May 27, 2003: Pentagon-Sponsored Team Files Field Report Concluding that Trailers Not Designed to Make Biological Weapons

A Pentagon-sponsored fact-finding mission (see May 25, 2003) concludes in a three-page field report that two trailers recently found in Iraq (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) have nothing to do with biological weapons. The report’s authors are nine US and British civilian scientists and engineers, all of whom have “extensive experience in all the technical fields involved in making bioweapons,” according to the Washington Post. The report’s conclusions are agreed upon by all the team’s members. In spite of the report’s conclusions, the CIA and DIA will go ahead with plans to publicly release a white paper (see May 28, 2003) alleging that the trailers are mobile biological weapons factories. Three weeks later, the team will report the details of its findings in a 122-page final report (see (June 18, 2003)). [Washington Post, 4/12/2006]