Late February 2004: Iraq Survey Group Member Told Not to Include Discussion of Trailers in Report

A CIA officer in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) instructs Rod Barton, a former UN weapons inspector who is contributing to an upcoming ISG report, not to mention the two trailers (see April 19, 2003; May 9, 2003) that the administration previously claimed were biological weapons factories. Since the trailers were discovered in April and May of 2003, experts have concluded that they were actually designed to produce hydrogen for artillery weather balloons. Barton later recalls the officer telling him, “You don’t understand how difficult it is to say anything different.… I don’t care that they are not biological trailers. It’s politically not possible.” [Associated Press, 5/13/2006]