White House denies Iraq lab claim

The report on the lorries was shelved, a newspaper says

The US government has denied that it ignored expert advice in claiming that two Iraqi lorries were mobile biological warfare laboratories. The discovery of the vehicles prompted President George W Bush to state that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.

But the Washington Post says weapons experts had discounted this possibility two days earlier.

The White House said Mr Bush's comments were based on intelligence information.

The US and the UK cited WMD as the main justification for going to war in Iraq.

In October 2003, seven months after the invasion, the body set up by the US to search for WMD, the Iraq Survey Group, issued an interim report saying no such weapons had been found.

'Not ignored'

The two lorries were found by US and Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in April 2003.

For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong... We found them President Bush 29 May 2003

On 29 May, Mr Bush said in an interview: "We found biological laboratories... They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two.

"And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."

But according to the Washington Post, a secret fact-finding mission to Iraq had reported to the Pentagon two days earlier that the lorries had no link to biological warfare.

The newspaper says it talked to six of the nine US and UK officials and experts who took part of the mission. They reportedly said they did not want to be identified for fear putting their jobs at risk.

The intelligence report was classified and shelved in 2003, the paper says. It remains classified.

The president was saying something that was based on what the intelligence community - through the CIA and DIA - were saying Scott McClellan White House spokesman

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) told the newspaper that the team's findings had not been ignored, and had been incorporated into the Iraq Survey Group's report.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the newspaper story "suggested that what the president was saying was something that had been debunked, and that is not true.

"In fact, the president was saying something that was based on what the intelligence community - through the CIA and DIA - were saying."

The White House has repeatedly denied accusations that intelligence was exaggerated or misused in the run-up to the war.