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!

[phuloi]

I could see this coming,Gimp!
But instead of reading DNC out-takes,please read the complete Duelfer Report and you may become a tad more enlightened as to what the ex-weapons inspector REALLY said.
For more information on WMD,Oil-For-Food and other scandalous dealings perpetrated by Kerry`s allies,France,Germany,Russia,and China please also read "Treachery" by Bill Gertz,a Washington Post investigative reporter and best selling author.

[Seascamp]

It?s the Iraqi WMD, now ya see it now ya don?t, shell game. We have gone well beyond the point of being either objective or realistic about this issue and to our extreme risk and detriment. Saddam Hussein had an extreme vested interest in convincing his internal and external foes he had WMD and could and would strike locally or across his immediate borders. At the same time he had a vested interest in playing the UN weapons inspections game of hide and seek deception. This reinforced the first objective of keeping the immediate rabid dogs at bay and at the same time keeping the question open and unresolved at the UN. There is no way Saddam was going to say, ?I?m clean?, back it up and have the UN say the same thing. This would have invited exactly what we are seeing today in terms of internal and external insurgents looking to grab power, only far worse.

Recall that Baghdad and Tehran had each other zeroed in terms of midrange rocketry and exchanged many salvos during the Iran-Iraq war. This Iraqi rocket salvo capability was again demonstrated during GW I. Though obsolescent, those rockets still carried a 750 lb warhead with a reasonable degree of accuracy and no doubt in my mind at all that the Iranians have equal or better rocketry capability. Given that reality, I do not believe for one instant Iran believed Saddam was without WMD strike capability. The very fact that Baghdad is still more or less standing and populated is strong evidence of that.

So because it?s politically convenient to rationalize away all possibilities/probabilities we now choose to hoot and holler about the improbable and claim the impossible. The reality of it all was that Saddam kept everyone guessing and was a master of playing the intel game to his own purposes and objectives. And in the mean time, Saddam kept the greedy pockets inside the UN, France and Germany and Russia well greased, for sure. But we don?t want to talk about that, eh, as it not Kerry Correct to mention such things.

And one thing the DNC/Kerry or their media pals wont tell anyone is that Syria, like Libya has now rolled over and decided that cooperation is a better alternative to obliteration. I can?t help wonder what the motivation, circumstances and scenario is that caused this sudden change of heart. Methinks the words ?you so much as touch that stuff, yer dead? have been shared, nicely of course.

Scamp

[zuni_rocket]

That is not the comlete story Gimpy & you aren't going to get off with that one that easily ..zr but in the mean time what are you going to do about this ?? Your mans back up was involved in a scam against us ???
Oil-for-Food Scandal Draws Scrutiny to U.N.
Monday, September 20, 2004
By David Asman
NEW YORK ? It began as a U.N. humanitarian aid program called "Oil-for-Food," but it ended up with Saddam Hussein (search) pocketing billions to become the biggest graft-generating machine ever and enriching some of America's most forceful opponents at the United Nations (search).

Plus, some evidence suggests that some of the money ended up in the hands of potential terrorists who are opposed to the United States.

[Editor's Note: This is one in a series of articles about the U.N. Oil-for-Food program. Check back tomorrow for the next installment. For background information mentioned on FOX News Channel's "Breaking Point," click here.]

The roots of the scandal date back to 1991, when a U.N.-backed and U.S.-led coalition expelled Saddam from Kuwait following his hostile takeover of the neighboring country. Although Saddam lost the war, he walked away with one important victory -- he got to stay in power in Iraq.

Thirteen years later, a second U.S.-led coalition made of a smaller group of nations than the first effort finally knocked Saddam out of business. And it did so without the help of the United Nations, which failed to pass a resolution backing the U.S. effort.

As the death toll rises in Iraq -- the number of U.S. military casualties is now above 1,000 and Iraqi citizens continue to die daily from insurgent attacks -- the question arises: Can the United Nations help now?

No WMD's found in Iraq?(so far)
So What?
Can anyone assure us they didn't have stockpiles elsewhere?
Has always been a side issue in any case.

[zuni_rocket]

Well HUSH MY PUPPIES! How cpould you ever figure this tid-bit of news from the U.N. would hit the wires just after the bogus 9-11 report hit just a few weeks before the elections???? Especailly since Gimpy posted that there were no WMD there in Iraq ! Looking for my lost shaker of salt .....Crow needs lots a salt

IAEA: Equipment for making nukes missing from Iraq
By ASSOCIATED PRESS


UNITED NATIONS

The UN nuclear watchdog expressed concern Monday at the disappearance of high-precision equipment from Iraq's nuclear facilities that could be used to make nuclear weapons.

In a letter to the UN Security Council, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said some industrial material that Iraq sent overseas has been located in other countries but not high-precision items including milling machines and electron beam welders that have both commercial and military uses.

"As the disappearance of such equipment and materials may be of proliferation significance, any state that has information about the location of such items should provide IAEA with that information," said the agency's director-general, Muhammad El-Baradei.

IAEA inspectors left Iraq just before the March 2003 US-led war. US President George W. Bush's administration then barred UN weapons inspectors from returning, deploying US teams in an unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Nonetheless, IAEA teams were allowed into Iraq in June 2003 to investigate reports of widespread looting of storage rooms at the main nuclear complex at Tuwaitha, and in August to take inventory of "several tons" of natural uranium in storage near Tuwaitha.

El-Baradei told the council that Iraq is still obligated, under IAEA agreements, "to declare semi-annually changes that have occurred or are foreseen at sites deemed relevant by the agency." But since March 2003 "the agency has received no such notifications or declarations from any state," he said.

As a result of the IAEA's ongoing review of satellite photos and follow-up investigations, El-Baradei said, "the IAEA continues to be concerned about the widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement that has taken place at sites previously relevant to Iraq's nuclear program and sites previously subject to ongoing monitoring and verification by the agency."

"The imagery shows in many instances the dismantlement of entire buildings that housed high precision equipment ... formerly monitored and tagged with IAEA seals, as well as the removal of equipment and materials (such as high-strength aluminum) from open storage areas," he said.

In a report to the Security Council in early September, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which is charged with overseeing the elimination of any banned Iraqi missile, chemical and biological weapons programs, also expressed concern about the disappearance of tagged equipment.

Demetri Perricos, head of the commission, known as UNMOVIC, said Iraqi authorities for over a year have been shipping thousands of tons of scrap metal out of the country, including at least 42 engines from banned missiles and other equipment that could be used to produce banned weapons.

The report said the export was handled by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, which was under the direct supervision of US occupation authorities until June 28, when the Americans handed power to Iraq's interim government.

El-Baradei told the council that Iraq's Minister of Science and Technology Rashad Omar visited IAEA headquarters in Vienna in July to discuss the implementation of various Security Council resolutions. This was followed by a number of letters and another visit in September by a ministry delegation, which submitted a number of requests for assistance.

He told the council Iraq asked for IAEA assistance in selling the remaining nuclear material at Tuwaitha "with the exception of a small quantity to be retained for research purposes" and in dismantling and decontaminating former nuclear facilities. The interim Iraqi government also asked for the resumption of IAEA technical cooperation in a number of areas previously approved by the Security Council, he said.

"The agency is assessing the possibility of providing such assistance," El-Baradei said.

[zuni_rocket]

Sarin Found
WHY HAS THIS NOT BEEN ON THE NEWS????????????? - This is a slideshow - check out Photo #2 - found in a briefcase inside a truck

Do ya think maybe some of Saddam's buddies could have hid the WMD's no, cee maybe ??????


http://www.usatoday.com/news/graphic...fury/flash.htm