U.S. Special Forces seize weapon sites - part of Saddam's illegal arms programs

The Oakland Tribune ^ | 3-25-03 | By Bryan Bender, The Boston Globe

[Oldeconomybuyer]

WASHINGTON -- Special teams of soldiers and scientists have taken over "multiple" sites across Iraq suspected of being part of Saddam Hussein's outlawed chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs, senior U.S. officials said Monday, a key first step in what will be an intensive search for weapons of mass destruction.

The teams, led by U.S. Special Forces and including specialists trained to identify traces of chemical, biological, and nuclear materials and safely handle any weapons, have taken control of several locations in Iraq that the officials said are believed to be part of the suspected arsenal of weapons the Bush administration hopes to expose to the world, two senior defense officials confirmed.

The officials declined to provide details on the locations or number of sites where the search for outlawed weapons has begun. One official said that some of them were under the control of only small numbers of U.S. forces and that revealing the locations could put the forces in danger.

The search teams followed quickly behind the coalition forces that entered Iraq last week, the officials said. They are searching storage depots, missile launch facilities, and a variety of other sites included on a list of hundreds of locations that U.S. intelligence believes may be linked to Iraq's alleged network of prohibited weapons production. Washington maintains the regime has hidden these weapons from U.N. inspectors, while Iraq says it destroyed the weapons in the 1990s.

The teams have begun their work with unusual speed, officials said. Underscoring the urgency of proving the regime has lied about its weapons activities, one senior defense official said Monday: "Believe me, if we find chemical weapons in Bagdad or elsewhere in Iraq we will ensure that reports come out."

Military leaders in Qatar and in Washington said Monday that no evidence of weapons of mass destruction has yet been found.

In a press conference Monday, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of the coalition forces, said the allies have received "bits of information over the last three or four days about potential WMD locations."

but did not refer to any inspections on the ground.

Officials cautioned Monday that it may take weeks before any conclusive information is available about the types of weapons Iraq may have hidden.

Khidhir Hamza, who defected from Iraq in 1994 after heading up Hussein's nuclear weapons program, said Monday it was unlikely that coalition forces will find a so-called "smoking gun" until the Iraqi regime is toppled and members of the Special Security Organization, which is responsible for controlling the actual weapons of mass destruction, can be interrogated. Even access to weapons scientists, he said, wouldn't provide proof because they are unlikely to know where the weapons are kept.

He said he believes that any verifiable weapons stocks are most likely to be north of Baghdad near Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, in territory still held by Hussein.

"The program is fragmented and spread all across the country and designed to be in multiple sites," he said.

Other specialists predicted that there will be a lot of erroneous reports of suspected weapons of mass destruction found in the coming days. Franks denied a report in the international press that a chemical weapons cache was found in An Najaf in southern Iraq.