapon.
Finally, they said, the trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.
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