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Iraq: Experts Reasonably Certain That Second Trailer Is a Mobile Weapons Facility There is a “reasonable degree of certainty” that a second recovered Iraqi trailer is in fact a mobile biological laboratory, a U.S. Army general said yesterday (see GSN, May 13). Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, said he had been told by an expert that the trailer — recovered in Northern Iraq last week — was probably a mobile biological facility, as originally suspected. “The expert I talked to this morning said that he had a reasonable degree of certainty that this is in fact a mobile biological agent production trailer,” Petraeus said during a press briefing in the Iraqi city of Mosul. He said the layout of the second trailer was “nearly identical” to that of a suspected mobile biological laboratory that had been previously discovered. The newly found trailer has a “5,000 PSI compressor, 2,000-liter reactor vessel, small feed tank, 3,000-liter water tank and a water chiller,” Petraeus said. The second trailer also had a consecutive serial number from the first trailer, he said. The second trailer appeared to be incomplete when it was recovered, with several welds not finished and shipping plugs still in place, Petraeus said. In addition, several pieces of equipment from the second trailer appeared to have been looted, he said. Petraeus also said yesterday that Iraq might have destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles prior to the war. “There’s no question that there were chemical weapons years ago,” Petraeus said. I just don’t know whether it was all destroyed years ago,” he said (U.S. Defense Department release, May 13). IISS Surprised at Lack of Success in WMD Hunt Meanwhile, an expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think tank that issued a report last year describing Iraq’s WMD programs, has said he was surprised by the lack of discovered Iraqi chemical weapons (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2002). Gary Samore, an IISS expert who helped prepare the institute’s report, acknowledged that no chemical weapons or chemical delivery systems have been found in Iraq and said that they probably would not be found in large numbers, contrary to the institute’s report. “The absence of chemical weapons was a big surprise,” Samore said. Samore also said that the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was still continuing and that some important discoveries had been found. “They have found equipment and material which would have allowed Iraq to revive its programs,” he said. The institute is neither “nervous nor embarrassed” about its Iraq report, said Director John Chipman. He added that the report had been cautious in its analysis (Paul Reynolds, BBC News, May 13). War Still Justified, British Official Says The discovery of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is not needed to justify the recent war, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today. When asked if the failure to find such weapons was important, Straw replied, “It’s not crucially important” (Johannesburg Independent Online, May 14). Sanctions Meanwhile in Moscow, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met today with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to try to gain Russia’s support for a U.N. Security Council resolution to end U.N. sanctions against Iraq (see GSN, May 12). Powell is expected to meet again with Ivanov later today before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Agence France-Presse. The meetings are expected to include discussions on a U.S.-British-Spanish U.N. resolution to lift U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Russia has opposed such a move, however, saying U.N. inspectors first needed to return to Iraq to verify that it no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction. Ivanov today did not comment on his meeting with Powell, but did say that the future of U.S.-Russian relations “belongs to cooperation.” “Our common interest in the search for answers to global challenges brings us closer together. No one can fight new threats alone,” Ivanov said. “We are for a constructive and nonconfrontational dialogue,” he said (Henry Meyer, Agence France-Presse, May 14).
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