Posted on 04/23/2003 2:30:53 PM PDT by Brian S
U.S. Searches More Than 80 Iraqi Sites for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Comes Up Empty
WASHINGTON April 23 — American forces are changing their search strategy after coming up empty at most of the top suspected weapons sites in Iraq, officials said Wednesday.
And the White House appeared to be trying to scale back expectations that weapons of mass destruction will be found.
Troops on the ground have searched more than 80 sites that prewar U.S. intelligence judged the most likely hiding places for chemical and biological weapons as well as evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program, Defense Department officials said on condition of anonymity.
There are more than 1,000 suspected sites but 100 or so were the searchers' top priority.
Some analysis is pending on some substances found. But finding no stockpiles of chemical or biological agents after more than a month into the campaign, teams are now setting aside the search list and deciding where to go more on the basis of new information from Iraqis, three defense officials said Wednesday.
"We did have several hundred sites that we had some history of intelligence on that we were going to exploit," said Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of land forces in Iraq. "This regime over the last decade has been pretty good at hiding material and moving it around, so it was no surprise to any of us that many of these sites that we've already exploited have not necessarily turned up the material."
Two other officials said that in recent days officials have realized the list is of questionable value because of the ability of the Iraqis to destroy or remove weapons and equipment.
Although U.S. officials say the war is not over, more forces are headed home. The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its battle group of 11 ships has been released from wartime duty and is scheduled to arrive at its home port of Norfolk, Va., in May, officials said Wednesday. The Truman left Norfolk Dec. 5 and originally was to complete its sea duty in early June.
The Truman is now in the Mediterranean Sea, along with the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier battle group. Two other carriers, the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Constellation, left the Persian Gulf last week. The only carrier now in the Gulf is the USS Nimitz.
Also, two of the three Marine Expeditionary Units that fought in Iraq are preparing to head home. The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will soon be headed back to Camp Lejeune, N.C., and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit will follow a short time later en route home to Camp Pendleton, Calif., officials said. Both units have about 2,200 people.
The sites in Iraq searched for chemical and biological weapons have included mosques, homes, factories and government ministries. In some cases teams arrived to find buildings completely empty swept of any evidence, one official said.
One search team also interviewed an Iraqi scientist last week who said some weapons were moved to Syria and others were destroyed before the war. His account has not yet been verified.
McKiernan called the search "ad hoc" now, meaning troops will move on information culled from various intelligence, which could include captured Iraqis, documents and other sources.
Another official said the Pentagon still intends eventually to search all of the more than 1,000 possible sites, which he called "guesses" based on satellite data, other surveillance, information gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors over the years, from Iraqi defectors and elsewhere.
The prewar list did not reflect an intelligence failure, he said. But rather, moving to the new system is a natural evolution of the hunt, now that American officials are inside Iraq and can speak to Iraqis who have knowledge of weapons programs.
The existence of weapons of mass destruction and goal of disarming Iraq were the mains reasons given by the administration for the war, which did not get U.N. approval.
Hans Blix, the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, commented Tuesday on the lack of U.S. findings.
"It is conspicuous that so far they have not stumbled upon anything," he said in New York.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Tuesday there was "no question we remain confident that WMD (weapons of mass destruction) will found."
On Wednesday he said the president still believes weapons exist there. Asked what will happen if none are found, he said "the chances of success depend not on finding something by bumping into it," but on information provided by Iraqis involved in the programs.
Asked if he meant searches might not find the weapons but rather some kind of evidence they previously existed, Fleischer said: "There are no changes in the American position. We have high confidence that Iraq did indeed have weapons of mass destruction ... that indeed will be found in whatever form it is."
Helen Thomas asked: "If nothing was found will Bush make a statement and apologize to the American people?"
Reason: "Made in ________" was printed all over the barrels filled with illegal materials. N'uff said.
While it took the UN inspectors around 2 years to find anything after the Gulf War, and only then because we got hot tips from Iraqis on the ground.
I don't see how the left can argue with a straight face that the mere fact that Saddam destroyed these weapons a few days before the war somehow proves that we had no good reason to believe that he had them in the first place. To the contrary, this fact proves our case -- you can't destroy what you didn't have.
Not true. We've already got information that THEY DISPOSED OF THEM, or some of them, RIGHT BEFORE THE WAR STARTED.
That is the smoking gun.
Using the logic of those who say that the actual weapons must be found or the war wasn't justified in spite of what has come out is like saying that a murder victim is not really dead if the murder weapon is never found.
If SH disposed of all of the WMD just before the war started, then this war disarmed him. If he disposed of some of the WMD just before the war started, we've still neutralized him.
Hmm, misleading headline - as if the Weapons Hunt is over, time's up
were the mains reasons given by the administration for the war, which did not get U.N. approval.
Yes it did - resolution 1441 was all the approval needed. Just because the French pretended otherwise doesn't make it so.
Hans Blix, the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, commented Tuesday
Why?? And why are we listening?? Who is Hans Blix??
Anyway, I do have to say that this development surprises me somewhat. I really don't know what to make of the no-WMDs problem. Don't get me wrong: I absolutely believe that Iraq had a thriving chemical and biological weapons program. I also believed, however, that they had such weapons ready for use during the war - and that they might be used against our troops as they attacked - which appears not to have happened (thank God).
When it apparently didn't happen, it was fair to wonder why. Personally, I made an uneducated guess: Because in the buildup to war, we had gathered intelligence on the main sites with chem/bio weapons, and we sent in special ops to neutralize such sites - stuff like that. I've been assuming all along that something along these lines is what went on, why we saw no attacks.
The problem is, had that been true, we'd have been able to unveil those sites by now. Under my little ignorant uneducated-guess hypothesis: special ops would have gone in, neutralized whatever chem/bio weapons sites we knew about or got hints about, secured them, then sat on them (or kept VERY close watch on them) for the duration of the war. After the war when the dust has settled, we'd therefore be able to show these sites to reporters.
Evidently that is not the case and some aspect of my uneducated guess is incorrect.
We don't have any Secured Neutralized Chem/Bio Weapons Sites to show to reporters. Which says to me that they don't exist.
One explanation: whatever such sites we knew about, we just bombed beyond recognition and turned them into craters. Can't find much evidence in a crater. But you'd still think that if we'd done this, we could take reporters to the crater... say there is trace nasty stuff in the area, etc. So I don't like this explanation.
But I still believe that Hussein had a chem/bio weapons program. There's really no doubt in my mind. So what happened to them?
The obvious answer is that they're all in Syria now (which is distressing because it means we now have to turn to Syria). Leftists really won't like this answer: they'll say it "looks like" we're just making this stuff up and then attacking whatever country we feel like. And they'll be right: it does "look like" that, whether or not it's true. The reason this is bad is that it will make it very politically difficult to do what may be a very necessary thing, go after Syria.
Because those particular weapsons were virtually useless against our troops, who were very prepared for them.
Right... your about to be invaded by the most powerful military in the world and your going to destroy the only real weapons available to you?.
Any who believes that Iraq either gave weapons to Syria or destroyed them just before the start of the war will believe absolutly ANYTHING
That's a very good question. A similar good question is: if they didn't give (all) their chem/bio weapons to Syria before the war, and what they kept wasn't neutralized and sat on by our military (which seems not to be the case, otherwise we'd presumably be able to show the results to reporters), why didn't they use these chem/bio weapons during the war?
The only possible answer I have thought of: perhaps Hussein thought, even up until the very end, that he could actually avoid being invaded by the US/Britain using diplomatic maneuvers (and bribes) at the UN. In other words: he still thought that he had some kind of chance of winning the PR battle, and he thought that eventually this could be enough to turn back the Americans.
If so, obviously, he had to make sure that Blix found nothing and he couldn't even use such weapons while being invaded (and prove the Americans right).
I'm not saying that I believe this whole explanation is definitely true. I'm saying that it's the only possibility which makes sense to me. There may be others which I simply haven't thought of.
Incidentally, if my explanation is actually the correct one, it would be highly ironic. It would mean that, in effect, we played and won a game of "Good Cop/Bad Cop" against Hussein - and the French/Germans/Belgians/Russians were the "Good Cops" - and they didn't even know it. According to this theory, by being such convincing bribery/appeasement candidates (because they really were bribed by Hussien and really did argue for appeasement), the F/G/B/R weenies actually helped us defeat Hussein and prevented him from using chem/bio weapons against, even if this was never their intent.
but hey, it's only a theory.
Ah, yes. Blix can't turn up squat in 12 years, but the US should have it done after a full month, three weeks of which was combat.
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