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White House Says Iraq Weapons Search Over
AP ^ | January 12, 2005 | AP

Posted on 01/12/2005 10:14:48 AM PST by ejdrapes

White House Says Iraq Weapons Search Over

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.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: duelferreport; iraq; wmd
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To: A CA Guy
I have read many reports of found labs and WMD that turned out not to be true. I have seen ZERO evidence of pristine and or camouflaged chemical labs that you seem to be sure existed.

Also, why do you deny the report put out by Bush's appointed team?

This is not the Democrats saying so but a team that directly answers to Bush and the results are accepted by Bush. The results being that: "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."

Now what?

21 posted on 01/12/2005 1:49:59 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: A CA Guy
What did Iraq do to America to deserve an ass whooping? Israel is not America. Israelis are not American citizens. Saudi Arabia financially contributed more to the PLO than did Iraq yet we have no problem protecting the Saudis.

I am not against us having fought the war with Iraq - but we can no longer hold up the fantasy that the WMD existed and that they went to Syria or are still hidden in the sands somewhere. Saying WMD are in Syria is like saying UN balck helicopters fly over Michigan farms at night.

22 posted on 01/12/2005 1:57:53 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: Destro

I guess it's a shame that hanoi john didn't win, then maybe we could have asked him where did he get his information that Hussein had wmds.


23 posted on 01/12/2005 1:59:03 PM PST by AxelPaulsenJr (Pray Daily For Our Troops and President Bush)
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To: Destro

Uhhh ... I thought that Delfour reported last fall that Saddam's weapons programs could be reconstituted very quickly.

Also ... I'm still puzzled as to why our forces found traces of pesticides ... in Iraqi WARHEADS ...

The whole WMD issue is just screwey.


24 posted on 01/12/2005 2:04:36 PM PST by Tilly (I'm not paid to be stressed!!!)
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To: Destro

In the area of weapons of mass destruction, we know that:

Saddam Hussein in the far and recent past had an active chemical and biological weapons program.
Saddam had as recently as 1998 significant stockpiles of these weapons, according to both U.S. intelligence and U.N. weapons inspectors, who had seen and catalogued this stockpile.
The Baathist regime used these chemical and biological weapons on at least half a dozen instances.
Saddam provided no significant evidence to inspectors in 2002-2003 that he had destroyed any of this stockpile.
In 1998, the Clinton administration launched an intensive, though short, preemptive air war against Iraq because it was convinced that Saddam’s WMD program was unchecked.
The Iraqi dictatorship was reasonably close to obtaining nuclear weapons on two occasions in the past, and was prevented from doing so only by military force. In 1981, an Israeli air strike crippled the Osirik nuclear reactor which had been producing nuclear material for bomb use. In 1991, Operation Desert Storm again crippled Iraq’s nuclear program, which experts later estimated had been within one year of developing a bomb.
The Iraqi dictatorship retained the scientific know-how and the services of many of the scientists who had been active in its previous nuclear efforts. It also coordinated the concealment of equipment necessary for a nuclear program. Recently, an Iraqi nuclear scientist led allied forces to a key piece of equipment that he had been instructed to bury under a rose bush at his home.
Likewise, in late April, an Iraqi scientist involved in the biological and chemical weapons program led Americans to a site in the desert where chemical components for chemical weapons had been buried by the regime immediately prior to the onset of war.
In both the nuclear and chemical/biological arenas, Iraq possessed many “dual use” facilities that had been used for weapons programs and could have been again with little difficulty. For example, early in the war U.S. forces stumbled across a giant buried complex which seemed well-suited for chemical weapons production. As it turned out, the facility had been a chemical weapons plant until 1998, when it had been converted to civilian production. A vast underground facility was also discovered beneath Iraq’s main civilian atomic research center, filled with sealed barrels of uranium. Upon investigation, the site was known to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which had sealed the uranium. In neither case was there any significant barrier to the reconversion of those facilities for WMD purposes on short notice.
As was widely reported, two mobile laboratories have been captured, and many (though not all) weapons analysts consider it either probable or possible that they were used for biological weapons development.
Along the route to Baghdad, large numbers of Iraqi troops were killed or captured in possession of gas masks. Military headquarters and bases were consistently found stocked with chemical warfare suits and large stockpiles of nerve gas antidote.



When it comes to terrorism, what we know is this:

Saddam actively sponsored the terrorist group Hamas, boasting that he had sent $35 million to provide for the families of Hamas suicide bombers.
Notorious terrorist figures Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas (of Achille Lauro fame) had taken up residence in Baghdad under Saddam’s protection (at least until Abu Nidal committed "suicide" last year by multiple gunshots to the head).
A Palestine Liberation Front training camp was maintained outside of Baghdad, complete with airplane chassis for hijacker training.
In northern Iraq, U.S. and Kurdish forces overran a base and training camp for Ansar-al-Islam, an Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist organization with hundreds of members. The Ansar-al-Islam camp included a crude poison lab, with evidence pointing to the possibility that the group had made the deadly toxin ricin for use in attacks.
Another major terrorist facility in the desert of central Iraq was recently uncovered and destroyed by U.S. forces.
Iraqi intelligence documents published by the London Daily Telegraph indicated that Iraqi officials had traveled to Sudan in 1998 to meet with Osama bin Laden, seeking a “strategic alliance” against America. For his part, bin Laden released a tape shortly before hostilities began urging jihadists to flock to the defense of Iraq.
The deputy of a key Al-Qaeda associate who had been reported in Baghdad receiving medical treatment after fleeing Afghanistan was captured there shortly after the fall of the Iraqi capital.
Whatever ties Iraq did or did not have with Al-Qaeda, it is clear that Saddam supported the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Upon their arrival in Iraq, coalition forces found items like official murals celebrating the 9-11 attack and 9-11 commemorative cigarette lighters complete with etchings of bin Laden and the World Trade Centers carried by Baath Party functionaries.
Saddam had no compunction about using terrorism against the United States directly. In 1993, Iraqi agents were apprehended in Kuwait before they were able to carry out a plan to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush on his visit to the Emirate. Considerable evidence also links Saddam and Iraqi intelligence to the first attack on the World Trade Centers in 1993.

http://www.mafhoum.com/press5/154P5.htm


25 posted on 01/12/2005 2:09:58 PM PST by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy

DUELFER REPORT SUMMARY

Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed.

Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world
were also considerations, but secondary.

ISG uncovered Iraqi plans or designs for three long-range ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 km and for a 1,000-km-range cruise missile, although none of these systems progressed to production and only one reportedly passed the design phase.

Iraq Survey Group (ISG) discovered further evidence of the maturity and significance of the pre-1991 Iraqi Nuclear Program but found that Iraq’s ability to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program progressively decayed after that date.

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991.

In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes. Indeed, from the mid-1990s, despite evidence of continuing interest in nuclear and chemical weapons, there appears to be a complete absence of discussion or even interest in BW at the Presidential level.


26 posted on 01/12/2005 2:33:15 PM PST by Greenback_dollar
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To: Tilly

Aw, c'mon. Nobody likes to have bugs in their warheads...


27 posted on 01/12/2005 2:34:43 PM PST by lugsoul (Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountainside.)
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To: A CA Guy
In the area of weapons of mass destruction, we know that: Saddam Hussein in the far and recent past had an active chemical and biological weapons program. Saddam had as recently as 1998 significant stockpiles of these weapons, according to both U.S. intelligence and U.N. weapons inspectors, who had seen and catalogued this stockpile.

PER POST #26 - That and other facts you posted are now shown to be false.

28 posted on 01/12/2005 2:50:07 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: Destro
What did Iraq do to America to deserve an ass whooping?

Well ... for

  1. Saddam violated (as in broke) the Gulf War cease fire agreement like the next day. (there never was a "treaty")

    And....

  2. Saddam fired missiles at our and the UK's jets in the No-Fly Zone on a daily basis (again violating the Cease Fire Agreement).

    And

  3. Then there was the tiny matter of Saddam breaking, what was it again... oh yeah, SEVENTEEN U.N. Resolutions ordering him to disarm and to PROVE it or face the consequences.
Other than that he didn't do anything' to "us".
29 posted on 01/12/2005 3:35:00 PM PST by Condor51 (May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't. - Gen G Patton)
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To: ejdrapes

Strange. I would have sworn they found sarin gas and ricin.


30 posted on 01/12/2005 4:44:09 PM PST by SerpentDove
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To: nyg4168
Well, it looks like we screwed up. There weren't any WMD

I'm not convinced. Chemical weapons were found in small quantities. Yellow cake was found all over the place and it was poo pooed since it is not weapons grade (but is a raw material). The Niger allegation was found to be true (Wilson false). Centrifuge parts found buried. Alleged bioweapons vans said to be for making hydrogen (yea right). This man was a threat, if not immediate, then in the future when the next wimp president would loosen the noose more than Clinton did. Bush did the right thing. They are disarmed and disassembled as a military machine.

I do believe that some weapons stuff was sent to other countries. That needs to be tracked down.

31 posted on 01/12/2005 5:11:41 PM PST by SteamShovel
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To: Destro
Saddam had as recently as 1998 significant stockpiles of these weapons, according to both U.S. intelligence and U.N. weapons inspectors, who had seen and cataloged this stockpile.

PER POST #26 - That and other facts you posted are now shown to be false. Destro

UN inspectors had seen and cataloged them.

How is it possible that they saw and cataloged stockpiles and then filed a false report? I missed that.
How was that possibly false?

32 posted on 01/12/2005 6:58:26 PM PST by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: SteamShovel
They had a year by stalling with France, Germany and Russia to hide and move them wherever.

Could have buried them deep in the sand, or moved them to Syria, Jordan and so forth.

We are not exactly accessing the Pakistan/Iraq border and there could be lord-knows what there as well.
33 posted on 01/12/2005 7:00:46 PM PST by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: nyg4168
Well, it looks like we screwed up. There weren't any WMD.

Say you're a police officer chasing a suspect. The suspect turns and points what looks like a real gun at you. Of course, you shoot him. Upon close inspection it turns out that the suspect only wanted you to believe that he had a real gun, when in fact it was an immitation toy gun.

Now tell me... who screwed up? You, or the suspect?

No one can deny that Saddam wanted the world to believe that he had WMDs. What choice did we then have? We didn't screw up....Saddam did. He gambled that if the West thought he had WMDs they would leave him alone, and the Arabs would see him as a successful, defiant leader to the West. He thought wrong.
34 posted on 01/12/2005 7:04:43 PM PST by zencycler
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To: Condor51

Well we imposed said rules on Iraq - before Gulf War 1 Saddam was polite enough to ask our permission to invade Kuwait - unfortunately there was a miscommunication over America's position should such an invasion take place.


35 posted on 01/12/2005 7:07:50 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: Destro
Is there some link to where an American government official said it was OK to invade Kuwait to Saddam?

What was your source for that?
36 posted on 01/12/2005 7:13:12 PM PST by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: ejdrapes

By now this comes as no surprise. And like it or not, it is gonna hurt U.S. credibility. That may or may not be fair but that's reality. The only way that can be overcome is for Iraq to be made stable and free. We have a lot on the line in making Iraq work.


37 posted on 01/12/2005 7:28:51 PM PST by PFC
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To: A CA Guy
How is it possible that they saw and cataloged stockpiles and then filed a false report? I missed that. How was that possibly false?

Dude, this is not me talking - I mean there is some kind of disconnect happening - the official - Bush Admin appointed - team of experts says that NO SUCH WEAPONS or WEAPON PROGRAMS EXIST OR EXISTED since 1991.

That is the official written in ink and published conclusion endorsed by the Bush admin.

38 posted on 01/12/2005 7:39:28 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: A CA Guy
You twisted my words - before Gulf War 1 Saddam was polite enough to ask our permission to invade Kuwait - unfortunately there was a miscommunication over America's position should such an invasion take place.

That is not in any way saying as you mischaracterized my words that an American government official said it was OK to invade Kuwait to Saddam.

39 posted on 01/12/2005 7:42:11 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: PFC

Agreed - the only way the war can now be justified is if Iraq is made a free and stable nation - a democratic example to the region.


40 posted on 01/12/2005 7:43:42 PM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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