Posted on 07/31/2003 5:24:35 PM PDT by The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
Evidence of WMD plotting found in Iraq
By David Rennie and George Jones
(Filed: 01/08/2003)
The United States has found evidence of an active programme to make weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, including "truly amazing" testimony from Iraqis ordered to dupe United Nations inspectors before the war, the man leading the hunt said yesterday.
David Kay, a former UN inspector and now the CIA's leading consultant who is joint head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), offered an unprecedentedly bullish assessment of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.
Although he called for patience, he predicted that doubters were in for a "surprise" by the time his work was done.
His 1,400-strong team of American, British and Australian experts scouring Iraq has not yet found actual biological or chemical weapons, Mr Kay told private Senate hearings in Washington. But there was mounting evidence of an active WMD programme, he said.
That evidence included documents detailing how to conceal arms plants as commercial facilities, and for restarting weapons production once the coast was clear, officials told reporters.
Leading Democratic congressmen, like many Labour MPs, have questioned pre-war claims made by President George W Bush and Tony Blair that Saddam Hussein had large arsenals of banned weapons, ready for use. Such critics have said they will not be satisfied by anything short of physical proof.
But the first significant evidence of programmes to develop WMD is a potential lifeline for Mr Blair in his battle to prove to a sceptical public that the war was justified and that the Government did not mislead Parliament.
There was a sense of relief in Whitehall yesterday that the Prime Minister, who has staked his reputation on the Iraq war, could yet be vindicated.
After all the controversy over the Government's earlier claims about Saddam's weapons, Mr Blair is being deliberately cautious in public. However, he will leave for a family holiday in Barbados considerably reassured.
Officials said he was "aware that progress is being made" but was anxious not to overstate what had been uncovered so far.
At his end-of-term press conference in Downing Street on Wednesday, the Prime Minister appeared more confident that evidence of weapons programmes would be found and urged his critics not rush to judgment.
He referred to the interviews being conducted by Mr Kay's team with scientists and experts who were working on Iraq's weapons programmes. Asked specifically if they had found something, Mr Blair replied: "Let us wait and see when they come up with their report what the true facts are."
Mr Blair has already sought to prepare the public for the growing possibility that no actual weapons of mass destruction will be found - only evidence of programmes to develop such weapons.
Glenda Jackson, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate and a former minister, said the Government had argued before the war that there were actual weapons not just programmes.
"We were not told the danger came from programmes or documents - that we were in real danger from tons of confetti. If the weapons aren't there, then I am afraid someone deliberately misled us," she said last night.
In Washington, Mr Kay appeared concerned to stem the growing perception that Saddam might have had no weapons programme at all.
Though a former UN inspector himself, he was blunt about the limitations of the inspections before the war.
Briefing officials and Congress on the first five weeks of work by the coalition team, he said: "We have found new evidence of how they successfully misled inspections of the UN and hid stuff continuously from them.
"The active deception programme is truly amazing once you get inside it. We had people who participated in deceiving UN inspectors now telling us how they did it.
"We have Iraqi scientists who were involved in these programmes who are assisting us in taking them apart."
After the private briefing, he said: "We are making solid progress. It is going to take time."
He said a programme shielded by security and deception over 25 years would not be easy to unravel.
Mr Kay dismissed reports that his search teams had run out of sites to explore. They were gaining the "active co-operation" of Iraqis involved in WMD manufacture.
Scientists and officials were coming forward in ever greater numbers and were leading the teams to key sites, almost all of them previously unknown to Western intelligence.
Solid evidence was being uncovered, but would not be made public hastily, until the teams had "solid proof", Mr Kay added. However, he predicted that public patience would be rewarded.
Yes.
The DUmmies have long been making this claim.
---
If they had any integrity, that is exactly what they should do. None of them are fit to be entrusted with the security of this country and the American people.
And yes, indeed, they deliberately lied, because they were all aware of all the years of evidence about Saddam's WMD programs, yet they had the unmitigated gall, to claim they don't exist and that Bush lied.
Vey series!
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The danger to our country is grave and it is growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given.--President Bush Sept 28, 2002
State Department reprint of Sept 28,2002 radio address
So which is it? Programs or WMDs ready to go in 45 minutes? Or does it not matter anymore what someone actually says? Note, although this is British intelligence being used it was the main reason Bush gave to 'disarm' Hussein. Funny, didn't say anything about 'spreading democracy' either.....
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