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In the run up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the main rationale for the Iraq War was Hussein's Iraq failure to transparently and verifiably cease Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD - nuclear, biological and chemical weapons) programs, and to destroy all materials relating thereto, as mandated in United Nations Resolution 1441.
In February 2003 the then Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation before the United Nations showing a computer generated view of what the laboratories looked like. He said Iraq had as many as 18 mobile facilities for making anthrax and botulinum toxin. "They can produce enough dry, biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people."
Powell based the assertion on accounts of at least four Iraqi defectors, including a chemical engineer who supervised one of the facilities and been present during production runs of a biological agent. [1] Following the invasion of Iraq two trailers were found and initially declared as the alleged mobile labs.
Dick Cheney continued to claim trailers were mobile labs
September 14, 2003 "Same on biological weapons--we believe he'd developed the capacity to go mobile with his BW production capability because, again, in reaction to what we had done to him in '91. We had intelligence reporting before the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that he had gone out and acquired. We've, since the war, found two of them. They're in our possession today, mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack." Dick Cheney, Meet the Press, NBC.
January 22, 2004 "In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program." Dick Cheney, Morning Edition, NPR.
Powell retraction
“ I looked at the four [sources] that [the CIA] gave me for [the mobile bio-labs], and they stood behind them, ... Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid. At the time I was preparing the presentation, it was presented to me as being solid.[21] April 3, 2004
I feel terrible ... [giving the speech] ... It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now.[4]" 2005