Saddam's secret weather balloon program

On the eve of the resumption of Saddam's trial, Captain Ed is all over another DOCEX document related to the suspected bio-weapons mobile labs Colin Powell spoke of prior to the invasion. Conventional wisdom has overtaken this story, and the MSM already considers it water over the bridge. Matter of fact, the WaPo threw cold water on the story as recently as last month, just in case.

This new document goes over several items related to the laboratories that don't appear consistent with a weather station, such as vibration sensors and machines to measure X-rays.

I don't suggest to have the answer, but as a person having some knowledge of the weather business here's my two cents. First, the National Weather Service doesn't use hydrogen generators in their balloon-based upper air network (NWS balloon shown in picture, not Iraqi balloon), they use cylinders. Surely the Iraqis could have just as easily saved the trouble and done the same.

But even if they wanted mobile production capability, one of the commenters over at CQ had a good point:

If your planning on using air-burst chemical or biologic’s, you’d damned well better have good meteorological data/information of where the product is going to travel.

If the vehicles could provide a ‘dual-use’ function of both gathering pre-battlefield data and/or be utilized in the production of chemical or biologic’s, you’ve a classic ‘two-fer.’

Yes, fallout and dispersion rates are something you'd need to know about. For example, the NWS used to maintain a weather station in North Las Vegas at the Nuclear Test Site in support of the underground nuke tests.

Whatever the case, these Iraqi "weather labs" weren't part of the World Meteorological Organization's network of official weather sites, which are fixed locations. It would be most interesting to find out more about the meteorological services of Iraq and whether these mobile units might have been used to help predict sandstorms, for instance. Otherwise, it seems more likely they would be used in support of military activies. More to come.

MORE, BUT NOT MUCH MORE 5/15/06

It's not easy to find a good history of Iraq's meteorological services using the standard search engines. The World Meteorological Organization isn't much help, either. Did find this, which relates to Iraqi Scud missile batteries:

Iraq established its Scud operational unit—Brigade 224 (Unit 224)—in 1976 following training and successful Scud firings under the supervision of Soviet experts. The unit ultimately consisted of three missile battalions, a technical battalion, a meteorology battery, and a maintenance and repair workshop.

It's quite possible these mobile labs were used by meteorologists in support of Scud firings. As we know, missiles can be loaded with a host of agents, but that really doesn't the support the allegation these were bio weapons production labs.

MORE

Recapping the old LA Times story from 2003, the US Army itself had 19 mobile hydrogen generators for filling artillery weather balloons, although they were much more contained and efficient. The Army never used them in the field, since helium is the preferred gas to fill weather balloons. The NWS has used both helium and hydrogen in the past, exclusively from cyclinders.

It makes sense to think the Iraqis would want a self-contained unit for field operations rather than relying on cylinders, which might run out. However, this also makes sense:

The CIA noted that Iraq never declared the vehicles to United Nations inspectors, something they would have faced no risk in doing if they were truly for hydrogen production. CIA officials also said the design of the trailers was unnecessarily elaborate and cumbersome for hydrogen production.

"If they wanted to produce hydrogen, they could have produced it more efficiently," said one CIA official, who noted that smaller, safer, portable systems are commercially available.

Certainly if these were mobile bio labs a cover story would be needed. Although my jury is still out pending any further information, right now the available evidence strongly points toward the cover story being accurate.