President Bush hailed the discovery in Iraq of trailer-mounted
biological agent production facilities as concrete evidence of
a clandestine Iraqi biological weapons program. But the closer
one looks at the Central Intelligence Agency report on the
mobile facilities, the more ambiguous the case appears.

In its report last week, the CIA said that the mobile plants
could only be used for illicit production of biological
weapons.

"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 CIA report said.

But this seems to be an overly hasty conclusion.

"Mobile pilot plant fermentation facilities are not uncommon,"
observed chemist George C. Smith. In fact, they have a
sufficient number of conventional applications, he noted, that
they are commercially marketed. One such mobile fermentor is
described here:

 http://www.johnmorris.com.au/html/NewBrunswick/bioflow5000.htm

The CIA report said the Iraqi plant design could be specifically
identified as a banned weapons system because of its device for
capturing exhaust gases: "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."

But that's not necessarily so either, said Smith, a senior
fellow at GlobalSecurity.org.

Thus, a design for a mobile bioreactor that is used to
decontaminate soil at the U.S. Department of Energy Savannah
River site features an optional "noxious gas adsorber" that has
nothing to do with biological weapons production. See the
schematic diagram on this page:

 http://www.wpi.org/Initiatives/2002/20020603.asp

"Perhaps the CIA analysts are correct when they claim the
fermentors in Iraq are part of a biological weapons program,"
Dr. Smith said. But "a vapor trap is no smoking gun indicating
the labs must be for bioweapons production."

Furthermore, "it is not that difficult to think of legitimate
reasons for the generation and uses of microbial products in
Iraq." He cited the production of Bacillus thuringiensis for
pest control as one illustrative hypothesis.

In short, the CIA report does not conclusively prove the case
that it asserts.

Nevertheless, President Bush said last week that the mobile
production facilities were unambiguously intended for
biological weapons.

"For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing
devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them," Bush said May 30, referring of the trailers.

The chimp and his poodle friend lie again.