A
Ardross
Guest
Last Updated: Wednesday, 6 October, 2004, 10:58 GMT 11:58 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Inspectors conclude no WMD in Iraq
Charles Duelfer has led the Iraq Survey Group since January
The group hunting for banned weapons inside post-war Iraq is preparing to report that it has found no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
But the Iraq Survey Group will assert that Saddam Hussein had plans to start producing weapons in defiance of UN sanctions, US officials say.
Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer will reveal the findings on Wednesday.
Much of the content of the report has been anticipated since a draft of the report was leaked last month.
Mr Duelfer is due to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is expected to confirm that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the US-led invasion began in March 2003.
That verdict has been widely anticipated since the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, resigned from his position in January.
'Clandestine schemes'
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the report would show that Saddam Hussein posed a more serious threat than had previously been imagined.
Speaking in Baghdad, Mr Straw said "the threat from Saddam Hussein in terms of his intentions" was "even starker than we have seen before".
Saddam Hussein would have built up his WMDs had he been left in power, Mr Straw added.
His comments were backed by Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barhem Saleh, who said anyone who doubted that Saddam Hussein had WMDs only needed to visit Halabja - where the former Iraq dictator gassed thousands of Kurds.
"We know Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He used them," Dr Saleh said, adding that in his view Saddam Hussein was himself a weapon of mass destruction.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan acknowledged that no stockpiles of weapons had been found in Iraq, but added: "The fact that he had the intent and capability, and that he was trying to undermine the sanctions that were in place, is very disturbing."
'Definitive'
US government officials told the New York Times that the report would include new evidence that Saddam Hussein had plans to break UN-imposed sanctions and renew the production of banned weapons.
The officials, speaking anonymously, said the report would detail efforts by Iraq to bypass sanctions while they were still in place, and to undermine international support for them.
Those efforts were reported to include the use of clandestine laboratories to manufacture small quantities of chemical and biological weapons for use in assassinations.
BBC Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says the report, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, is being billed as the most definitive account yet of Iraq's weapons programmes.
Our correspondent says that with the political stakes in the US so high and Iraq so central to the debate, Republican and Democratic camps in the presidential race will seize on the different elements of the report to argue that it bolsters their case for or against the Iraq war.
However, the document will stop short of offering a final judgement about the situation before the war.
Instead, the Iraq Survey Group is expected to continue translating and evaluating an estimated 10,000 boxes of documents seized in Iraq.
* If the Un was allowed to complete its job - where would be now ?
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
Inspectors conclude no WMD in Iraq
Charles Duelfer has led the Iraq Survey Group since January
The group hunting for banned weapons inside post-war Iraq is preparing to report that it has found no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
But the Iraq Survey Group will assert that Saddam Hussein had plans to start producing weapons in defiance of UN sanctions, US officials say.
Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer will reveal the findings on Wednesday.
Much of the content of the report has been anticipated since a draft of the report was leaked last month.
Mr Duelfer is due to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is expected to confirm that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the US-led invasion began in March 2003.
That verdict has been widely anticipated since the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, resigned from his position in January.
'Clandestine schemes'
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the report would show that Saddam Hussein posed a more serious threat than had previously been imagined.
Speaking in Baghdad, Mr Straw said "the threat from Saddam Hussein in terms of his intentions" was "even starker than we have seen before".
Saddam Hussein would have built up his WMDs had he been left in power, Mr Straw added.
His comments were backed by Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barhem Saleh, who said anyone who doubted that Saddam Hussein had WMDs only needed to visit Halabja - where the former Iraq dictator gassed thousands of Kurds.
"We know Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He used them," Dr Saleh said, adding that in his view Saddam Hussein was himself a weapon of mass destruction.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan acknowledged that no stockpiles of weapons had been found in Iraq, but added: "The fact that he had the intent and capability, and that he was trying to undermine the sanctions that were in place, is very disturbing."
'Definitive'
US government officials told the New York Times that the report would include new evidence that Saddam Hussein had plans to break UN-imposed sanctions and renew the production of banned weapons.
The officials, speaking anonymously, said the report would detail efforts by Iraq to bypass sanctions while they were still in place, and to undermine international support for them.
Those efforts were reported to include the use of clandestine laboratories to manufacture small quantities of chemical and biological weapons for use in assassinations.
BBC Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says the report, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, is being billed as the most definitive account yet of Iraq's weapons programmes.
Our correspondent says that with the political stakes in the US so high and Iraq so central to the debate, Republican and Democratic camps in the presidential race will seize on the different elements of the report to argue that it bolsters their case for or against the Iraq war.
However, the document will stop short of offering a final judgement about the situation before the war.
Instead, the Iraq Survey Group is expected to continue translating and evaluating an estimated 10,000 boxes of documents seized in Iraq.
* If the Un was allowed to complete its job - where would be now ?
