Powell not sure Iraq trailers were labs

April 3, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State
Colin Powell conceded Friday evidence he presented to the
United Nations that two trailers in Iraq were used for
weapons of mass destruction may have been wrong.

In an airborne news conference on the way home from NATO
talks in Brussels, Belgium, Powell said he had been given
solid information about the trailers that he told the
Security Council in February 2003 were designed for making
biological weapons.

But now, Powell said, "it appears not to be the case that it
was that solid."

He said he hoped the intelligence commission appointed by
President Bush to investigate prewar intelligence on Iraq
"will look into these matters to see whether or not the
intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they
placed in the intelligence at that time."

Powell's dramatic case to the Security Council that Iraq had
secret arsenals of weapons of mass destruction failed to
persuade the council to directly back the U.S.-led war that
deposed the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But it helped
mobilize sentiment among the American people for going to war.

As it turned out, U.N. inspectors were unable to uncover the
weapons, but administration officials have insisted they
still might be uncovered.

David Kay, who led the hunt for the weapons, showed off a
pair of trailers for news cameras last summer and argued
that the two metal flatbeds were designed for making
biological weapons.

But faced with mounting challenges to that theory, Kay
conceded in October he could have been wrong. He said he did
not know whether Iraq ever had a mobile weapons program.

Powell told reporters that as he worked on the Bush
administration's case against Iraq U.S. intelligence
"indicated to me" that the intelligence was solid.

"I'm not the intelligence community, but I probed and I made
sure, as I said in my presentation, these are multi-sourced"
allegations, Powell said.

The trailers were the most dramatic claims, "and I made sure
that it was multi-sourced," he said.

"Now, if the sources fell apart we need to find out how
we've gotten ourselves in that position," he said.

"I have discussions with the CIA about it," Powell said,
without providing further details.

The trailers were the only discovery the administration had
cited as evidence of an illicit Iraqi weapons program.

In six months of searches, no biological, chemical or
nuclear weapons were found to bolster the administration's
central case for going to war: to disarm Saddam of suspected
weapons of mass destruction.