Posted on 05/12/2003 10:37:03 AM PDT by churchillbuff
US weapons team ends its search with no discovery By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 12 May 2003
The team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is ending its operation without having found proof that Saddam Hussein had stocks of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
It investigated numerous sites identified by US intelligence as those likely to harbour weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but has now all but accepted that it is unlikely to find any weapons. Operations are being wound up and a scaled-down unit called the Iraq Survey Group will take over.
The leader of the US Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, Colonel Richard McPhee, said his team of biologists, chemists, computer experts and documents specialists arrived in Iraq believing the intelligence community's warning that Saddam had given "release authority" to those in charge of a chemical arsenal.
"We didn't have all those people in protective suits for nothing," he toldThe Washington Post. "[But if they planned to use those weapons] there had to have been something to use and we haven't found it. Books will be written on that in the intelligence community for a long time."
Saddam's alleged possession of such weapons was one of the central pretexts given by Washington and London for the war against Iraq. In a February presentation to the UN, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, identified sites he said were producing WMD.
When George Bush made his declaration of victory aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on 1 May, he said: "We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated."
Some progress has been made. It was reported on Thursday that a team of experts searching for WMD had concluded that a trailer found near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq last month was a mobile biological weapons laboratory. The team admitted, however that other experts disagreed. Some officials claim that up to three such laboratories have been discovered although no biological or chemical agents have been found at any of them.
Yesterday, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said WMD might still be in the hands of Iraqi special units.
"Were they full-deployed and could they have been brought to bear on us, or are they still perhaps out there somewhere in some sort of bunker and could have been used?" he said at the US regional headquarters in Qatar. "We are trying to run that one to the ground."
But those on the ground appear more sceptical. US central command started the war with a list of 19 priority suspected weapons sites. All but two have been searched without uncovering any evidence. A further 69 were identified as sites that might offer clues to the whereabouts of WMD. Of these, 45 have been searched without success.
Some experts believe that one of the problems has been that WMD search teams were held back for too long, allowing Iraqi forces to dismantle or destroy equipment. Others believe that the assessment that such weapons existed was wrong. One Defence Intelligence Agency official said: "We came to bear country and we came loaded for bear and we found that the bear was not here. The question was 'where are Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons?' What is the question now? That is what we are trying to sort out."
The search for WMD will continue under the auspices of the Iraq Survey Group, which will also hunt for information about Saddam's regime. The White House has claimed this is a bigger unit than the task force. But officials admit that the number of staff hunting for weapons will be scaled back. 12 May 2003 10:34
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The search for WMD will continue under the auspices of the Iraq Survey Group, which will also hunt for information about Saddam's regime. The White House has claimed this is a bigger unit than the task force. But officials admit that the number of staff hunting for weapons will be scaled back.
And then we see that this is little more than troop rotation.
Actually, the US Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force was deployed in force because we needed to be prepared if we ran up against acres of barrels. Scaling back the number of troopes devoted to WMD investigation is prudent and demostrates our flexibility on the ground given that it appears the Iraquis had kept this stuff in the hiding places.
Congressman Billybob
No way would he have remained in power. We were going in no matter what. No matter whether there were chemicals of mass destruction, no matter whether there was a strong tie to Al Queda. We were going in.
Which, of course, is exactly the impression the poster of this thread wanted to give.
I think you're right. They were betting on the hunch WMD's would be found. But they did LIE, because they said they KNEW where they were. Remember when we were chastizing Blix over where he was searching and Blix was PO'd that if we knew where they were, then why wasn't he guided to them. We responded that it compromise our intelligence operatives. Either we out and out lied or our intelligence operatives had an agenda and used us. I'm a little surprised that with the sophisticated equipment we have in place to monitor that area we weren't better informed.
Either way, we don't look good.
Let's say you owned a 500,000,000 square foot house and had an illegal roach clip. The Police advertised for years that they were going to get a search warrant to look for it. After 2 years they sent in one person for two hours to search. Would they find anything??Use your imagination for this example, compare the size of Iraqq and the dozens of inspectors over months to this example and you'll find that in the house example the inspector could actually cover more ground as a percentage than the arms inspectors.
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