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MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERSFROM: DANIEL MCKIVERGAN, Deputy DirectorSUBJECT: Duelfer, the UN, and the New York Times Yesterday, the Washington Post reported ("Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month") that the conclusions reached in Charles Duelfer's September 2004 report on Iraq's weapons programs will be the "final word" on the subject. The New York Times editorial board weighed in today. The Times notes that what the "Iraqi invasion has actually proved is that the weapons inspection worked, that international sanctions - deeply, deeply messy as they turned out to be - worked, and that in the case of Saddam...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. inspectors have ended their search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in recent weeks, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN. The search ended almost two years after President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, citing concerns that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction and may have hidden weapons stockpiles. Members of the Iraq Survey Group were continuing to examine hundreds of documents and would investigate any new leads, the official said.

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...

It was confirmed that North Korea promised Iraq missile technology worth $10 million (approximately 10.5 billion won) when Saddam Hussein was in power. An additional part of the Duelfer Report (CIA) was made available to the public on December 11 and says that the Hussein regime raised money through oil-for-food programs under the supervision of the U.N. to finance the 10 million dollar arms contract with North Korea. According to sources at western intelligence agencies, North Korea is estimated to have sold about 540 missiles so far. The number includes 250 SCUD missiles worth $580 million, to Iran, Syria, Pakistan,...

NOTE: I phoned this morning to the Public Affairs office at Ft. Campbell, KY, home of the 101st Airborne. The following was sent to me via email after my discussion with Lt. Col. Wellman in the afternoon. =============================================== US Department of Defense Talking Points – Oct. 27, 2004 – Al-Qaqaa Weapons Facility Following are talking points on the 2003 timeline regarding U.S. and Iraqi military activities in the vicinity of the former Al-Qaqaa military facility. According to the Duelfer report, as of mid-September 2004 Coalition forces have reviewed and cleared more than 10,000 caches of weapons. - This includes 240,000...

October 18, 2004 - Let us stipulate that investigators in Iraq, whether under the auspices of the United Nations or the United States, have faced an uphill battle in getting accurate information regarding Saddam Hussein’s compliance with the resolutions imposed upon his regime following the Gulf War in 1991. The Duelfer Report has made clear that Hussein’s early efforts were to play hide-and-seek with weapons inspectors, in the belief that the sanctions would not last. By 1996 it seems to have become clear to the dictator that the sanctions were not going to go away as he had thought, so...

NEW YORK (AP) - Interviews with dozens of former and current Iraqi officials by congressional investigators have produced new evidence that Saddam Hussein micro-managed business deals under the U.N. oil-for-food program to maximize political influence with important foreign governments like Russia and neighboring Arab states. The Iraqi officials, who were flown outside of Iraq for their own safety during the interviews, provided a list of foreign companies favored by Saddam and his top lieutenants for import contracts under the U.N. program. They also revealed a parallel blacklist of companies that the then-Iraq leader disqualified from getting deals, investigators told The...

SALT LAKE CITY – The Duelfer report pretty much established that Saddam Hussein didn't have the weapons of mass destruction that US intelligence - and the intelligence agencies of various other countries - calculated he had when President Bush launched the Iraq war last year. The miscalculation was caused in part by Saddam Hussein's own clever shell game, assuring the United Nations that he'd destroyed such weapons while at the same time carrying out a series of deceptions designed to keep enemies such as the US, Israel, and Iran - and even his own generals - guessing that he might...

Connecting the Dots: Saddam Hussein and 9/11 Gregory Borse October 18, 2004 - Let us stipulate that investigators in Iraq, whether under the auspices of the United Nations or the United States, have faced an uphill battle in getting accurate information regarding Saddam Hussein’s compliance with the resolutions imposed upon his regime following the Gulf War in 1991. The Duelfer Report has made clear that Hussein’s early efforts were to play hide-and-seek with weapons inspectors, in the belief that the sanctions would not last. By 1996 it seems to have become clear to the dictator that the sanctions were not...

Oil-for-Food Scandal Key to CIA Report Monday The U.N. Oil-for-Food program — already the subject of federal, congressional and United Nations financial abuse probes — took a fresh hit with an explosive new report that said Saddam Hussein was using the program to fund his ambitions. The report looking into whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — found that Saddam was able to "subvert" the $60 billion U.N. program to generate an estimated $1.7 billion in revenue outside U.N. control from 1997-2003. In light of the report, FOX News presents another hour-long special investigating the biggest financial scam in...

Saturday, October 16, 2004 GEOSTRATEGY-DIRECT INTELLIGENCE BRIEF Duelfer: 'A lot of material left Iraq and went to Syria' Iraq Survey Group head does not rule out Saddam's transfer of WMD -------------------------------------------------- Posted: October 16, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern 2004 WorldNetDaily.com At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Oct. 6, Charles Duelfer, an adviser to the CIA, did not rule out Saddam's transfer of Iraqi missiles and weapons of mass destruction to Syria, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service. Duelfer agreed that a large amount of material had been transferred by Iraq to Syria before the March 2003 war. "A...

NEW YORK — The U.N. Oil-for-Food program — already the subject of federal, congressional and United Nations financial abuse probes — took a fresh hit with an explosive new report that said Saddam Hussein was using the program to fund his ambitions.

Tucked inside the final report of Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, are the makings of a huge scandal that could involve, among many others, the United Nations and at least one of its major bureaucrats, foreign government officials (some of them from countries allied with the United States) and several U.S. companies. So credible, authoritative and disturbing is this evidence that it begs to be investigated, not only by competent U.N. officials, but by Congress and Attorney General John Ashcroft. The chief finding of Duelfer’s report, made public on Oct. 6, was that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq...

Saddam, Syria Colluded Under U.N. Watch By Claudia Rosett Fox News October 14, 2004 For dirty deals done with Saddam Hussein, France and Russia may take the cake — but that's just the beginning. Packed into the Iraq Survey Group report from CIA chief weapons sleuth Charles Duelfer is news that there were some mighty big crumbs for many more countries that loudly defended Saddam during last year's debates at the United Nations. For a taste, take Syria. During the U.N. showdown over Iraq in 2002 and early 2003, Syria held a seat and had a vote on the U.N....

As I was perusing the Duelfer report I found this timeline chart very interesting in understanding what happened when and who did what. And since some may not have seen the report I took the time to make this up. I've bolded a few things but other than that, and my finial addition, this is taken directly from V1 pdf page 435 of the Duelfer report. Please feel free to comment on things noted here or add additional information that fits in this timeline concerning the ramp up to OIF and what Nations in the UN were doing to work...

Would we have gone into Iraq had we known what he know today about the state of Saddam Hussein's programs for the production of weapons of mass destruction? The Bush White House has been unapologetic about its policy, and according to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, speaking on Fox News Channel on Sunday, the answer is "yes." But the point is of course that we didn't know. Saddam Hussein's truly moronic game of deception made it very hard to think otherwise than that he had all sorts of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

A prominent French politician fingered as a recipient of bribes in Iraq's Oil-for-Food scandal insists that he's not guilty of anything — but that other leading French figures might be. "I have never received any gifts from the Iraqi government," said former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, after the CIA's Duelfer report identified him as receiving eleven million barrels of oil in exchange for promoting policies favorable to Iraq. Pasqua then switched to speaking about himself in the third person, Bob Dole-style, and said that others may not be so innocent: "Charles Pasqua is not involved, but maybe other former...

Howard Dean must have been ecstatic as he read the headlines on Oct. 7: "Report Discounts Iraqi Arms Threat" affirmed the Washington Post, while The New York Times, not to be outdone, jubilantly proclaimed that "sanctions worked." The Yale dining halls were abuzz with liberal energy: I could scarcely walk to my table without hearing about "how we had contained Saddam" or how "we never should have invaded Iraq." Democrats were vindicated, Republicans were doomed; with this newfound evidence, John Kerry could "finish Bush off" while the current administration would "lose all remaining credibility." Naturally, I was a bit taken...

DEBATE 2:Bush KOs Kerry (The Lethal Danger of Kerry-Edwards + Old Media)POURQUOI JOHN KERRY EST DANGEREUX POUR L'AMÉRIQUE by Mia T, 10.10.04 (viewing movie requires Flash Player 7, available HERE)  BUSH:[G]oing into Iraq... was the right decision. The Duelfer report confirmed that decision today, because what Saddam Hussein was doing was trying to get rid of sanctions so he could reconstitute a weapons program. And the biggest threat facing America is terrorists with weapons of mass destruction. We knew he hated us. We knew he'd been -- invaded other countries. We knew he tortured his own people.   KERRY:I...

CIA chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer may not have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but he sure found information enough to blow the lid off the simmering scandal of the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. As it turns out, Oil-for-Food pretty much was Saddam Hussein's weapons program. As Duelfer documents, Oil-for-Food allowed Saddam to replenish his empty coffers, firm up his networks for hiding money and buying arms, corrupt the U.N.'s own debates over Iraq, greatly erode sanctions and deliberately prep the ground for further rearming, including the acquisition of nuclear weapons. *************** The report notes that the start...