Thursday, September 25, 2003
Nothing. Zip. Nada. Zero.
An intensive six-month search of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction has failed to discover a single trace of an illegal arsenal, according to accounts of a report circulating in Washington and London.
The interim report, compiled by the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) of 1,400 weapons experts and support staff, will instead focus on Saddam Hussein's capacity and intentions to build banned weapons.
A draft of the report has been sent to the White House, the Pentagon and Downing Street, a US intelligence source said. It has caused such disappointment that there is now a debate over whether it should be released to Congress over the next fortnight, as had been widely expected.
"It will mainly be an accounting of programs and dual-use technologies," said one US intelligence source. "It demonstrates that the main judgments of the national intelligence estimate (NIE) in October 2002, that Saddam had hundreds of tonnes of chemical and biological agents ready, are false."
A BBC report yesterday said that the survey group, which includes British and Australian investigators, had come across no banned weapons, or delivery systems, or laboratories involved in developing such weapons.
More, or rather, Nothing more.
posted by chris at 4:43 PM
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