Excerpt: An interim report last September, written by former ISG head Charles Duelfer, will largely serve as the group�s final conclusions. It said that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either.
Few changes will be made to the document, Mr McClellan said. The Duelfer document contradicted virtually all the pre-war claims from London and Washington about Saddam possessing biological and chemical weapons, and reconstituting Iraq�s nuclear programme. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1437379,00.html January 12, 2005 Bush abandons hunt for Saddam's WMD By Jenny Booth, Times Online The fruitless hunt for Saddam Hussein�s alleged weapons of mass destruction has come to an end, the White House confirmed today. Officials with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the body established to find the very weapons which justified the war, have reported that no weapons have been found. In fact - contrary to the intelligence that President Bush and Tony Blair conveyed to their respective nations in making the case for invading Iraq - Saddam did not have the capability to make WMDs since 1991, the inspectors found. The ISG returned to the US last month amid growing dangers from insurgents in Iraq. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there was no longer an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that," he said, but added that the search had largely concluded. He went on: "If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they�ll continue to follow up on those reports. A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now." An interim report last September, written by former ISG head Charles Duelfer, will largely serve as the group�s final conclusions. It said that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either. Few changes will be made to the document, Mr McClellan said. The Duelfer document contradicted virtually all the pre-war claims from London and Washington about Saddam possessing biological and chemical weapons, and reconstituting Iraq�s nuclear programme. An intelligence official told the Washington Post that the chances of weapons being hidden inside Iraq, or having been shipped out of the country before the war, were very small. The search was called off amid the growing insurgency and risk of attack or kidnap in Iraq. The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons. Every suspect site in Iraq has been inspected by the ISG or plundered by insurgents and looters. Most of the suspects have also been rounded up and questioned. "We�ve talked to so many people that someone would have said something," an intelligence official told the Washington Post. "We received nothing that contradicts the picture we�ve put forward. It�s possible there is a supply some place, but what is much more likely is that we will find a greater substantiation of the picture that we�ve already put forward." The ISG still exists and is based at the Pentagon under Marine Corps Brigadier General Joseph McMenamin. It now concentrates mainly on counter-insurgency work. The ISG has urged the Pentagon to release scientists who have been questioned at length about Iraq�s weapons capabilities. They are General Amir Saadi, a liaison between Saddam�s government and UN inspectors; Rihab Taha, a biologist nicknamed "Dr Germ" in the west; her husband, Amir Rashid, the former oil minister; and Huda Amash, another biologist who earned the nickname "Mrs Anthrax". The ISG determined that none of the scientists had been involved in Iraqi weapons programmes since the first Gulf War. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - What will yours do? http://my.yahoo.com
