U.S. ends search for WMD in Iraq


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. inspectors have ended their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in recent weeks, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN.

The search ended almost two years after President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, citing concerns that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction and may have hidden weapons stockpiles.

Members of the Iraq Survey Group were continuing to examine hundreds of documents and would investigate any new leads, the official said.

Charles A. Duelfer, who headed the Iraq Survey Group's search for WMD in Iraq, has returned to Iraq and is working on his final report, the official said.

In October, Duelfer released a preliminary report finding that in March 2003 -- the United States invaded Iraq on March 19 of that year -- Saddam did not have any WMD stockpiles and had not started any program to produce them.

The Iraq Survey Group report said that Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended the country's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.

The report found that Iraq worked hard to cheat on United Nations-imposed sanctions and retain the capability to resume production of weapons of mass destruction at some time in the future. (Full story)

"[Saddam] wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction when sanctions were lifted," a summary of the report said.

Many of the military and intelligence personnel, who had been assigned to the weapons search, are now working on counterinsurgency matters, the official said.



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/12/wmd.search/index.html
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Rumsfield said "we know where they are"!

So in other words Saddam and Iraq was in violation of the UN sanctions, and that since force was authorized if noncompliance was an issue, President bush was authorized by the UN mandate to use force again.
Bush should have told the public this, instead of stating that Iraq actually had them. He would have been justified by the UN mandate to use force because Saddam was in violation of the sanctions by not removing his capability to produce said WMD's.

No. It means we unnecessarily invaded Iraq and put our troops at risk for nothing.



It means we incarcerated the criminal before a "crime" was committed.

The UN case would probably require a UN vote. I think he avoided that so he could do a few EXTRA THINGS. Like institute a government he liked. He wanted US control, not UN control.All the public rantings to the contrary are not true. In my opinion.

If this statement is true, then he was in fact in violation of the UN sanction which ended the first gulf war. Iraq was to have no capabilities to manufacture weapons of mass destruction if they wanted the sanctions lifted. If he retained the capability to produce and or research WMD's he was violating the sanctions and force was authorized/ hostilities would or could resume.

I think we should have allowed the UN to decide to re-authorize force, but Saddam was a danger to his neighbors. And that ultimately force should have been used.

He wasn't in violation. He had no WMD capabilities as this report confirms. Wanting is not doing.

I am reading this differnt I guess, to me it says that he did not possess them, but he was attepting to maintain the capability to produce them at a later date. So that one day he would have them again.

If he had the capability to produce them, force was justified IMHO.
If he did not have the capability it was not.
I read this as he had and was maintaining the equipment to give him the capability to produce them but was not producing them at the time.

Attempting is the key word here. If he had no WMD capabilities, how was he in violation of the treatie?

The way I see it, is like putting the thief in jail before he steals, just because he is thinking about stealing.

The second portion of my post is a key item.


If this is the case Saddam had as the police would call it "motive".

On a different note though, how come some people seem to want to defend Saddam like he is just some misunderstood individual, and to pity and sympathize with him.
It is almost like people would invite him over to dinner and let him stay in the extra bedroom.
This man is/was a Monster who ranks with Hitler and Stalin for attrocities commited against humanity. This "man" deserves no pity or sympathy.
I hope what happens to him when he dies is like the seen in the adam sandler movie "little nicki" with what happens to hitler in the movie. But even that is too nice for these monsters.

What equipment? As far as I can remember the US and the UN inspectors NEVER found anything and as the report by the CIA agent contracted by Cheney to find out about the WMD debacle states, THEY WERE SIMPLY wrong. Saddam did not have any equipment capable of producing WMDs of any kind.

BUSH SHOULD HAVE WOULD HAVE COULD HAVE.

NOPE - THIS WAS CALCULATED.

WITHOUT UN SUPPORT WHICH WAS "NOT" FORTHCOMING GEORGE BUSH NEEDED THE SUPPORT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND U.S. CONGRESS TO INVADE (I MEAN LIBERATE) IRAQ.

JUST HOW MUCH SUPPORT DO YOU THINK HE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN IN CONGRESS AND THE GENERAL POPULACE HAD HE TOLD "THE TRUTH?" ARMYDAD

veterans_for_progress@yahoogroups.com
From: saguarovet
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 06:33:16 -0700
Subject: [Veterans_For_Progress] FW: A washingtonpost.com article from: saguarovet@msn.com

-----Original Message-----
Subject: A washingtonpost.com article from: saguarovet@msn.com

You have been sent this message from saguarovet@msn.com as a courtesy of
washingtonpost.com

Personal Message:
This article just re-confirms the previous confirmation of the Bush lies about Iraq. An accounting of these lies must be demanded.

John

Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month

By Dafna Linzer

The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come
to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to
disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts
are back at Langley.

In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas.

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004,
submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United States.

Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons programs
were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off the hunt,
holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of Iraq before the
war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. But the intelligence
official said that possibility is very small.

The ISG, established to search for weapons but now enmeshed in
counterinsurgency work, remains under Pentagon command and is being led by
Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Joseph McMenamin.

Intelligence officials said there is little left for the ISG to investigate because Duelfer's last report answered as many outstanding questions as possible. The ISG has interviewed every person it could find connected to programs that ended more than 10 years ago, and every suspected site within Iraq has been fully searched, or stripped bare by insurgents and thieves, according to several people involved in the weapons hunt.

Satellite photos show that entire facilities have been dismantled, possibly by scrap dealers who sold off parts and equipment to buyers around the world.

"The September 30 report is really pretty much the picture," the intelligence official said.

"We've talked to so many people that someone would have said something.
We received nothing that contradicts the picture we've put forward. It's
possible there is a supply someplace, but what is much more likely is that
[as time goes by] we will find a greater substantiation of the picture that we've already put forward."

Congress allotted hundreds of millions of dollars for the weapons hunt, and there has been no public accounting of the money. A spokesman for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said the entire budget and the expenditures would remain classified.

AND THERE HAS BEEN NO PUBLIC ACCOUNTING OF THE MONEY WHILE OUR TROOPS HAVE TO "FIGHT WITH THE ARMY THEY HAVE." THEN WHEN THEY RETURN AS "VETERANS" WILL HAVE TO AGAIN FIGHT TO KEEP THE REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED CONGRESS FROM CUTTING THEIR VETERANS BENEFITS TO PAY FOR BUSH'S WAR, REBUILDING OF IRAQ, KICKBACKS TO MILITARY CONTRACTORS WHO CONTRIBUTED TO BUSH'S CAMPAIGN INVOLVED IN IRAQ'S REBUIDING (OH DON'T FORGET THE OIL COMPANIES), THEN OF COURSE THERE'S THE PERMANENT "TAX CUTS" BUSH PROMISED IN HIS LAST STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS. HIS NEXT ONE SHOULD BE A REAL DOOZY.

YOU CAN BET THAT ONE WILL BE FULL OF LIES ABOUT HOW WELL THINGS ARE GOING IN IRAQ (A-LA-LBJ AND ROBERT MCNAMARA WITH VIETNAM). ARMYDAD.

Several hundred military translators and document experts will continue to sift through millions of pages of documents on paper and computer media sitting in a storeroom on a U.S. military base in Qatar. But their work is focused on material that could support possible war crimes charges or shed light on the fate of Capt. Michael Scott Speicher, a Navy pilot who was shot down in an F/A-18 fighter over central Iraq on Jan. 17, 1991, the opening night of the Persian Gulf War. Although he was initially reported as killed in action, Speicher's status was changed to
missing after evidence emerged that he had ejected alive from his aircraft.

The work on documents is not connected to weapons of mass destruction,
officials said, and a small group of Iraqi scientists still in U.S. military custody are not being held in connection with weapons investigations, either.

Three people involved with the ISG said the weapons teams made several pleas to the Pentagon to release the scientists, who have been interviewed extensively. All three officials specifically mentioned Gen. Amir Saadi, who was a liaison between Hussein's government and U.N. inspectors; Rihab Taha, a biologist nicknamed "Dr. Germ" years ago by U.N. inspectors; her husband, Amir Rashid, the former oil minister; and Huda Amash, a biologist whose extensive dealings with U.N. inspectors earned her the nickname "Mrs. Anthrax."

None of the scientists has been involved in weapons programs since the 1991 Gulf War, the ISG determined more than a year ago, and all have cooperated with investigators despite nearly two years of jail time without charges. U.S. officials previously said they were being held because their denials of ongoing weapons programs were presumed to be lies; now, they say the scientists are being held in connection with the possible war crimes trials of Iraqis.

It has been more than a year since any Iraqi scientist was arrested in connection with weapons of mass destruction. Many of those questioned and cleared have since left Iraq, one senior official said, acknowledging for the first time that the "brain drain" that has long been feared "is well underway."

"A lot of it is because of the kidnapping industry" in Iraq, the official said. The State Department has been trying to implement programs designed to keep Iraqi scientists from seeking weapons-related work in neighboring countries, such as Syria and Iran.

OH CRAP - NOW LOOK WHAT THE BRIGHT SPOT IN THE WHITE HOUSE HAS DONE. LET IRAQI SCIENTIST LOOSE TO WORK ON SYRIA AND IRANS "WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION PROGRAMS." WELL WE CAN SPARE A FEW MILLION MORE TROOPS TO SUBDUE SYRIA AND IRAN, ESPECIALLY WITH ISRAEL'S HELP = RIGHT ARMYDAD = GET REAL. DO YOU FEEL A DRAFT COMING ON?

Since March 2003, nearly a dozen people working for or with the weapons
hunt have lost their lives to the insurgency. The most recent deaths came
in November, when Duelfer's convoy was attacked during a routine mission
around Baghdad and two of his bodyguards were killed.

then why does the report say this?



In other words he had the equipment or had dual use equipment. If his country was producing pesticides, that equipment could also be used to produce Chemical weapons. Did you know that the German scientist who developed the first Nerve agent was only trying to develop a better pesticide?

Lcyberlina, me and you will probably never agree on this subject, you think he was totally disarmed as far as WMD's, I do not. I think he had the equipment and was just waiting for the sanctions to be lifted so he could produce them again.

I do not think that Saddam had suddenly changed his mind on his whole WMD's program. If the invasion had not occurred and we had remained at status quo with him, the same crap would be happening ie no-fly zones, the occasional bombing of a SAM site, and the same protests and counter protests in the UN.
One day the sanctions would have been lifted, and Saddam would have started producing them again, and again be a threat to both is own people, his neighbors, and maybe the world through WMD proliferation.
I could be wrong. I'm not a defense consultant or analysist. But I did stay at a holiday inn express :D

Topic: The Selling of the Iraq War, The First Casualty
target='_blank'>


http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...topic=11999&hl=

I have to chime in here. Under your logic we should be invading N.Korea who has DEMONSTRATED THE ABILITY AND WILLINGNESS TO PRODUCE WMD.

Iraq was "trying to maintain the capability to at some point produce"

PLEASE, your argument is a non-starter.

AND IN THE SPIRIT OF CIVILITY, HARMONY, PEACE, FRIENDSHIP, BELOVED MEMORY OF TRICKY DICK NIXON, AND THE RIGHT-WING AMERICAN WAY:



ARMYDAD

Actually I hope we never have to fight in Korea again. My great uncle fought there and he said that he never knew what cold really was till he went there.

North Korea is broke, they cannot feed their own people. They have a very stong military, but I dont think they would ever head south again without Chinas ok.

I think we should just let their government rot, they will have to make conscessions with us instead of us kissing their butts.

But Iraq has oil that it could have used to fund a complete rebuliding of their WMD program. North Korea doesn't have any vital commodities that it could use for leverage, other than illegal weapons sales or WMD proliferation.

If we stopped sending the aid to them, they would have to make concessions on our terms.

GOT THIS FROM A BROTHER OF MINE IN ARIZONA - ARMYDAD.

FYI – I sent the following email to AZ Veterans for Progress. Please write to your representatives and ask for an investigation into the Iraq WMD debacle.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: John Scott

Subject: Letter to Senator McCain

I sent the following letter to Senator McCain today. If you feel the way I do about the failure to find WMD in Iraq, please write to Senators McCain and Kyl.

Link for McCain: http://mccain.senate.gov/

John
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Senator McCain:

Today, I read that it has been officially declared that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that the task force assigned to search for them has been removed from Iraq and disbanded.

The war in Iraq, based on the premise that Iraq had WMD which were an immediate threat to the United States, has been the worst foreign policy debacle in our nation’s history.

THIS DEBACLE MUST BE INVESTIGATED IMMEDIATELY AND THE CAUSE OF SUCH AN EMBARRASSMENT DETERMINED.

EQUALLY, APPROPRIATE ACTION MUST BE TAKEN AGAINST THE PEOPLE WHO PERPETRATED THIS TERRIBLE RUSE ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Over 1,300 Americans, and unknown numbers of Iraqis, have lost their lives for what has turned out to be a war based on a lie. Our nation has suffered great harm to its reputation, harm that will take years to repair unless bold action is taken to root out the people who perpetrated this harm and punish them.

I look forward to your prompt response.

John Scott
Veteran