Mid-June 2003: British Intelligence Investigation Determines Trailers Not Used to Produce Biological Weapons

An investigation sponsored by British intelligence and headed by British defense officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment determines that two trailers recently discovered in Iraq by US forces (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) are not mobile biological weapons factories as has been alleged. Rather the team concludes that they are for producing hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. “They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories,” says one British scientist and biological weapons expert who has seen the trailers. “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.” [Observer, 6/8/2003; Observer, 6/15/2003]