WASHINGTON - After announcing that the United States had seized a tractor-trailer truck suspected of being a mobile weapons lab, a defense official reported that top government officials now believe that Iraq used smaller and lighter vehicles to serve as mobile production units for biological agents.

"Our initial suspicion," said the official, "was that we were going to actually find biological and chemical weapons in Iraq. I mean, we did sell them to (former dictator Saddam) Hussein, after all. But when we couldn't find anything, despite it being, you know, the reason we invaded and all, we had to get a little more creative."

Such creativity included the possibility that Iraq had used large trucks as mobile production units. Such a truck was seized and analyzed, and computer simulations of the truck in question were presented as the closest thing the American public was going to get in terms of actual evidence. However, the lack of said evidence has so far been frustrating.

"The thing is," said the official, licking his lips and making desperate eye contact with reporters in order to attempt to make them believe him through sheer dogged willpower, "the thing is, really, that even a truck like this, we can spot pretty readily with spysat imagery. And since the truck we modeled in Studio Max didn't have any chemical weapons in it either, we're now assuming that the Iraqis used smaller and lighter vehicles to store and manufacture biological agents."

(Below: A Moonshine-class Biological Production Facility evades weapons inspectors)



Among the vehicles posited as possible biological weapons labs was the 1969 Dodge Charger. If modified with a 426 Hemi, outfitted with racing tires, and structurally buffered by welding the doors shut, such a vehicle would have the speed and maneuverability to out-race and evade U.N. weapons inspectors. "In the scenario we envision, Iraqi scientists slide in through the windows and drive around by night, dodging U.N. weapons inspectors, leaping across rivers when the bridges are out, and occasionally driving their car on two wheels as a sort of makeshift centrifuge," the official said, nodding emphatically.

Because of their distinctive color, these vehicles would be unable to hide from U.N. weapons inspectors. Their only recourse would be to out-drive the inspectors and hope that the inspectors missed a turn and drove headfirst into a swamp or haystack. The official added that, since the vehicles were most likely used at night, using moonlight alone to light their way, the government is referring to these theoretical vehicle as "Moonshine-class Biological Terrorism Units".

The Moonshine-class unit is expected to debut in a Pokemon-style collectable card game distributed by the military this coming summer to help soldiers learn to identify their targets, along with a black 1982 Pontiac Trans Am with a T-Top and a little red swooshy thing on the hood, a white Volkswagen Bug with the numbers "5" and "3" painted on the side to designate some form of biological threat level, and a silver DeLorean believed to be involved with experimental time-travel projects.