7 June 2003. Add New York Times article.

1 June 2003. Add New York Times editorial.

31 May 2003. Thanks to A.

Original in PDF: http://cryptome.org/iq-bw-plants.pdf  (759KB)

CIA version: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraqi_mobile_plants/index.html

[10 pages.]

Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare
Agent Production Plants

28 May 2003

Reported Mobile Plants Compared to Those Found in Iraq

Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare
Agent Production Plants

Overview

Coalition forces have uncovered the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program.

• Kurdish forces in late April 2003 took into custody a specialized tractor-trailer near Mosul and subsequently turned it over to US military control.

• The US military discovered a second mobile facility equipped to produce BW agent in early May at the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul. Although this second trailer appears to have been looted, the remaining equipment, including the fermentor, is in a configuration similar to the first plant.

• US forces in late April also discovered a mobile laboratory truck in Baghdad. The truck is a toxicology laboratory from the 1980s that could be used to support BW or legitimate research.

The design, equipment, and layout of the trailer found in late April is strikingly similar to descriptions provided by a source who was a chem ical engineer that managed one of the mobile plants. Secretary of State Powell’s description of the mobile plants in his speech in February 2003 to the United Nations (see inset) was based primarily on reporting from this source.

Prewar Assessment

The source reported to us that Iraq in 1995 planned to construct seven sets of mobile production plants—six on semitrailers and one on railroad cars—to conceal BW agent production while appearing to cooperate  with UN inspectors. Some of this information was corroborated by another source.

• One of the semitrailer plants reportedly produced BW agents as early as July 1997.

• The design for a more concealable and efficient two-trailer system was reportedly completed in May 1998 to compensate for difficulties in operating the original, three-trailer plant.

• Iraq employed extensive denial and deception in this program, including disguising from its own workers the production process, equipment, and BW agents produced in the trailers.

Prewar Iraqi Mobile Program Sources The majority of our information on Iraq’s mobile program was obtained from a chemical engineer that managed one of the plants. Three other sources, however, corroborated information related to the mobile BW project. The second source was a civil engineer who reported on the existence of at least one trucktransportable facility in December 2000 at the Karbala ammunition depot. The third source reported in 2002 that Iraq had manufactured mobile systems for the production of single-cell protein on trailers and railcars but admitted that they could be used for BW agent production. The fourth source, a defector from the Iraq Intelligence Service, reported that Baghdad manufactured mobile facilities that we assess could be used for the research of BW agents, vice production.

Plants Consistent With Intelligence Reporting

Examination of the trailers reveals that all of the equipment is permanently installed and interconnected, creating an ingeniously simple, selfcontained bioprocessing system. Although the equipment on the trailer found in April 2003 was partially damaged by looters, it includes a fermentor capable of producing biological agents and support equipment such as water supply tanks, an air compressor, a water chiller, and a system for collecting exhaust gases.

The trailers probably are part of a two- or possibly three-trailer unit. Both trailers we have found probably are designed to produce BW agent in unconcentrated liquid slurry. The missing trailer or trailers from one complete unit would be equipped for growth media preparation and postharvest processing and, we would expect, have equipment such as mixing tanks, centrifuges, and spray dryers.

• These other units that we have not yet found would be needed to prepare and sterilize the media and to concentrate and possibly dry the agent, before the agent is ready for introduction into a delivery system, such as bulk-filled munitions. Before the Gulf war, Iraq bulk filled missile and rocket warheads, aerial bombs, artillery shells, and spray tanks.

Our analysis of the mobile production plant found in April indicates the layout and equipment are consistent with information provided by the chemical engineer, who has direct knowledge of Iraq’s mobile BW program.

• The source recognized pictures of this trailer, among photographs of unrelated equipment, as a mobile BW production plant similar to the one that he managed, even pointing out specific pieces of equipment that were installed on his unit.

Common elements between the source’s description and the trailers include a control panel, fermentor, water tank, holding tank, and two sets of gas cylinders. One set of gas cylinders was reported to provide clean gases—oxygen and nitrogen—for production, and the other set captured exhaust gases, concealing signatures of BW agent production.

• The discovered trailers also incorporate air-stirred fermentors, which the source reported were part of the second-generation plant design.

• Externally, the trailers have a ribbed superstructure to support a canvas covering that matches the source’s description.

• Data plates on the fermentors indicate that they were manufactured at the same plant the source said manufactured equipment for the first generation of mobile plants. The plant also was involved in the production of equipment used in Iraq’s pre-Gulf war BW program.

Employees of the facility that produced the mobile production plants’ fermentor revealed that seven fermentors were produced in 1997, one in 2002 and one in 2003.

• The seven fermentors appear to corroborate the source’s reporting that Iraq in the mid-1990s planned to produce seven mobile production plants.

• The two fermentors produced in 2002 and 2003 reportedly were sent to the al-Kindi Research, Testing, Development, and Engineering facility in Mosul—the site where the second trailer was found—and probably are the fermentors found on the trailers in US custody.

There are a few inconsistencies between the source’s reporting and the trailers, which probably reflect design improvements.

• The original plants were reported to be mounted on flatbed trailers reinforced by nickel-plate flooring and equipped with hydraulic support legs. The discovered plants are mounted on heavy equipment transporters intended to carry army tanks, obviating the need for reinforced floors and hydraulic legs.

• The trailers have a cooling unit not included in the original plant design, probably to solve overheating problems during the summer months as described by the source.

• The original design had 18 pumps, but the source mentioned an effort to reduce the number to four in the new design. The trailer discovered in late April has three pumps.

Legitimate Uses Unlikely

Coalition experts on fermentation and systems engineering examined the trailer found in late April and have been unable to identify any legitimate industrial use—such as water purification, mobile medical laboratory, vaccine or pharmaceutical production—that would justify the effort and expense of a mobile production capability. We have investigated what other industrial processes may require such equipment—a fermentor, refrigeration, and a gas capture system—and agree with the experts that BW agent production is the only consistent, logical purpose for these vehicles.

• The capability of the system to capture and compress exhaust gases produced during fermentation is not required for legitimate biological processes and strongly indicates attempts to conceal production activity.

• The presence of caustic in the fermentor combined with the recent painting of the plant may indicate an attempt to decontaminate and conceal the plant’s purpose.

• Finally, the data plate on the fermentor indicates that this system was manufactured in 2002 and yet it was not declared to the United Nations, as required by Security Council Resolutions.

Some coalition analysts assess that the trailer found in late April could be used for bioproduction but believe it may be a newer prototype because the layout is not entirely identical to what the source described. A New York Times article on 13 May 2003 reported that an agricultural expert suggests the trailers might have been intended to produce biopesticides near agricultural areas in order to avoid degradation problems. The same article also reported that a former weapons inspector suggests that the trailers may be chemical-processing units intended to refurbish Iraq’s antiaircraft missiles.

• Biopesticide production requires the same equipment and technology used for BW agent production; however, the off-gas collection system and the size of the equipment are unnecessary for biopesticide production. There is no need to produce biopesticides near the point of use because biopesticides do not degrade as quickly as most BW agents and would be more economically produced at a large fixed facility. In addition, the color of the trailer found in mid-April is indicative of military rather than civilian use.

• Our missile experts have no explanation for how such a trailer could function to refurbish antiaircraft missiles and judge that such a use is unlikely based on the scale, configuration, and assessed function of the equipment.

• The experts cited in the editorial are not on the scene and probably do not have complete access to information about the trailers.

Hydrogen Production Cover Story

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. Hydrogen production would be a plausible cover story for the mobile production units.

• The Iraqis have used sophisticated denial and deception methods that include the use of cover stories that are designed to work. Some of the features of the trailer—a gas collection system and the presence of caustic—are consistent with both bioproduction and hydrogen production.

The plant’s design possibly could be used to produce hydrogen using a chemical reaction, but it would be inefficient. The capacity of this trailer is larger than typical units for hydrogen production for weather balloons. Compact, transportable hydrogen generation systems are commercially available, safe, and reliable.

Sample Collection and Analysis

We continue to examine the trailer found in mid-April and are using advanced sample analysis techniques to determine whether BW agent is present, although we do not expect samples to show the presence of BW agent. We suspect that the Iraqis thoroughly decontaminated the vehicle to remove evidence of BW agent production. Despite the lack of confirmatory samples, we nevertheless are confident that this trailer is a mobile BW production plant because of the source’s description, equipment, and design.

• The initial set of samples, now in the United States, was taken from sludge from inside the fermentor, liquid that was in the system and wipes from the equipment. A sample set also was provided to a coalition partner for detailed laboratory analysis.

• As we expected, preliminary sample analysis results are negative for five standard BW agents, including Bacillus anthracis, and for growth media for those agents. In addition, the preliminary results indicate the presence of sodium azide and urea, which do not support Iraqi claims that the trailer was for hydrogen production.

• Additional sample analysis is being conducted to identify growth media, agent degradation products, and decontamination chemicals that could be specific for BW agents, as well as to identify a chemical associated with hydrogen production.

Mobile Production Plant Versus Mobile Laboratory?

Although individuals often interchangeably use the terms production plant and laboratory, they have distinct meanings. The mobile production plants are designed for batch production of biological material and not for laboratory analysis of samples. A truckmounted mobile laboratory would be equipped for analysis and small-scale laboratory activities. US forces discovered one such laboratory in late April.

• The mobile laboratory—installed in a box-bodied truck—is equipped with standard, dual-use laboratory equipment, including autoclaves, an incubator, centrifuges, and laboratory test tubes and glassware.

• These laboratories could be used to support a mobile BW production plant but serve legitimate functions that are applicable to public heath and environmental monitoring, such as water-quality sampling.

[Appended by Cryptome.]

The New York Times

13 May 2003

Iraq's Mobile Laboratories. (Editorial)

American military inspectors have found what they consider their most persuasive evidence yet that Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction: three trailers that look as if they may be mobile biological weapons laboratories. Should the evidence hold up after more thorough analysis, it would validate at least one of the claims made by the Bush administration in arguing that Iraq had an active biological weapons program. But at this point it is difficult to know for sure whether these mobile units were part of a program to produce unconventional weapons or served a more benign purpose.

Two of the suspicious trailers contained equipment that American military experts concluded was almost certainly intended to produce biological weapons. These included, in one trailer or the other, a fermenting machine, a dryer, a system to bring in fresh water and eliminate contaminated water, and equipment to contain the emission of gases that might give away the laboratory's purpose. Yet outside critics say it remains possible that the military investigators, who have cried wolf several times in the past, may once again have misinterpreted what they are seeing.

One former weapons inspector suggests that the trailers may be chemical processing units intended to refurbish Iraq's antiaircraft missiles. Indeed, one was parked at a missile research site. An agricultural expert suggests that the labs may have been intended to make biological pesticides close to agricultural areas to avoid degradation problems. Neither expert, of course, is on the scene. The American military teams claim to have considered these and other alternatives before concluding that biowarfare was the only likely purpose. That judgment will need confirmation from outside experts if it is to carry weight in world opinion. The most definitive proof would be the detection of traces of anthrax or other biological agents in the equipment as analysts continue to examine these most intriguing finds in the weapons search.

Meanwhile, the search for the large stocks of chemical and biological weapons that the administration cited as a threat that could wipe out millions of people has yet to turn up anything significant. The recent surrender of Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha al-Azzawi al-Tikriti, known as Dr. Germ for her past role in the Iraqi biological warfare program, offers some hope that she may shed light on whether the program has continued to function in recent years. But several other high-level scientists and military officials in the weapons programs have already surrendered and have apparently so far denied that Iraq had an active program to make unconventional weapons. Some insist that the programs were dismantled during the years of United Nations monitoring.

American authorities have begun broadcasting offers of rewards in an effort to get lower-level Iraqis to lead them to illicit weapons, and military experts continue to pore over documents that may offer leads. All that is fine, but we still believe that the best way to spur this investigation and give its findings credibility is to invite the United Nations to send its inspection teams back in. They are ready to go if invited.

The New York Times

29 May 2003

U.S., in Assessment, Terms Trailers Germ Laboratories.

William J. Broad

The Bush administration yesterday made public its assessment of two mysterious trailers found in Iraq, calling them mobile units to produce deadly germs and the strongest evidence yet that Saddam Hussein had been hiding a program to prepare for biological warfare.

''We're highly confident'' of that judgment, an American intelligence official told reporters. The official said the administration's strong conviction was based mainly on the similarity between the testimony of Iraqi sources and the evidence found on the ground.

The Central Intelligence Agency posted the six-page assessment, ''Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants,'' on its Web site, www.cia.gov. The analysis was done in collaboration with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The report and briefing, given by four intelligence officials, revealed new details beyond what government officials had previously disclosed about the two mobile factories found by allied forces in April and May.

For instance, the officials said they judged that each trailer could brew enough germs to produce, with further processing, one or two kilograms of dried agent each month.

While seemingly a small amount -- a kilogram is 2.2 pounds -- that weight in dangerous germs could cause major havoc if cast to the wind or into a subway. By comparison, the anthrax-tainted letters that killed 5 people and put 30,000 Americans on preventive antibiotics in 2001 each contained about a gram of dried anthrax spores. So the mobile factories, in theory at least, could make quantities of deadly agents up to thousands of times greater.

''If you're looking at kilograms,'' an official at the briefing said, ''you're talking about thousands of people.''

The report called the discovery of the trailers ''the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program.'' It also noted that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in his testimony before the United Nations on Feb. 5 to generate support for a war in Iraq, had detailed such charges.

Both the report and the briefing, a telephone conference call in which reporters asked questions, were careful and candid. Both had notable caveats, including the use of the words ''probable'' and ''unlikely.''

Both conceded that there were inconsistencies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof, like the presence of pathogens in trailer gear. The officials acknowledged that they had discovered neither biological agents nor evidence that the equipment had ever been used to make germ weapons.

Moreover, they said the trailer's hardware presented no direct evidence of weapons use. The best evidence of that, they said, was the trailers' close resemblance to prewar descriptions of mobile germ plants given by Iraqi sources.

A technical assessment alone ''would not lead you intuitively and logically to biological warfare,'' an official said of the trailers.

Their gear was rusty, officials said, perhaps from sitting in the rain. And the mobile factories were poorly designed. For instance, one official noted, Iraqi biologists running the plants would have had a hard time getting raw materials into the production gear and removing multiplied colonies of deadly germs.

''Relatively inefficient but ingenious'' is how one analyst described the mobile factories.

Their inefficiency, he added, was probably rooted in a decision to design the plants with enough technical ambiguity so they could be disclaimed as germ factories if discovered. Iraqi scientists have said the units were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. But the intelligence officials dismissed that explanation as a cover story even while conceding that the equipment could, in fact, have been used occasionally to make hydrogen.

With unusual frankness, the report listed four Iraqi sources it said had given the West its insights into the alleged mobile germ factories: a chemical engineer who managed a plant; a civil engineer who reported on a plant at an ammunition depot in Iraq; a third source who told of an animal feed cover story; and a defector from the Iraq Intelligence Service who told how Baghdad was making mobile plants.

While the trailers had many similarities to the prewar descriptions, the officials and the report said, the units also bore notable differences. For instance, the original plants were said to be mounted on flatbed trailers with reinforced floors. But the discovered plants were on heavy transporters intended for tanks, ''obviating the need for reinforced floors,'' the paper said. In addition, the discovered trailers have a cooling unit not included in the original plant design -- probably, the report said, to solve overheating problems that a source had described.

''It's possible,'' one official added, that the two trailers, made in 2002 and 2003, were part of a new, more advanced generation of mobile gear ''never used to manufacture agent.''

The report also made brief mention of a mobile laboratory found by American forces that intelligence officials said could have had civilian and military uses.

The report took issue with an editorial in The New York Times on May 13 that cited experts who had suggested that the trailers might have been meant to produce biopesticides or to refurbish missile fuel. Those explanations, it said, made no sense.

American-led forces in Iraq are still hunting for other plants and their support vehicles, especially older models that might better match the descriptions of Iraqi sources.

A skeptical view of the evidence presented yesterday came from Matthew S. Meselson, a Harvard expert on biological weapons who has advised the Central Intelligence Agency. He said the C.I.A. had made technical errors in the past and called on the government to turn over its Iraqi evidence to an independent panel.

''The C.I.A. is under great political pressure,'' he said in an interview. ''The evidence has to be given to an unimpeachable outside group of scientists, and they should be allowed any tests or measurements they want. They shouldn't be spoon-fed the data.''

Dr. Meselson suggested that an appropriate group might be the National Academy of Sciences, a prestigious organization in Washington that often advises the government.

The New York Times

1 June 2003

The Bioweapons Enigma [Editorial]

President Bush may be convinced that two trailers found in Iraq were used as biological weapons labs, but the evidence is far from definitive. Referring to the two trailers in an interview with Polish television before he departed for Europe last week, Mr. Bush said the United States had found weapons of mass destruction and banned manufacturing devices in Iraq. Reports from the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency support that view, but they are based on inconclusive information.

Intelligence analysts told reporters last week that the configuration of equipment in the trailers would not work efficiently as a biological production plant, is not a design used by anyone else and would not lead anyone to link the trailers intuitively with biological weapons. The intelligence officials took all that as a sign that the Iraqis were ingeniously clever in trying to hide the true nature of what they were doing from international inspectors. But the uncertainties leave open the disquieting possibility that the trailers might not be what the intelligence agencies think they are. It seems increasingly imperative, as this page has argued before, to get an authoritative, unbiased assessment from the United Nations or some other independent body.

Intelligence officials say they are "highly confident" of their conclusions because of what they deem striking similarities between one of the trailers seized last month and a description provided three years ago by an Iraqi chemical engineer who is said to have managed a mobile weapons plant. Unfortunately, it is impossible for outsiders to judge the reliability of this source, whose information was described as "absolutely critical" to concluding that the trailers were biological warfare units.

No traces of biological agents have been detected so far in the trailers, and search teams have yet to find the additional trailers that would be needed to convert the slurry produced by these trailers into usable weapons. The technical analysis simply argues that the trailers could be used to produce a biological slurry and that no other plausible use can be identified that would justify the high cost and effort of mobile production. Officials dismiss Iraqi claims that the units were intended to produce hydrogen as an unlikely cover story but acknowledge that trace amounts of aluminum, a residue of hydrogen production, were detected, in amounts they deem too small to be significant.

In an environment in which the administration is under pressure to come up with evidence validating its prime justification for invading Iraq, these judgments are too subjective and conjectural to accept without further corroboration. Unless independent experts are given a chance to examine the trailers and all test results, a skeptical world is not apt to accept the findings.

New York Times, June 7, 2003

Some Analysts of Iraq Trailers Reject Germ Use

By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs. In interviews over the last week, they said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

"Everyone has wanted to find the 'smoking gun' so much that they may have wanted to have reached this conclusion," said one intelligence expert who has seen the trailers and, like some others, spoke on condition that he not be identified. He added, "I am very upset with the process."

The Bush administration has said the two trailers, which allied forces found in Iraq in April and May, are evidence that Saddam Hussein was hiding a program for biological warfare. In a white paper last week, it publicly detailed its case, even while conceding discrepancies in the evidence and a lack of hard proof.

Now, intelligence analysts stationed in the Middle East, as well as in the United States and Britain, are disclosing serious doubts about the administration's conclusions in what appears to be a bitter debate within the intelligence community. Skeptics said their initial judgments of a weapon application for the trailers had faltered as new evidence came to light.

Bill Harlow, a spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, said the dissenters "are entitled to their opinion, of course, but we stand behind the assertions in the white paper."

In all, at least three teams of Western experts have now examined the trailers and evidence from them. While the first two groups to see the trailers were largely convinced that the vehicles were intended for the purpose of making germ agents, the third group of more senior analysts divided sharply over the function of the trailers, with several members expressing strong skepticism, some of the dissenters said.

In effect, early conclusions by agents on the ground that the trailers were indeed mobile units to produce germs for weapons have since been challenged.

"I have no great confidence that it's a fermenter," a senior analyst with long experience in unconventional arms said of a tank for multiplying seed germs into lethal swarms. The government's public report, he added, "was a rushed job and looks political." This analyst had not seen the trailers himself, but reviewed evidence from them.

The skeptical experts said the mobile plants lacked gear for steam sterilization, normally a prerequisite for any kind of biological production, peaceful or otherwise. Its lack of availability between production runs would threaten to let in germ contaminants, resulting in failed weapons.

Second, if this shortcoming were somehow circumvented, each unit would still produce only a relatively small amount of germ-laden liquid, which would have to undergo further processing at some other factory unit to make it concentrated and prepare it for use as a weapon.

Finally, they said, the trailers have no easy way for technicians to remove germ fluids from the processing tank.

Senior intelligence officials in Washington rebutted the skeptics, saying, for instance, that the Iraqis might have obtained the needed steam for sterilization from a separate supply truck.

The skeptics noted further that the mobile plants had a means of easily extracting gas. Iraqi scientists have said the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. While the white paper dismisses that as a cover story, some analysts see the Iraqi explanation as potentially credible.

A senior administration official conceded that "some analysts give the hydrogen claim more credence." But he asserted that the majority still linked the Iraqi trailers to germ weapons.

The depth of dissent is hard to gauge. Even if it turns out to be a minority view, which seems likely, the skepticism is significant given the image of consensus that Washington has projected and the political reliance the administration has come to place on the mobile units. At the recent summit meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Bush cited the trailers as evidence of illegal Iraqi arms.

Critics seem likely to cite the internal dispute as further reason for an independent evaluation of the Iraqi trailers. Since the war's end, the White House has come under heavy political pressure because American soldiers have found no unconventional arms, a main rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who also used Iraqi illicit weapons as a chief justification of the war, has been repeatedly attacked on this question in Parliament and outside it.

Experts described the debate as intense despite the American intelligence agencies' release last week of the nuanced, carefully qualified white paper concluding that the mobile units were most likely part of Iraq's biowarfare program. It was posted May 28 on the Internet at www.cia.gov. [First article of this file.]

"We are in full agreement on it," an official said of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency at a briefing on the white paper.

The six-page report, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants," called discovery of the trailers "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."

A senior administration official said the White House had not put pressure on the intelligence community in any way on the content of its white paper, or on the timing of its release.

In interviews, the intelligence analysts disputing its conclusions focused on the lack of steam sterilization gear for the central processing tank, which the white paper calls a fermenter for germ multiplication.

In theory, the dissenting analysts added, the Iraqis could have sterilized the tank with harsh chemicals rather than steam. But they said that would require a heavy wash afterward with sterile water to remove any chemical residue - a feat judged difficult for a mobile unit presumably situated somewhere in the Iraqi desert.

William C. Patrick III, a senior official in the germ warfare program that Washington renounced in 1969, said the lack of steam sterilization had caused him to question the germ-plant theory that he had once tentatively endorsed. "That's a huge minus," he said. "I don't see how you can clean those tanks chemically."

Three senior intelligence officials in Washington, responding to the criticisms during a group interview on Tuesday, said the Iraqis could have used a separate mobile unit to supply steam to the trailer. Some Iraqi decontamination units, they said, have such steam generators.

The officials also said some types of chemical sterilization were feasible without drastic follow-up actions.

Finally, they proposed that the Iraqis might have engineered anthrax or other killer germs for immunity to antibiotics, and then riddled germ food in the trailers with such potent drugs. That, they said, would be a clever way to grow lethal bacteria and selectively decontaminate the equipment at the same time - though the officials conceded that they had no evidence the Iraqis had used such advanced techniques.

On the second issue, the officials disputed the claim that the mobile units could make only small amounts of germ-laden liquids. If the trailers brewed up germs in high concentrations, they said, every month one truck could make enough raw material to fill five R-400 bombs.

Finally, the officials countered the claim that the trailers had no easy way for technicians to drain germ concoctions from the processing tank. The fluids could go down a pipe at its bottom, they said. While the pipe is small in diameter - too small to work effectively, some analysts hold - the officials said high pressure from an air compressor on the trailer could force the tank to drain in 10 or 20 minutes.

A senior official said "we've considered these objections" and dismissed them as having no bearing on the overall conclusions of the white paper. He added that Iraq, which declared several classes of mobile vehicles to the United Nations, never said anything about hydrogen factories.

Some doubters noted that the intelligence community was still scrambling to analyze the trailers, suggesting that the white paper may have been premature. They said laboratories in the Middle East and the United States were now analyzing more than 100 samples from the trailers to verify the intelligence findings. Allied forces, they noted, have so far failed to find any of the envisioned support vehicles that the trailers would need to produce biological weapons.

One skeptic questioned the practicality of some of the conjectural steps the Iraqis are envisioned as having taken to adapt the trailers to the job of making deadly germs.

"It's not built and designed as a standard fermenter," he said of the central tank. "Certainly, if you modify it enough you could use it. But that's true of any tin can."

The reporting for this article was carried out by Judith Miller in Iraq and Kuwait and by William Broad in New York. Her agreement with the Pentagon, for an "embedded" assignment, allowed the military to review her copy to prevent breaches of troop protection and security. No changes were made in the review.