http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,973195,00.html


'Senior Iraqi officials of the al-Kindi Research, Testing,
Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul were shown pictures of
the mobile production trailers, and they claimed that the trailers
were used to chemically produce hydrogen for artillery weather
balloons.'

Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the
atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed allowing
more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be
mobile.

The Observer has discovered that not only did the Iraq military have
such a system at one time, but that it was actually sold to them by
the British. In 1987 Marconi, now known as AMS, sold the Iraqi army an
Artillery Meteorological System or Amets for short.

Blow to Blair over 'mobile labs'

Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs

Peter Beaumont and Antony Barnett
Sunday June 8, 2003
The Observer

Tony Blair faces a fresh crisis over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass
destruction, as evidence emerges that two vehicles that he has
repeatedly claimed to be Iraqi mobile biological warfare production
units are nothing of the sort.

The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical
experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment
have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile
facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether
they really are germ labs.

The British review comes amid widespread doubts expressed by
scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have
been used to make biological weapons.

Instead The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely
that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to
fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by
Britain in 1987.

The British review follows access by UK officials to the vehicles
which were discovered by US troops in April and May.

'We are being very careful now not to jump to any conclusions about
these vehicles,' said one source familiar with the investigation. 'On
the basis of intelligence we do believe that mobile labs do exist.
What is not certain is that these vehicles are actually them so we are
being careful not to jump the gun.'

The claim, however, that the two vehicles are mobile germ labs has
been repeated frequently by both Blair and President George Bush in
recent days in support of claims that they prove the existence of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

During his whistle stop tour of the Gulf, Europe and Russia, Blair
repeatedly briefed journalists that the trailers were germ production
labs which proved that Iraq had WMD.

But chemical weapons experts, engineers, chemists and military systems
experts contacted by The Observer over the past week, say the layout
and equipment found on the trailers is entirely inconsistent with the
vehicles being mobile labs. Both US Secretary of State Colin Powell,
when he addressed the UN Security Council prior to the war, and the
British Government alleged that Saddam had such labs.

A separate investigation published by the New York Times yesterday
discloses that the trailers have now been investigated by three
different teams of Western experts, with the third and most senior
group of analysts apparently divided sharply over their function.

'I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter,' a senior analyst
said of a tank supposed to be capable of multiplying seed germs into
lethal swarms. The government's public report, he said, 'was a rushed
job and looks political'. The analyst had not seen the trailers, but
reviewed evidence from them.

Another intelligence expert who has seen the trailers told the US
paper: 'Everyone has wanted to find the "smoking gun" so much that
they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion. I am very upset
with the process.'

Questions over the claimed purpose of trailer for making biological
weapons include:

.. The lack of any trace of pathogens found in the fermentation tanks.
According to experts, when weapons inspectors checked tanks in the
mid-Nineties that had been scoured to disguise their real use, traces
of pathogens were still detectable.

.. The use of canvas sides on vehicles where technicians would be
working with dangerous germ cultures.

.. A shortage of pumps required to create vacuum conditions required
for working with germ cultures and other processes usually associated
with making biological weapons.

.. The lack of an autoclave for steam sterilisation, normally a
prerequisite for any kind of biological production. Its lack of
availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ
contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

.. The lack of any easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from
the processing tank.

One of those expressing severe doubts about the alleged mobile germ
labs is Professor Harry Smith, who chairs the Royal Society's working
party on biological weapons.

He told The Observer 'I am concerned about the canvas sides. Ideally,
you would want airtight facilities for making something like anthrax.
Not only that, it is a very resistant organism and even if the Iraqis
cleaned the equipment, I would still expect to find some trace of it.'


His view is shared by the working group of the Federation of American
Scientists and by the CIA, which states: 'Senior Iraqi officials of
the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility
in Mosul were shown pictures of the mobile production trailers, and
they claimed that the trailers were used to chemically produce
hydrogen for artillery weather balloons.'

Artillery balloons are essentially balloons that are sent up into the
atmosphere and relay information on wind direction and speed allowing
more accurate artillery fire. Crucially, these systems need to be
mobile.

The Observer has discovered that not only did the Iraq military have
such a system at one time, but that it was actually sold to them by
the British. In 1987 Marconi, now known as AMS, sold the Iraqi army an
Artillery Meteorological System or Amets for short.

Additional reporting by Solomon Hughes

Guardian Unlimited C Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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