An early draft of an interim report by the American leading the hunt for banned weapons in Iraq says his team has not found any of the unconventional weapons cited by the Bush administration as a principal reason for going to war, federal officials with knowledge of the findings said today.

The long-awaited report by David Kay, the former United Nations weapons inspector who has been leading the American search for illicit weapons, will be the first public assessment of progress in that search since President Bush declared an end to the major combat on May 1.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Kay and his team had not found illicit weapons. They said they believed that Mr. Kay found evidence of precursors and dual-use equipment that could have been used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons.

David Kay's interim report continues to support the fact that this was never a justifiable reason for the aggressive invasion of a sovereign state.

This may not have been but breaking the resolutions we had with Iraq certainly was. I can think of several others, such as the mass graves we found. The rape chambers and the torture/rape chambers for children. This was a disgusting regime and not calling for its deposement is paramount to supporting it. Also, Iraq never held real elections and intimidated it's people through coersion, they were never a sovereign state by any means and should never had been treated like one.

IMO we will find the WMD in the Bakar dessert where I have said they were moved since March. When will we find them? Most likely after we next go after Iran or Syria.

I wouldn't play too much into not finding anything yet, we still have  a lot more work to do, and lest we forget, people were begging UN inspectors for more time, so maybe we should give our inspectors more time.

Yes, people were begging for more time for the UN inspectors, because they were getting cooperation, and when they found the missiles that could go farther than they should, Iraq was destroying them under supervision.

As for the larger issue of whether Iraq had WMD I would point everyone to the following thread. There it is laid out quite clearly that the majority of evidence supports the assertion that Saddam had WMD.

So, the thread:
Do you think Iraq has WMD?

We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.  So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue."

absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...

Been there, and done that Turnea.  All of the evidence there says that he "may" still have had WMD at the time of the original UN withdrawl.  It says nothing about a certain knowledge of said weapons ant the time w removed inspectors in 2003.

All kinds of things may be possible, but the fact is if we can't find them, there's a pretty good chance they aren't there.

In all likelihood Saddam had WMD in 1998 after the second and longest withdrawal of UN weapons inspectors.

As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability -- "we" being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn't account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998.

Clinton admits his "Desert Fox" air strikes didn't target WMD stockpile (which he said were indeed a threat) for fear of spreading the weapons. So we can't use that as an answer to where they went...

According to the Pentagon, 100 locations have been targeted in operation Desert Fox...sites linked to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program, WMD industrial and production facilities,

in all likelyhood saddam had AT BEST 5% of his weapon stocks (including conventional weapons that were banned) this according to scott ritter (you know, the head UNSCOM inspector?)

UNSCOM, the United Nation's Special Commission on Iraq, has steadily revealed the true extent of Saddam Hussein's secret arsenal of mass destruction. But it has been frustrated at every turn.

It has produced evidence that Iraq continues to manufacture and hide chemical and biological weapons. This is the direct cause of the current crisis.

On several occasions Iraq has made a "full, final and complete disclosure" of its weapons programme, only for the UNSCOM experts to find something new...
One such instance occured in June this year when UN weapons inspectors discovered traces of the deadly VX nerve gas on Iraqi missile fragments.

The chief United Nations weapons inspector, Richard Butler, said the unambiguous results were serious because Iraq had always insisted it never weaponsied VX

can you back this statement up with hard fact turnea?

Dr Buckley(a senior official at Britain's Ministry of Defence) said that the targets did not include sites where chemical and biological weapons were being held - only the systems which would have been used to deliver them - because of fears that the chemicals might be released.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/...am.ritter.cnna/[/URL] )

September 25, 2003 | Daily Mislead Archive

President Bush's Inspectors Find No Weapons to Support his Claims about Imminent Threat
A desperate five-month search by a team of 1,400 U. S. investigators reportedly has failed to find any new physical evidence of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, despite President Bush's continuing insistence the weapons not only existed but posed an imminent threat to the United States.1

The failure of the U. S. team, led by Bush appointee David Kay, seriously undermines the integrity of the President's assertion two days prior to the war: "Intelligence gathered...leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."2

Sources:
1. Inquiry Unlikely to Report Finding Iraq Arms, Reuters, 9/24/03, http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;j...F3UJ0CRBAEZSFEY? type=topNews&storyID=3502138
2. Presidential Speech, 3/17/03, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/20...20030317-7.html
3. "U.S. Used 'Old' Data",
4. "Gauging a threat with little data ; Withdrawal of UN inspectors created intelligence vacuum", New York Times, 7/22/03.
5. Defense Agency Issues Excerpt on Iraqi Chemical Warfare Program, State Department, 6/7/03, http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/arms/03060720.htm.
6. Interview of the President by TVP, Poland, 5/29/03, http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

Aviation Week & Space Technology                  September 22, 2003                   Pg. 66
Intel Plus 'Group Think' Equaled Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Iraq

By John J. Hamre

As I reflect on my time as the deputy secretary of Defense, I am often reminded of how isolated I was in that position. I had a fabulous staff. I was never denied anything I requested. Organizations and individuals actively sought to get on my calendar to tell me of their work. Having said that, anyone who serves in these positions is very isolated. This is a product of several factors.

First, the volume of material that comes to the secretary or deputy secretary is enormous. It has to be channeled for efficiency. Someone who works for you is deciding if you need to see it and when you need to see it. This is not a bad thing. This is just a fact of life. Second, everyone who meets with you or sends you a piece of paper is trying to create a positive impression. This means that subconsciously, and even consciously, everyone who briefs you wants to be seen in the best light. Before they walk in the door, they ask their colleagues and themselves, "What is he interested in? What sets him off? How do we discuss this so as to get a constructive outcome from the meeting?"


John J. Hamre, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, was deputy secretary of Defense from 1997-99. He recently testified before the Intelligence Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Personally, I feel we are on this WMD kick but this all comes down to 9-11.  Every times Bush is asked about Iraq he pulls out the 9-11 card.  Iraq was built up to be this terrible threat but in reality they could barely even defend themselves, no airforce, and half of their top military people took bribes to not fight.  Is there WMD out there?...my money is that Kay's report will be inconclusive.  This is just a big conjecture that everyone assumes to be true but all we have is intel to back it up...and intel is only as good as the mouth it came out of.

1. The fact is the justification for this war was said to be WMD. That is why it is a critical issue.

You are %100 percent correct and until we wind them this whole war can never be justified.

Yes... but that doesn't mean that statements that this justification was a fraud are justified either. We have evidence, it points to WMD in Iraq. What we wait for now is final proof.

Fraud?  Perhaps not.  However, just because a wild guess turns out to be correct doesn't mean claims of certainty and proof at the time are anything but dishonest.  Nothing that happens going forward can justify the lie that we had the evidence in our hands at the time.

I think the evidence we had constituted a "reasonable amount" of certainty (somewhere in between more-likely-than-not and beyond-a-reasonable-doubt, closer to the latter) so I think I should amend my statement for clarity. The evidence available before the war gives us a reasonable amount of certainty that Iraq had WMD, what we await now is the elimination of the threat that is present.

The problem is, we had no evidence before the war.  Every claim the Bush administration made doesn't hold up under a critical examination.  Either Bush knew his claims were false or should have known his claims were false.  There isn't one shred of proof that Iraq had WMDs at, or any time near the start of the current war.

Bush lied.  Big surprise. *yawn*

Yes, people were begging for more time for the UN inspectors, because they were getting cooperation, and when they found the missiles that could go farther than they should, Iraq was destroying them under supervision.

The reason we supposedly had to go in right now, was that there were these massive stockpiles of weapons we could see being made in satellite photos! They could be used at any time! We can't wait!

And now it seems that we could have come to the same conclusion at this point, without killing thousands of innocent iraqis and over 600 (and counting) of our own troops. The UN had inspectors in there. We've had inspectors in there, since we began occupying Baghdad. Still no weapons. How much more time do we need? We've had about as much time now as the UN inspectors had before we pulled them and started the "shock and awe" show.

I wish the Administration would just come out and tell us that they lied, or at least mislead us to get in there. I still wouldn't like it, but at least I could respect it. Yes, Saddam was evil incarnate. Yes, what he was doing to his own people is despicable. But, that was not what this war was sold on, all revisionist history writing to the contrary.

http://www.channel4.com/news/2003/09/week_4/24_iraq.html

There is some more information on the Internim Report and lets just say that for me, it shows that american foriegn policy is going to be mistrusted because Administration used faulty information to start a war with another nation.  And when it was asked to prove the allegations it gave little to nothing in terms of solid evidence. 

This is just another strike at American Believablity.

Monty

This as I've said before in this thread, "is an anonymous quote about an interim report that hasn't come out yet" I think it's a bit premature to America's credibility is permanently damaged. Especially considering that most of the evidence point to the fact that Iraq did, in fact, have WMD.


...and a great big WELCOME to the forum....

The interim report will not be given to the public, but will be seen by high-ranking officials in the administration and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

so we will never know the truth, besides if they found something Bush and his adminstration would be showing it on every news station and in papers so that they could justify the war. Which in fact they have not enough said.

I never said the democrates will never see it, rather that it will be only viewed by our government period. Meaning not the general public, as well as i did not state that it was stated in the link from fox news so get your facts straight.

so we will never know the truth

I am in agreement with the Time article when it states that the lack of discovery of WMD in the months following the war is an embarassment to the President and a disaster for Blair. They were badly fooled by the nutcase in Baghdad-a bigger nutcase than anyone imagined.

Iraq's WMD programs spanned more than two decades, involved thousands of people, billions of dollars, and were elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

We have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone.

We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these concealment efforts, some of which I will elaborate on later: 
 
    * A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research. 
 
    * A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN. 
 
    * Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons. 
 
    * New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN. 
 
    * Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS). 
 
    * A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of  500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit. 
 
    * Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN. 
 
    * Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi. 
 
    * Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment. 

Debriefings of IIS officials and site visits have begun to unravel a clandestine network of laboratories and facilities within the security service apparatus. This network was never declared to the UN and was previously unknown. We are still working on determining the extent to which this network was tied to large-scale military efforts or BW terror weapons, but this clandestine capability was suitable for preserving BW expertise, BW capable facilities and continuing R&D - all key elements for maintaining a capability for resuming BW production.

One noteworthy example is a collection of reference strains that ought to have been declared to the UN. Among them was a vial of live C. botulinum Okra B. from which a biological agent can be produced. This discovery - hidden in the home of a BW scientist - illustrates the point I made earlier about the difficulty of locating small stocks of material that can be used to covertly surge production of deadly weapons. The scientist who concealed the vials containing this agent  has identified a large cache of agents that he was asked, but refused, to conceal. ISG is actively searching for this second cache.

We have also acquired information related to Iraq's CW doctrine and Iraq's war plans for OIF, but we have not yet found evidence to confirm pre-war reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against Coalition forces.

With regard to delivery systems, the ISG team has discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements that would have, if OIF had not occurred, dramatically breached UN restrictions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. 
 
Detainees and co-operative sources indicate that beginning in 2000 Saddam ordered the development of ballistic missiles with ranges of at least 400km and up to 1000km and that measures to conceal these projects from UNMOVIC were initiated in late-2002, ahead of the arrival of inspectors. Work was also underway for a clustered engine liquid propellant missile, and it appears the work had progressed to a point to support initial prototype production of some parts and assemblies. According to a cooperating senior detainee, Saddam concluded that the proposals from both the liquid-propellant and solid-propellant missile design centers would take too long. For instance, the liquid-propellant missile project team forecast first delivery in six years. Saddam countered in 2000 that he wanted the missile designed and built inside of six months. On the other hand several sources contend that Saddam's range requirements for the missiles grew from 400-500km in 2000 to 600-1000km in 2002.

I remind you that UNSCOM had been finding plenty until they were withdrawn why assume that they are gone now?
More on that: here.
and welcome to the site  

That's to say, yes there were active programs at the time of invasion.

BAGHDAD and AMMAN - Chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix knew it. Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter knew it. French, German and Russian intelligence knew it. Sultan Hashim Ahmad - Iraq's former minister of defense, now safe after a cosy deal with the Americans - knew it. In 1995, Hussein Kamel, married to one of Saddam Hussein's daughters and the man in charge of it all, knew it. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley and the MI6 in London knew it. Saddam's regime was not lying when it claimed that it had destroyed all its WMD after the 1991 Gulf War. Whatever the spin, the fact of the matter is that now there's conclusive proof that both US President George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair lied about the reason for invading Iraq.

As it was widely reported at the time, on the night of August 7, 1995, General Hussein Kamel, former director of Iraq's Military Industrialization Corp - the organism in charge of Iraq's weapons program - defected to Jordan, along with his brother, Colonel Saddam Kamel. Hussein Kamel managed to smuggle tons of documents with him with priceless information about different Iraqi weapons programs. A few days later, Saddam's regime went on the offensive, presenting another set of documents showing that Iraq had conducted an aborted crash program to develop a nuclear bomb. A few months later, Hussein and Saddam Kamel made the biggest mistake of their lives. Following family pleas and giving credence to assurances from Baghdad, they returned to Iraq in early 1996, and were inevitably killed by Saddam's secret services

....

The key document - shown to Asia Times Online by a Jordanian intelligence source - is in the form of an internal UNSCOM/IAEA report classified as "sensitive". On page 13 of what is the transcript of the UNSCOM/IAEA interview with Hussein Kamel, he categorically says, "I ordered the destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed." He also says that "not a single missile was left, but they had blueprints and molds for production. All missiles were destroyed."

It seems you actually believe that Iraq didn't have WMD... 

Has a nuke been found? no. have components to acquire that power been found yes. so the nitpicking WILL continue. anti-war sentiments will see the glass as half empty. pro-war sentiments will run to half full. Either way, the ISG's job is not done.

NOT scott ritter who, it was found, had received $400,000 from Uday Hussein for his favorable (to the Husseins) interviews. He was also charged with pedophilia via the internet. He is NOT a credible spokesperson

Ritter said the documentary, ''In Shifting Sands: The Truth About UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq,'' cost dlrs 530,000 to make and he is looking for buyers. The Iraqi-American businessman Shakir Khafaji of Detroit provided dlrs 400,000, Ritter provided dlrs 80,000, and the production is dlrs 50,000 in debt, he said.

and I remind you scott ritter said 90-95% of saddams weapons had been CONFIRMED destroyed. why assume they are gone: because, after a few years, that stuff (anthrax, botox, sarin, etc...) start to break done and turn into useless sludge. add into the eqaution the possibility clinton's missile strikes might have hit the weapons sites, which MAY HAVE destroyed the other 5-10% ritter and his teams didn't hit.

With all due respect to Mr. Ritter (I not sure how much that is, so that oughta cover it...) his analysis ignores one little (big) problem. How exactly can he make these percentage estimates when inspectors never knew what Saddam really had. As the following BBC link shows, inspectors were always getting new "final reports from" Saddam and every time something new turned up (Saddam:VX?! What VX?)

Frustrated at Every Turn
One can hardly expect to make accurate percentage estimates when you really don't know how much "100%" is to begin with...

the question wasn't that Iraq had PROGRAMS, bush and blair asserted that saddam had WEAPONS and they were capable of using them in 45 minutes. never mind that blix's team were granted access to anyplace they showed up, not giving Iraq time to hide ANYTHING. bush and co. are now grasping at straws.

The key document - shown to Asia Times Online by a Jordanian intelligence source - is in the form of an internal UNSCOM/IAEA report classified as "sensitive". On page 13 of what is the transcript of the UNSCOM/IAEA interview with Hussein Kamel, he categorically says, "I ordered the destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed." He also says that "not a single missile was left, but they had blueprints and molds for production. All missiles were destroyed."

so the nitpicking WILL continue. anti-war sentiments will see the glass as half empty. pro-war sentiments will run to half full.

Aren't rumors wonderful?

Rickmanx

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these components throughout Iraq. I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measure the months, reconstitute chemical biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program.

The report has come out and only someone who desperately wants to believe President Bush was lying will continue to nitpick. I'm satisfied we made the right choice to go in now and not give Saddam a chance to come up with WMDs. It's apparent that the inspectors will be in Iraq longer than our troops will.

It is impossible to prove something is not there or does not exist.

Correspondent Scott Pelley has an interview with Greg Thielmann, a former expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Thielmann, a foreign-service officer for 25 years, now says that key evidence in the speech was misrepresented and the public was deceived.

Thielmann's last job at the State Department was director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs, which was responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Secretary Powell. He and his staff had the highest security clearances, and everything – whether it came into the CIA or the Defense Department – came through his office.

Thielmann was admired at the State Department. One high-ranking official called him honorable, knowledgeable, and very experienced.

On Feb. 5, 2003, Secretary Powell presented evidence against Saddam to the U.N., and the speech represented a change in Powell’s thinking. Before 9/11, he said Saddam had “not developed any significant capability in weapons of mass destruction.” But two years later, he warned that Saddam had stockpiled those very weapons.

At the time of Powell's speech, Thielmann says that Iraq didn't pose an imminent threat to anyone: “I think it didn't even constitute an imminent threat to its neighbors at the time we went to war.”

But Thielmann also says that he believes the decision to go to war was made first, and then the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion. For example, he points to the evidence behind Powell’s charge that Iraq was importing aluminum tubes to use in a program to build nuclear weapons.

Intelligence agents intercepted the tubes in 2001, and the CIA said they were parts for a centrifuge to enrich uranium - fuel for an atom bomb. But Thielmann wasn’t so sure. Experts at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the scientists who enriched uranium for American bombs, advised that the tubes were all wrong for a bomb program. At about the same time, Thielmann’s office was working on another explanation. It turned out the tubes' dimensions perfectly matched an Iraqi conventional rocket.

Thielmann says the nuclear case was filled with half-truths. So why would the Secretary take the information that Thielmann’s intelligence bureau had developed and turn it on its head?

“I can only assume that he was doing it to loyally support the President of the United States and build the strongest possible case for arguing that there was no alternative to the use of military force,” says Thielmann.

After the war, the White House said the African uranium claim was false and shouldn’t have been in the address. But at the time, it was part of a campaign that painted the intelligence as irrefutable.

But if there was no doubt in public, Thielmann says there was plenty of doubt in the intelligence community. He says the administration took murky information out of the gray area and made it black and white.

Satellite photos were also notoriously misleading, according to Steve Allinson, a U.N. inspector in Iraq in the months leading up to war.

Was there ever a time when American satellite intelligence provided Allinson with something that was truly useful?

“No. No, not to me. Not on inspections that I participated in,” says Allinson, whose team was sent to find decontamination vehicles that turned out to be fire trucks.

Another time, a satellite spotted what they thought were trucks used for biological weapons.

“We were told we were going to the site to look for refrigerated trucks specifically linked to biological agents,” says Allinson. “We found 7 or 8 of them I think in total. And they had cobwebs in them. Some samples were taken and nothing was found.”

Thielmann's last job at the State Department was director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs....He and his staff had the highest security clearances