Fri Mar 5, 7:18 PM ET
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Weapons-hunters in Iraq have found evidence that experts from Russia and other countries helped with Iraq's missile programs, but it is unclear whether those countries' governments played any role, U.S. officials said Friday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Bush administration will compile information it has obtained and eventually present it to those countries. In addition to Russia, officials found signs that experts from Ukraine, Serbia and Belarus may have been involved.
It may be that the alleged assistance came from companies or individuals who came to Iraq without the knowledge or sanction of their home governments, the officials said.
Still, any such assistance would violate the prewar U.N. sanctions that prohibited foreign weapons aid to deposed President Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the officials said. They provided no details on what was discovered or the nature of the technical help.
The information found in Iraq was first reported Friday in The New York Times.
Of all the prewar intelligence assessments regarding Iraq's illicit weapons programs, so far the predictions regarding long-range missile efforts have found the most validation.
"Since the war we have found an aggressive Iraqi missile program concealed from the international community," CIA Director George J. Tenet said in a speech last month.
Previously, officials had said Iraq's missile dealings primarily involved North Korea. Last year, then-chief weapons hunter David Kay said Pyongyang and Baghdad had negotiated for the sale of missile technology.
It appears that North Korea kept an Iraqi down payment of $10 million but never delivered any parts from its No Dong class of ballistic missiles, Kay said.
According to Tenet, Iraq had advanced design work for a liquid-propellant missile with ranges of up to 620 miles and was working on other kinds of missiles. Since the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq has been prohibited from having missiles with ranges longer than 93 miles.
Fri Mar 5,10:42 AM ET
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan's foreign minister sought Friday to play down reports of a heightened campaign to capture Osama bin Laden and said there had been no intelligence breakthroughs about the al-Qaida leader's location.
The United States has pledged a retooled and intensified offensive in the next few months to track top Taliban and al-Qaida figures along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. military in Afghanistan has said it is confident that bin Laden will be found this year.
Foreign Minister Abdullah took a more cautious tone.
"The missions now — I wouldn't say it is as very special as is mentioned in some corners," he said after a ceremony with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw inaugurating a higher-security British Embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
The hunt "has been part of the efforts for the past two years, and it will continue," said Abdullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name.
Straw, speaking earlier to a news conference, declined to address questions about unconfirmed media reports of ongoing U.S. military sweeps in southern and southeastern Afghanistan.
Straw said only: "We would all like to see Osama bin Laden captured one way or the other."
Asked about any new intelligence, Abdullah said, "The intelligence continues — I wouldn't consider it a new thing."
U.S. military officials have said they are planning a spring offensive in Afghanistan in the hopes of capturing bin Laden, former Taliban leader Mullah Omar and their associates.
Officials have said they are shifting members of Task Force 121 from Iraq to Afghanistan, after the elite team's role in capturing Saddam in December.
Revised U.S. tactics would include settling U.S. forces in communities, in hopes of improving local intelligence-gathering, the Americans have said.
Pakistan officials have pledged intensified sweeps on their own side of the border. Pakistan officials have taken a harder line in the search in recent weeks, including prosecuting local chiefs who failed to produce demanded information on any terror suspects hiding in border areas.