White House Says Iraq Weapons Search Over

AP ^ | January 12, 2005 | AP

[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.

[A CA Guy]

What link is there to any news organization that ever verified this story that Saddam had "communicated with America over Kuwait about INVADING" and there was this "miscommunication"? Did anybody ever source that beyond a rumor? If so, do you know where?

That seems to have never been anything but a rumored excuse of Saddam, who was busy filling those mass graves and funding terror in Israel and elsewhere up to $25,000 a homicide bombing.

[Dave Elias]

"Homicide Bomber"?

What a ridiculous term.

[A CA Guy]

Homicide Bomber:

a person who is using their body with a bomb as a weapon of mass destruction in order to blow up innocent citizens for their cult.

HOMICIDE BOMBER.

NO DEBATE.

[Destro]

That seems to have never been anything but a rumored excuse of Saddam, who was busy filling those mass graves

America had no problem under Reagan and Bush with Saddam filling said mass graves.

[vezke]

Can anyone tell me why Saddam didnt resort to the use of WMD? If he actually had them.

What's the point of having WMD if you wont use them? Especially when faced with a force that intended to occupy and did so. This is the ultimate scenario for any country with WMD.

This is why we have them. Does anybody feel that we would ship them all off to our allies before the Russians completely conquered our country?

[A CA Guy]

Sure, with sanctions, he figured to bide his time, then to start up again or bring them out.

The UN inspectors had many things listed that were not found since we went in.

With France, Germany and Russia being bribed by Iraq and sabotaging further sanctions, Saddam thought we would never go in.
The UN held this deal up 11 years and especially the last 11 months when we wanted to go in with the financing of homicide bombers in Israel and other terror.

We found out France was into the oil fields for big money.
Russia and Germany were doing illegal business as well.

Those there are another three terrorist enabling countries right there. They want to say we are wrong for going in, but they were backstabbing the world meanwhile for money and oil.

So for eleven years and especially the last 11 months, Saddam was free to hide or move anything.
Look to Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other terrorists for his WMDs.

Plus a whole bunch will probably be dug up in the sand 30 years from now.

[A CA Guy]

Seems these are more freshly killed than that. At least the last million or so.

I wasn't for his rape and torture rooms or his jailing of children either.

It is not uncommon for America or other countries to make allies with people because of common enemies.
I remember we sided with Iraq because we had the other cult society Iran and at the time, it seems a better strategy to save tens of thousands of American lives by letting Iraq fight Iran in their war rather than us.

On rare occasions after an alliance, a few dictators went postal. Saddam, Castro and Bin Laden are but a few examples of such, but compared to the few bad people who turned later, we had far more life long allies.

Were you able to find any links to the Kuwait invasion rumor?

[BillF]

There were 53 WMDs found in Iraq and referred to in the Duelfer (Iraq Survey Group) Report issued last September.

Below is a map of Iraqi locations where WMDs were found. This is a map from the Duelfer Report as published on the CIA web site.

I understand that the Dems and their willing accomplices of the liberal media want to ignore these findings.

It is beyond me why President Bush and the administration have let themselves be put on the defensive over false assertions that no WMDs were found in Iraq.

President Bush, with his administration backing this line, should say, pointing to the below map:

The WMDs found in Iraq at the locations on this map were direct threats to America and all civilized countries. These weapons, kept in Iraq as Saddam continued to violate its ceasefire with us and 17 UN resolutions, required strong action by us.

The brave American and coalition forces took that strong action, liberating Iraq from a ruthless, mass-murdering dictator who had kept that country in bondage for decades.

Although it's true that the chemical WMDs found in Iraq were apparently made prior to 1991 and there were not as many WMDs as we, our allies, and our intelligence agencies believed, these weapons could easily have been used to murder innocent Americans in a terrorist attack.

Five (5) Americans were murdered, 13 others were infected, and major disruptions of our Congress and Postal Service resulted from a relatively small amount of anthrax mailed by an as-yet-unknown person or persons.

I don't think that the American people wanted Saddam to get away with flouting the ceasefire and the UN resolutions, keeping his WMDs, and continuing to pose a threat. We've found more WMDs in Iraq than were involved in the anthrax attacks. I wasn't about to trust that Saddam would not use the WMDs and would not transfer the WMDs to his terrorist allies.

Below is Figure 5, on page 30 of volume 3 (click here to go directly to map on CIA web site). You can click here to go to the index of the report.

[A CA Guy]

The President has spoken up about these things before.
It isn't THAT important because existing WMDs were only a part of why we went in. It wasn't the only manor reasons.

The defied sanctions and in the last year shot nearly 300 times at planes patrolling the no-fly zone.

Saddam had a history of allowing terrorists in.
He had camps there for them to be trained before and was financing homicide bombers in Israel and elsewhere up to $25,000 an attack.

He was using oil money to finance terror.

Scientists who escaped claimed he had is weapons scientist and technology on standby to start right up if sanctions were lifted.

He was pursuing a nuke before, and scientist came forward with parts and records showing he had interests to start on that again right away also if sanctions were lifted.

We also found over 230 mass graves.
Tens of thousands of tapes of executions.
Rape and torture rooms were all over.

We can go on and on and on.

[1LongTimeLurker]

It is beyond me why President Bush and the administration have let themselves be put on the defensive over false assertions that no WMDs were found in Iraq.

Because a few scattered rounds don't make up a "stockpile".

[A CA Guy]

Plus with France, Germany and Russia giving Saddam 11 more months to move, bury or hide anything he wanted to, I'm surprised ANYTHING surfaced at all.

If I had a gun in the house and was not supposed to have one and was told the Feds are coming to search months from now, would that gun remain on the house to be found months from now? NO way!

So logically, after 11 months of us wasting our time at the UN with Russia, France and Germany (all who were operating illegally there for money and oil), what did you really expect to still find there?

We mostly went in because of his involvement with terror and financing it. Also he had past and current desires to acquire and develop a nuclear bomb.

[1LongTimeLurker]

We mostly went in because of his involvement with terror and financing it. Also he had past and current desires to acquire and develop a nuclear bomb.

I'd say we went in because the CIA gave Bush faulty info. Remember Tenet's remark about it being a "slam dunk" case? Tenet led the CIA's failures leading up to 9/11, and led the CIA's failures leading up to the invasion of Iraq. He ought to be serving time somewhere.

[A CA Guy]

I think it is a slam dunk case to go in.

Funding homicide bombers at $25,000 a pop alone was a good reason to remove him and place another government in there.

Mass graves on a Hitler scale.
Tens of thousand of execution videos.
Rape and torture rooms.
Mutilations by the tens of thousands.

That was a slam dunk.
Only the corrupt left of America and the dictators and leftist of the UN body were cool with dead Jews, mass graves and a brutal dictatorship.

[BillF]

I agree with everything that you say, except I'm not sure that I understand one point.

When you say that "the President has spoken up about these things before," I need clarification

Are you saying that the President has responded to the "you lied or misled about WMDs because Iraq had none" leftist attacks on him by pointing out that some WMDs were, in fact, found? When and where? I'm not aware of him making this point that actual WMDs were found in Iraq.

Notwithstanding your valid points about other reasons to invade Iraq, the liberal media has rewritten history to falsely say the WMDs was the only reason to go into Iraq.

President Bush and the U.S. are getting slaughtered and are badly losing a propaganda war over the WMD issue.

Since WMDs were found, why doesn't the President and the country defend itself against false charges of lying and false statements that no WMDs were found?

The Iraqi WMDs appear to have been pre-1991 manufacture. The U.S. was unable to find the larger stockpiles that U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies all thought Iraq had. (Some of the stockpiles were likely buried, whereas other stockpiles were probably shipped to Syria.)

Still, WMDs were found and they could easily have been used to terrorize innocent civilians in the U.S. or elsewhere.

No way should we be losing this propaganda war as the truth is on our side.

[BillF]

Fifty-three scattered WMDs may not make a stockpile, but they sure are sufficient to terrorize many innocent civilians.

Saddam had WMDs as shown on the map posted earlier by me.

It is absurd that enemies of Bush and enemies of America are getting away the lies that "no WMDs were found" and "Bush lied."

[A CA Guy]

The President has listed various things found in Iraq that were WMDs, were probably used to make WMDs and things that Saddam was doing to deserve being removed.

Mass graves, helping blow lots of innocent civilian Jews and involvement in other terrorist acts.

Later we found out France had a deal to run the Iraq oil fields when that wasn't allowed under sanctions.
Russia and Germany were also back-dooring illegal business deals.

The ones where complaining most about us going in were the greatest terrorism enablers.

Liberals and dictators have picked on the WMD issue because that is the one we can't show tons of examples of.

Like I said, give me a 11 month notification of the cops coming to search my home, and I think you can garunteen what ever they wanted to find will NOT be there having been moved, buried or sold.

[A CA Guy]

Plus the bastard Saddam had killed over a hundred thousand before with chemical weapons, muslims in fact!

With such military success with chemicals, why would he not continue after sanctions or hide what he had until he wanted to use them?

[A CA Guy]

guarantee

Bou, my finger are missing lots of keys tonight.

[Destro]

The "WMDs" that were found were in dumps and were clearly so old that they were part of overlooked and mostly forgotten stockpiles that missed being destroyed. They were clearly not part of an active Iraqi WMD nor were they in a state of readiness for deployment.

By the way I have stated repeatedly that Iraq's refusal to fully cooperate with the inspection program was reason enough to overthrow Saddam if a reason is required.

I just don't want to hear anymore nonesense about WMD going to Syria ir that Iraq had actual stockpiles of them ready to be used in minutes.

[Destro]

Link evidence of what? That Saddam misread signs from U.S. ambassador April Gillespie about his planned invasion of Kuwait? This is common knowledge. I did not in any way imply we tricked Saddam into invading Kuwait - the we tricked Saddam into invading Kuwait is the urban legend portion of the story.