U.S. officials have said engineering experts from the U.S Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency believe that two trailers recovered in Iraq were intended to produce hydrogen, and not biological weapons agents, the New York Times reported Saturday (see GSN, June 27).

A team of DIA engineering experts has determined that the trailers were probably intended to produce hydrogen for weather balloons, as Iraqi scientists had previously claimed, according to the Times.  The views of the DIA experts has caused the DIA to “pursue additional information” to determine the validity of the Iraqi scientists’ claims, a Pentagon official said. 

In May, the CIA and the DIA released a public report saying the trailers were intended for use as mobile biological facilities.  The DIA experts had not completed their work by the time that report was prepared, so their views were not included, U.S. officials said.

Both the CIA and DIA continue to stand by their report that the trailers were intended to produce biological agents, Pentagon and CIA officials said Friday.

“We stand by the white paper,” a Pentagon official said.  “But based on the assessment of the engineering team, it has caused us to pursue additional information about possible alternative uses for the trailers,” the official said (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, Aug. 9).

In late May, U.S. President George W. Bush cited the trailers as direct evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them,” Bush said during an interview with Polish TV, referring to the two recovered trailers (The State, May 31).

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