NO WMDs' IN IRAQ----NEW REPORT STATES!

[Gimpy]

Her's some more "cut & paste" info for you fans of this procedure!

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Oct 7, 2004

No WMD In Iraq, Report States

By DANA PRIEST and WALTER PINCUS

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON - The 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capability and, for the most part, Saddam Hussein did not try to rebuild it, according to an extensive report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that contradicts nearly every prewar assertion made by top administration officials about Iraq.


Charles A. Duelfer , whom the Bush administration chose to complete the U.S. investigation of Iraq's weapons programs, said Saddam's ability to produce nuclear weapons had ``decayed'' continuously since 1991.

Inspectors, he said, found no evidence of ``concerted efforts to restart the program.''

The findings were similar on biological and chemical weapons. While Saddam had long dreamed of developing an arsenal of biological agents, his stockpiles had been destroyed and research stopped years before the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.


On chemical weapons, Duelfer said Saddam hoped someday to resume an effort after U.N. sanctions ended but had no stocks and had not researched making the weapons for a dozen years.

Duelfer's report , delivered Wednesday to two congressional committees, represents the government's most definitive accounting of Saddam's weapons programs, the assumed strength of which the Bush administration presented as a central reason for the war. While previous reports have drawn similar conclusions, Duelfer's assessment went beyond them in depth, detail and level of certainty .


``We were almost all wrong'' on Iraq, Duelfer told a Senate panel Wednesday.


President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons and maintained links to al-Qaida affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.


But after extensive interviews with Saddam and his key lieutenants, Duelfer concluded that Saddam was not motivated by a desire to strike the United States with banned weapons , but wanted them to enhance his image in the Middle East and to deter Iran, with which Iraq had fought a devastating eight-year war. Saddam believed that ``WMD helped save the regime multiple times,'' the report said.


Saddam told his questioners he felt threatened by U.S. military power, but even then, he maintained a fondness for American movies and literature. One of his favorite books was Ernest Hemingway's ``The Old Man and the Sea.'' He hoped for improved relations with the United States and, over several years, sent proposals through intermediaries to open a dialogue with Washington.


Saddam, the report concluded, ``aspired to develop a nuclear capability'' and intended to work on rebuilding chemical and biological weapons after persuading the United Nations to lift sanctions, but notes: ``The former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam'' who were tasked to take this up once sanctions ended.

Among the most diplomatically explosive revelations was that Saddam had established a worldwide network of companies and countries, most of them U.S. allies, that secretly helped Iraq generate $11 billion in illegal income and locate, finance and import banned services and technologies.


Among those named are officials or companies from Belarus, China, Lebanon, France, Indonesia, Jordan, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.


Duelfer concluded that while the U.N.-imposed sanctions kept Saddam in check and devastated the country, Saddam had become more successful in finding ways to bypass them and worked to erode international support for the trade restrictions.


When Duelfer was asked at the hearing what he thought the chances would be of finding any significant stockpiles in the future, he responded: ``Less than 5 percent.''


Duelfer's report contradicted a number of specific claims made by administration officials before the war.


It found , for example, that Iraq's ``crash'' program in 1991 to build a nuclear weapon before the Gulf War was far from successful, nowhere near the ``months away'' from producing a weapon, as the administration asserted.

There also was no evidence that Iraq possessed or was developing a mobile biological weapons production system, an assertion Secretary of State Colin Powell and others made before the invasion. The two trailers that were found in early 2003 were ``almost certainly designed and built ... exclusively for the generation of hydrogen'' gas.


Duelfer also found no information to support allegations that Iraq sought uranium from Africa or any other country after 1991, as Bush once asserted in a major speech before the invasion.

This story was reprinted in The Tampa tribune..........October 7, 2004.


More "evidence" that this administration has used deception, misrepresentation and outright lies to further their "agenda" and put our troops into harms way for less than valid reasons!