Inspectors conclude no WMD in Iraq
BBC Online
The group hunting for banned weapons inside post-war Iraq is preparing to report that it has found no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. But the Iraq Survey Group will assert that Saddam Hussein had plans to start producing weapons in defiance of UN sanctions, US officials say. Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer will reveal the findings yesterday. Much of the content of the report has been anticipated since a draft of the report was leaked last month. Duelfer is due to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is expected to confirm that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the US-led invasion began in March 2003. That verdict has been widely anticipated since the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, resigned from his position in January. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the report would show that Saddam Hussein posed a more serious threat than had previously been imagined. Speaking in Baghdad, Straw said "the threat from Saddam Hussein in terms of his intentions" was "even starker than we have seen before". Saddam Hussein would have built up his WMDs had he been left in power, Straw added. His comments were backed by Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barhem Saleh, who said anyone who doubted that Saddam Hussein had WMDs only needed to visit Halabja - where the former Iraq dictator gassed thousands of Kurds. CIA FINDS NO ZARQAWI-SADDAM LINK Meanwhile, a CIA report has found no conclusive evidence that Saddam harbored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which the Bush administration asserted before the invasion of Iraq, according to a Reuter repot. "There's no conclusive evidence the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Zarqawi," a US official said on Tuesday about the CIA findings. But the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, stressed that the report, which was a mix of new information and a look at some older information, did not make any final judgments or come to any definitive conclusions. "To suggest the case is closed on this would not be correct," the official said in confirming an ABC News story about the CIA report that the network said was delivered to the White House last week. ABC quoted an unnamed senior US official as saying that the CIA document raises "serious questions" about Bush administration assertions that Zarqawi found sanctuary in pre-war Baghdad. "The official says there is no clear cut evidence that Saddam Hussein even knew Zarqawi was in Baghdad," ABC reported.
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