United Press International
U.S. finds Iraqi 'biological agents' lab
By Pamela Hess
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
From the International Desk
Published 5/7/2003 5:05 PM
WASHINGTON, May 7 (UPI) -- The United States has found an Iraqi trailer believed to be a mobile biological weapons laboratory of the type described by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in February, a senior defense official said Wednesday.
Kurdish forces at a checkpoint near Mosul in northern Iraq seized the trailer on April 19. It was on a hauler normally used for moving tanks, said Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone.
It is the closest U.S. forces have come to a "smoking gun" in their search for finding so-called weapons of mass destruction -? one of the primary reasons cited for the war against Saddam Hussein.
While other suspected labs have been found, all so far have turned out to be "dual-use" -? that is, potentially explained away as facilities to make fertilizer or vaccines, rather than weapons.
The trailer, however, contains a fermenter for growing cultures, gas cylinders to supply clean air for production and a system to capture and compress exhaust gases to eliminate any signature of the production, Cambone said.
"U.S. and U.K. technical experts have concluded that the unit does not appear to perform any function beyond ... the production of biological agents," he said.
"What we have here is what ... the secretary of state talked about, along with other things, in his presentation to the United Nations," Cambone said. "As time goes by and the more we learn, I'm sure we're going to discover that the WMD programs are as extensive and as varied as the secretary of state reported in his February address."
To intensify that search the Pentagon is sending close to 2,000 more American analysts, weapons inspectors and intelligence officers under the leadership of a major general with the Defense Intelligence Agency to widen the search for chemical and biological weapons in Iraq, according to Cambone. No U.N. arms inspectors other than Americans have been invited to join the team, Cambone said.
Initial swab test of the trailer have yielded no traces of biological or chemical agents, Cambone said. It seems to have been thoroughly washed out with a "caustic agent" -? possibly ammonia, he said. Therefore it will be disassembled and all of its nooks explored for possible biological agents.
The defector that first told the United States about the mobile laboratories said there are 18 of them, and indicated they were used to make anthrax, botulinum toxin and staphylococcus.
Swabs will be sent to four different laboratories for analysis ?- two in the United States, a U.S. military lab or near Iraq, and an independent laboratory in an undisclosed third country. Cambone said the fourth lab is in one of the coalition countries that supported the war, but said there are discussions underway about moving it to yet another country to assuage critics who might distrust the lab results.
He said it will be a "considerable amount of time" before the next round of tests come back to say exactly what was in the trailer.
"It will be another considerable period of time before the next round of testing comes back and we get some results," he said.
U.S. Central Command has a list of about 1,000 sensitive sites to visit in Iraq; roughly 600 of them have been said to be associated with weapons of mass destruction. The military has sent survey teams to about 70 of the previously known sites as well as 40 more that were discovered after the war began. So far none has revealed concrete indications of chemical or biological weapons.
Despite the desert heat, most American troops spent at least the first two weeks of the war in stuffy over garments that would protect them from chemical or biological weapons because U.S. intelligence indicated Iraqi forces were going to use them, particularly as they drew closer to Baghdad. No such weapons were ever used.
The survey teams will be followed by mobile exploitation teams, which can conduct more thorough assessments of sites, Cambone said. Those duties are handled by the 75th group, a team of about 600 people that includes interrogators, people who do "document exploitations," and analysts. They come from the CIA, DIA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, FBI, and the Treasury Department as well as from coalition partners.
The 75th group will soon be augmented or replaced by the 2,000-member Iraq Survey Group, led by Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton of the DIA. The Iraq Survey Group's mission is to collect and exploit information on individuals, records, materials, facilities, networks and operations associated with Saddam's regime, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, terrorists, and those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Cambone said.
In Washington, the government will create a "fusion cell" dedicated to the same work to provide in-depth analysis of the information turned up by the survey group, according to Cambone.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
upi.com |
