On May 28, the CIA released a paper entitled, "Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants." It describes three vehicles recovered in Iraq by U.S. forces -- a truck fitted with a "toxicology laboratory" that "could be used to support BW or legitimate research" and two tractor-trailers similar to the mobile units described by Powell at the United Nations.
"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," concluded the CIA.
The New York Times reported May 21 that the units "could be used to produce an estimated 500 liters of liquid anthrax and 50 liters of botulinum toxin per batch within two to three days -- millions of lethal doses."
"The manufacturer's plates on the fermentors list production dates of 2002 and 2003 -- suggesting Iraq continued to produce these units as late as this year," said the CIA.
U.S. intelligence, it turns out, found some very deadly needles in a haystack as big as Iraq.
Why did the U.S. change the regime in Baghdad? President Bush stated it plainly in his State of the Union Address: "Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." Those who argue that what has been discovered in Iraq thus far changes this calculation must answer one question: How many secret Iraqi bio-weapons factories would have been too many?