Posted on 01/12/2005 10:14:48 AM PST by ejdrapes
WASHINGTON - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday. 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. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said. "If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now." Chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer is to deliver his final report on the search next month. "It's not going to fundamentally alter the findings of his earlier report," McClellan said, referring to preliminary findings from last September. Duelfer reported then that Saddam Hussein 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. Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq. Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong. White House Says Iraq Weapons Search Over
They should convene the panel in Syria.
Why won't anyone in the media state the obvious - Saddam picked a bad time to *** BLUFF *** the west. He wanted us desperately to believe that he was a serious threat. It worked, since our guys had to where the moon suits on the way in. Oh, and by the way - the war was completely justified on the basis of breaches in the 91 war ceasefire.
How many people to Saddam kill ?
Read the jailhouse interviews with Saddam, he wasn't bluffing us, he was bluffing Iran. He thought we really knew that he didn't have anything and that his government had been infiltrated by the U.S. His mistake was in overestimating the capabilities of the CIA. Funny, someone else made that mistake recently. :-)
Well, it looks like we screwed up. There weren't any WMD. I'm going to catch hell for saying this, but I think it would be a good idea for Colin Powell to go back to the UN and said, "We were wrong. We'll try to do better next time." (Colin's on his way out anyway, so he can take the fall on the world stage.) I think it's always best to admit your mistakes rather than try to hide them. Trying to hide them just makes you both wrong and dishonest.
Nice play by the US. Declare nothing there and see what Syria does.
The Bush WH will be criticized either way.
Nice play by the US. Declare nothing there and see what Syria does.
The Bush WH will be criticized either way.
I wish one of these jokers would dare to try to explain to the residents of Halabja that Saddam's nerve gas was just a figment of their imagination.
That translates into no Iraqi WMD existed to go to Syria.
That translates into no Iraqi WMD existed to go to Syria.
The use of nerve and chemical attacks were before Gulf War 1.
They were given all those months to move it to Syria and other places. It's not like they never existed.
That translates into no Iraqi WMD existed to go to Syria. You can no longer say the WMD went to Syria.
Won't happen. As far as catching hell goes, you are a newbie, (12-29-04) we will give you a pass.
They just so happened to have large pristeen chemical labs in several places in Iraq to just make swimming pool chemicals?
They of course needed to camplage that one like a sand dune a hundred miles in the desert to make sure we didn't bomb their pool chemical factory...
Right, tell that one to Democrats.
pristine** camouflage **
Excuse me.
If I had a gun in my house illegally and I was told that months from now, inspectors would be in my house to look for the gun, would the gun be here when they come to look? Hell no!
Between what was moved and what was buried, there was plenty.
Trusting people to pontificate way after the fact about things they refused to chase down in a timely manner is ridiculous.
LASTLY and most importantly. Saddam and Iraq needed an ass whooping for financing terror in Israel and elsewhere for people to blow themselves up.
WMD was a reason, but financing terror and hundred of mass graves with more to come was more than a legitimate reason to go in.
As usual, we did good.
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