Bush knew Iraqi WMD trailers were B.S.

Back to Story - Help US knew that alleged Iraqi WMD trailers were harmless: report Wed Apr 12, 11:35 AM ET The George W. Bush administration insisted publicly that two trailers captured in Iraq were evidence of a banned weapons program, months after Pentagon experts had reportedly ruled otherwise. In May 2003, Bush proclaimed that the trailers, captured just weeks after the start of US-led invasion, were long-sought mobile "biological laboratories," the Washington Post reported. "We have found the weapons of mass destruction," the president said at the time. The claim was repeated by top administration officials for months, even though US intelligence officials had received the findings of a Pentagon report determining that the allegation was not true, the Post reported. The secret Pentagon-sponsored fact-finding mission, the conclusions from which were recently released, found that the trailers were ill-suited for the production of biological weapons. But for nearly a year after the May 2003 report was published, Bush administration and intelligence officials continued to publicly assert that the trailers were weapons factories, the Post reported. The document was written by nine US and British civilian bioweapons experts. Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.