'No WMD in Iraq', source claims (Barf Alert - But consider the anti-american news source!)

BBC News ^ | 9/24/03

[areafiftyone]

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq by the group tasked with looking for them, according to a Bush administration source who has spoken to the BBC's Daily Politics. The programme's presenter Andrew Neil says this is the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group's interim report, due to be published next month.

Mr Neil said the report is also set to say it was highly unlikely that weapons were shipped out of the country before the US-led war on Iraq.

He said it will also claim that Saddam Hussein mounted a huge programme to deceive and hinder the work of US weapons inspectors.

Mr Neil, a former editor of the Sunday Times, stressed the Daily Politics had not seen the draft report, and was reporting what a single source had said its findings were likely to be. The bottom line is that the team has found no weapons of mass destruction

Former Tory Cabinet minister Michael Portillo said if these details of the report were true, it would be a "savage blow" to the prime minister.

But Downing Street and the CIA have refused to comment until the report is published.

The Iraq Survey Group took over the job of finding WMD from the US military in June.

The ISG is a largely US operation - headed by a US general although it includes some British and Australian staff.

Its 1,400 personnel are made up of many former UN weapons inspectors and its work is shrouded in secrecy.

'Under pressure'

Its focus is intelligence, using documents and interviews with Iraqi scientists to build up a picture of the secret world of Iraq's weapons programmes.

The Iraq Survey Group has been under a good deal of pressure to prove the Bush administration's case that Iraq's weapons posed a significant threat.

Gary Samor, of the international institute for strategic studies in London told the BBC that "it would have been far better to have asked the UN inspection teams back into Iraq after the war to complete their work".

"Their ranks could have been bolstered in any number of ways."

In his view, whatever the Iraq Survey Group comes up with, their evidence is going to have to contend with a huge degree of international scepticism.

[DWPittelli]

He said it will also claim that Saddam Hussein mounted a huge programme to deceive and hinder the work of US weapons inspectors.

So either Saddam did have WMDs to hide, or Saddam was, in effect, framing himself for the crime of having WMDs. In either case, isn't it clear that Saddam is to blame for any WMD confusion?

[MEG33]

If you drop the editorializing,this is what I heard on Fox last night.

[Austin Willard Wright]

More diversion. Perhaps some freepers owe an apology to Hans Blix who, unlike them, was apparently right on the money about WMD.

[MEG33]

You mean when he told the UN how much was unaccounted for in chemical weapons in Iraq or lately when he said that he believed there were none.

[blackdog]

Then exactly what were UN weapons inspectors doing in Iraq from 1991 thru 1998? That's a whole lotta inspectin of a whole lottta nuttin.

And exactly what gassed and killed entire Kurdistan towns? There are a whole lot of critical issues to be explained away if one is to make the case that Iraq had no WMD's. Just from an intellectually honest approach, one cannot go much past the conclusion that Iraq still has them either buried somewhere or at the bottom of the ocean.

They will turn up. Most likely right after Bush is defeated in 2004. Much like the hostages being released by Iran right after Carter was run out of town.

[Paradox]

I believe Blix has it about right (potentially anyways), Saddam destroyed it all before the war, and then pretended to have it for strategic reasons. The US called his bluff, and he lost.

[MEG33]

I believe burial is possible.The majority of Americans say going to Iraq was the right thing,even withoutWMD.It's a long time until the election.Bush will come back and win unless he's found in the Lincoln bedroom with an intern!

[Maringa]

I don't think we'll ever know, but if Saddam didn't have these weapons, how come he hindered the inspections? It's possible he was trying to protray the obtrussiveness of the US before the Arab world, or due to his insecurity, he felt that the inspections would reveal military (non WMD) secrets that would allow his enemies compromise his security and power...who knows? Unfortunately, the administration has not done a good job of portraying the reasons such as UN Security violations, human right violations. They were mentioned off and on, but somehow, WMD was the reason we went in...

[Cronos]

So either Saddam did have WMDs to hide, or Saddam was, in effect, framing himself for the crime of having WMDs. In either case, isn't it clear that Saddam is to blame for any WMD confusion?

Huh??????? I really don't follow that. Saddy was a tyrant who had to go. Yeah, he didn't have WMDs, he said he didn't have WMDs and so he didn't lie about THAT at least, but that doesn't exonerate him. How do you make it that he framed himself?????

[dogbyte12]

Every Iraqi scientist we have spoken to, many now living without fear of reprisals, said the program was shuttered in 91. The BBC here isn't telling anything new.

Saddam did want people to think he had a program still going though. Why? Machismo. Seriously.

He could not admit that he was terrified of the reprisals if he got caught with WMD, so he stopped the program, focused on domestically terrorizing his opponents, and tried to run a trick play.

Basically, think of a football game with a fake hand off, where everybody knows where the ball was handed to, but it really wasn't.

He lost his regime because he didn't want to lose face. He heard Powell quietly in Egypt saying in 2001, that they knew Saddam had disarmed. He kept playing coy. It was a suicidal game, and he lost. He had crap.

It would be like challenging somebody bigger, stronger to a fight, claiming you had a gun. There was no gun though. You thought that they wouldn't know for sure if there was a gun, and that would buy you time, as well as impress your friends. Oops.

It was a massive intelligence failure for us to not know that he was lying. Our big problem was the dissident crowd. They frankly lied their asses off to us. They wanted Saddam out, knew he shelved his program, and that presented a problem. If they told us honestly that Saddam was not making WMDs, it would mean that we wouldn't do anything. We were told what we wanted to hear. We had people in the CIA who were telling the admin exactly what I am saying. It is all bluster, Saddam is toothless. The admin rejected those opinions.

Saddam is evil, and he is gone, but he has gotten his revenge on the Bush family in a twisted way, by being disarmed of WMDs.

[Wphile]

Are you referring to the report by David Hunt on O'Reilly last night? I heard it too and it sounds like there is lots of evidence of a program but no evidence of actual WMDs.

[MEG33]

Yes...as I said without the BBC spin.I believe he said an ongoing program ..

[Wphile]

The only problem here is that David Hunt was spouting all sorts of predictions, based on his "sources", during the war which didn't come true. At this point, I'm just waiting for the report and the speculation and "confidential sources" be damned.

[jpl]

"There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that at the time I left office, Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction".

-Bill Clinton, on Larry King Live

[MEG33]

I think you are right.I shouldn't credit "sources say"!

[dogbyte12]

I think it might be unwise to say that because the Clintons were manipulated by Saddam, that it is ok for President Bush to have been manipulated as well.

Again, listen to the scientists who are now free. They unanimously say that the program was basically shuttered in 1991 after President Bush I pounded the snot out of Saddam.

Saddam didn't want to admit he was intimidated. He publically denied the program truthfully, but winked as he said it. We believed the wink. Clinton did, and Bush did as well. Our great source of info on this was dissidents who wanted us to go the full monty and take Saddam out. We have dozens of them rounded up, debriefed by our intelligence who said, "Oh yes, they are producing everything. Smallpox, anthrax, nukes, you name it". Clinton believed them. Bush believed them.

I believed in the tooth fairy too, because I wanted the money to keep flowing. Ask all these Bush and Clinton officials about their "proof" of the program going, and I guarantee that 90% of it was supplied by dissidents.

The free scientists speak for themselves. They basically stopped in 1991. If you believe that not one person in the entire program, including the building secretary, file clerk, janitor has not cracked by now, even though they know where the WMDs are, you should reconsider that fact.

The Iraqi who shows us one chemical weapon, becomes a very wealthy person on the spot.

[beachn4fun]

Excuse me, but since I am not a scientist or chemist, I can't be quite sure.......BUT didn't we find WMD? I mean we've found all the elements for creating WMD, just not the finished product. Right? I mean if you take a + b + c + d and put them together they would make WMD. Right? Which would mean that we did not allow Hussein enough time to make more.

[ijcr]

The source was Dr.Kelly via a seance at the BBC Headquarters.

President Bush did not seem aware of this article when he gave his speech at the UN and I am not second guessing anyone who has 140,000 inspectors on the ground. Nor should anyone who has common sense.

Strategery....it is easy to deal with Liberal Klingons.They Klingon to every tiny hope that bolsters their vacuous charges.

[jpl]

The program to develop more of them may have been shuttered in '91, but I don't believe for one second that he destroyed the entire existing stockpile. There's also the little unresolved matter of the anthrax attacks on our country in the immediate wake of 9/11 as well. And I don't care what anyone says, I'm simply not buying that Steven Hatfill just miraculously happened to send anthrax to Mohammed Atta's landlord.