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U.S. Hunt for Iraqi Banned Weapons Slows

Mon Jun 9, 5:40 PM ET




By DAFNA LINZER, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. military units assigned to track down Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have run out of places to look and are getting time off or being assigned to other duties, even as pressure mounts on President Bush (news - web sites) to explain why no banned arms have been found.

After nearly three months of fruitless searches, weapons hunters say they are now waiting for a large team of Pentagon (news - web sites) intelligence experts to take over the effort, relying more on leads from interviews and documents.

"It doesn't appear there are any more targets at this time," said Lt. Col. Keith Harrington, whose team has been cut by more than 30 percent. "We're hanging around with no missions in the foreseeable future."

Over the past week, his and several other teams have been taken off assignment completely. Rather than visit suspected weapons sites, they are brushing up on target practice and catching up on letters home.

Of the seven Site Survey Teams charged with carrying out the search, only two have assignments for the coming week — but not at suspected weapons sites.

Lt. Col. Ronald Haan, who runs team 6, is using the time to run his troops through a training exercise.

"At least it's keeping the guys busy," he said.

The slowdown comes after checks of more than 230 sites — drawn from a master intelligence list compiled before the war — turned up none of the chemical or biological weapons the Bush administration said it went after Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) to destroy.

Still, President Bush insisted Monday that Baghdad had a program to make weapons of mass destruction. "Intelligence throughout the decade shows they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced that with time, we'll find out they did have a weapons program," he said.

The Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said work will resume at a brisk pace once its 1,300-person Iraq (news - web sites) Survey Group takes over.

Ahead of the war, planners were so certain of the intelligence that the weapons teams were designed simply to secure chemical and biological weapons rather than investigate their whereabouts, as U.N. inspectors had done.

But without evidence of weapons, the CIA (news - web sites) and other intelligence agencies have begun reviewing the accuracy of information they supplied to the administration before the March invasion of Iraq. Government inquiries are being set up in Washington, London and other coalition countries to examine how possibly flawed intelligence might have influenced the decision for war.

"The smoking guns just weren't lying out in the open," said David Gai, spokesman for the Iraq Survey Group. "There's a lot more detective work that needs to be done."

The group will work more along the model of U.N. weapons inspectors.

Future sites in the search will be compiled from intelligence gathered in the field, and the teams will be reconfigured to include more civilian scientists and engineers, Gai said.

Several former U.N. inspectors from the United States, Britain and Australia, who know many of Iraq's top weapons experts, will also be brought in.

Led by Keith Dayton, a two-star general from Defense intelligence, the Iraq Survey Group is settling into headquarters in Qatar rather than Iraq. However, it will maintain a large presence of analysts and experts on the same palace grounds outside Baghdad where the weapons hunters are based.

Several dozen staffers have moved to the palace and into other buildings, now being turned into classified document centers, living quarters and office space for the Iraq Survey Group.

With prewar intelligence exhausted and senior figures from the former regime insisting Iraq hasn't had chemical or biological weapons in years, Dayton's staff will be starting from scratch.

"We've interviewed a fraction of the people who were involved. We've gone to a fraction of the sites. We've gone through a fraction of thousands and thousands and thousands of documents about this program," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said Sunday.

Intelligence agents and weapons hunters have been speaking with scientists and experts for the past month, but those interviews have not led the teams to any illegal weapons and none of the tips provided by Iraqis have panned out.

U.N. inspectors spent years learning the names and faces of the Iraqi weapons programs. But in postwar Iraq, the Bush administration cut the organization out of the hunt because of recent assessments that conflicted with Washington's portrayal of Saddam's weapons.

Relations soured further amid reports that U.S. troops failed to secure Iraq's largest nuclear facility from looters.

This week, a U.N. nuclear team returned to Iraq to survey the damage at Tuwaitha — where 2 tons of uranium had been stored for more than a decade. They began scanning the facility and its equipment for leaking radiation and signs of missing uranium.

One weapons team, specializing in nuclear materials, has been tasked to accompany the U.N. experts until they leave on June 25.

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“The issue isn't whether or not they can find WMDs or a "WMD program". The issue is and always was, whether Bush actually had proof of Iraqi WMDs at the time he claimed he did. And the fact is, that he did not. Bush LIED TO THE WORLD TO START A WAR. There can be no greater crime by a head-of-state than an unjust war. Bush has committed the exact same crime against Iraq that Hitler committed against Poland, manufacturing a fake threat as a pretext for conquest. Do you want history to recall that you stood silently by while that happened?”



I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction. -- Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman March 23, 2003

U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction. -- Condoleeza Rice May 12, 2003

You conspiracy kooks will love this one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26671-2003Jun6.html

Because if Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are lying, they're not alone. They're part of a vast conspiratorial network of liars that includes U.N. weapons inspectors and reputable arms control experts both inside and outside government, both Republicans and Democrats.

Maybe former CIA director John Deutch was lying when he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Sept. 19, 1996, that "we believe that [Hussein] retains an undetermined quantity of chemical and biological agents that he would certainly have the ability to deliver against adversaries by aircraft or artillery or by Scud missile systems."

Maybe former defense secretary William Cohen was lying in April when he said, "I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. . . . I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out."

Maybe the German intelligence service was lying when it reported in 2001 that Hussein might be three years away from being able to build three nuclear weapons and that by 2005 Iraq would have a missile with sufficient range to reach Europe.

Maybe French President Jacques Chirac was lying when he declared in February that there were probably weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that "we have to find and destroy them."

Maybe Al Gore was lying when he declared last September, based on what he learned as vice president, that Hussein had "stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Finally, there's former president Bill Clinton. In a February 1998 speech, Clinton described Iraq's "offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs." Clinton accurately reported the view of U.N. weapons inspectors "that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons." That was as unequivocal and unqualified a statement as any made by George W. Bush.

Clinton went on to insist, in words now poignant, that the world had to address the "kind of threat Iraq poses . . . a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists . . . who travel the world among us unnoticed." I think Bush said that, too.

So if you like a good conspiracy, this one's a doozy. And the best thing about it is that if all these people are lying, there's only one person who ever told the truth: Saddam Hussein. And now we can't find him either.

------------

Gee, Al Gore wouldn't lie, would he?

The question is not what Al Gore knew the question is what Gee Duhbya knew. And the evidence is mounting that he had no credible evidence of WMDs® (2001 The White House) before launching his War of Conquest.

The C.I.A. didn't think so.

The D.I.A. didn't think so.

The Weapons Inspectors didn't think so.

If Bush had credible evidence, which he said he had and was required to certify before the condition in the authorization was met, then he should have been able to order someone to take the in-bedded Presstitutes right up to the Sites. He did not and cannot. He lied.

BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED. It really is that simple.

DID I SAY THAT?

A Plot to Deceive?

by daveman Tuesday June 10, 2003 12:35 PM

You conspiracy kooks will love this one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26671-2003Jun6.html

Because if Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are lying, they're not alone. They're part of a vast conspiratorial network of liars that includes U.N. weapons inspectors and reputable arms control experts both inside and outside government, both Republicans and Democrats.

Maybe former CIA director John Deutch was lying when he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Sept. 19, 1996, that "we believe that [Hussein] retains an undetermined quantity of chemical and biological agents that he would certainly have the ability to deliver against adversaries by aircraft or artillery or by Scud missile systems."

Maybe former defense secretary William Cohen was lying in April when he said, "I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. . . . I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out."

Maybe the German intelligence service was lying when it reported in 2001 that Hussein might be three years away from being able to build three nuclear weapons and that by 2005 Iraq would have a missile with sufficient range to reach Europe.

Maybe French President Jacques Chirac was lying when he declared in February that there were probably weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that "we have to find and destroy them."

Maybe Al Gore was lying when he declared last September, based on what he learned as vice president, that Hussein had "stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Finally, there's former president Bill Clinton. In a February 1998 speech, Clinton described Iraq's "offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs." Clinton accurately reported the view of U.N. weapons inspectors "that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons." That was as unequivocal and unqualified a statement as any made by George W. Bush.

Clinton went on to insist, in words now poignant, that the world had to address the "kind of threat Iraq poses . . . a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists . . . who travel the world among us unnoticed." I think Bush said that, too.

So if you like a good conspiracy, this one's a doozy. And the best thing about it is that if all these people are lying, there's only one person who ever told the truth: Saddam Hussein. And now we can't find him either.

------------

Gee, Al Gore wouldn't lie, would he?

You must have had fun, going through the archives.

Did you spray spittle on your monitor in your apoplectic rage?

Hee hee!

you are a fool.

YES THEY ALL WERE CAUGHT LYING!!

HA

Eliminate Computers N.L.A.

Sure.

ALL those people, from different governments and political philosophies, all got together over coffee and made the story up.

Riiiiiiiight.

You ever hear of Occam's Razor? "The simplest solution is usually the correct one."

Saddam had 'em.

Period.

On July 8, 1996, Richard Perle, now the Chairman of the Defense

Policy Board, an advisory group that reports to Deputy Defense

Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, presented a written document to

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spelling out a new

Israeli foreign policy, calling for a repudiation of the Oslo

Accords and the underlying concept of "land for peace";

for the permanent annexation of the entire West Bank

and Gaza Strip; and for the elimination of the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad, as a first step towards overthrowing or destabilizing

the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

The document was prepared for the Jerusalem and Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), a think tank financed by Richard Mellon-Scaife.



The report, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing

the Realm," was co-authored by Perle; Douglas Feith,

currently the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy;

David Wurmser, currently special assistant to State Department

chief arms control negotiator John Bolton; and Meyrav Wurmser,

now director of Mideast Policy at the Hudson Institute.

Two days after he received the foreign policy blueprint

from Perle, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu

delivered a speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress,

which strongly echoed the IASPS outline.

The same day, the Wall Street Journal published excerpts

from the IASPS document, and the next day, July 11, 1996,

the Journal editorially endorsed the Perle document.

Beginning in February 1998, the British government

of Prime Minister Tony Blair launched a concerted effort,

in league with the Netanyahu government in Israel,

and the Perle Israeli agent-of-influence networks

inside the United States, to induce President William Clinton

to launch a war against Iraq, under precisely the terms

spelled out for Netanyahu in the "Clean Break" paper.

The war was to be launched, ostensibly, over Iraq's possession of

"weapons of mass destruction."

United Nations weapons inspectors were, at this time, still on the ground inside Iraq.

To buttress the war drive, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook

issued an official lying "white paper" on the Iraqi drive to obtain WMD.

On Feb. 19, 1998, Richard Perle and former Congressman Stephen Solarz released an "Open Letter to the President," demanding a full-scale U.S.-led drive for "regime change" in Baghdad.

The dangerously incompetent military scheme for the overthrow

of Saddam that was published in the Open Letter, has been recently revived by the Perle-led network of "chickenhawks" in the office of Secretary of Defense —but has been summarily rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Among the signators on the original Perle-Solarz letter

were the following current Bush Administration officials:

Elliott Abrams (National Security Council),

Richard Armitage (State Department),

John Bolton (State Department),

Doug Feith (Defense Department),

Fred Ikle (Defense Policy Board),

Zalmay Khalilzad (White House),

Peter Rodman (Defense Department),

Donald Rumsfeld (Secretary of Defense),

Paul Wolfowitz (Defense Department),

David Wurmser (State Department),

and Dov Zakheim (Defense Department).

President Clinton rejected the February 1998 demand for war, sending both Netanyahu and Blair into fits of rage.

On Aug. 6, 1998, Angelo Codevilla, the Washington, D.C.

co-director of IASPS (along with David Wurmser), penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, demanding the freeing of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

Codevilla argued that Pollard had been right

to pass U.S. classified material to Israel,

because of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Days later, two members of the Netanyahu cabinet

contacted Vice President Al Gore, demanding Pollard's release.

After again rejecting the Netanyahu and Blair demands for war

on Iraq in November 1998, President Clinton

—under the impeachment onslaught, led by the Mellon-Scaife-funded apparatus—

finally caved in and authorized Operation Desert Fox

in December 1998, as he was returning on Air Force One

from a visit to Israel. But the 70 days of bombardment

did not eliminate the Saddam Hussein regime,

and the issue remained dormant for the next three years ... until Sept. 11, 2001.

Within moments of the 9/11 attack on Washington and New York,

the same Pollard-linked American networks who had designed

the Netanyahu foreign policy were on the warpath,

demanding that President Bush go to war against Iraq,

despite the fact that, to this day,

there is no plausible evidence linking Iraq

to the September 2001 irregular warfare attacks.

The Sharon government in Israel instantly declared

that the attack had been ordered by Saddam Hussein,

and called for massive retaliation against Baghdad.

On Sept. 22, 2001, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz

made a feverish pitch for war on Iraq

at a Camp David meeting with President Bush

and most of the Cabinet.

Wolfowitz had been brought into the inner circle

of George W. Bush a year before the 2000 Presidential elections,

at the initiative of former Secretary of State George Shultz.

By 1999, Wolfowitz and Condi Rice had become co-responsible

for pulling together the Bush campaign foreign policy and

national security team, which Ms. Rice dubbed "The Vulcans."

Wolfowitz immediately brought "X Committee"

Israeli agent-of-influence Richard Perle into the inner sanctum,

from where he has been peddling

the Netanyahu-Israeli foreign policy agenda from day one.

Perle most recently staged the July 10, 2002

Defense Policy Board session,

which demanded the purging of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

of all opponents of the Iraq war,

and called for a U.S. military occupation and takeover

of the Saudi oil fields and a total break with the House of Saud

—just as his July 1996 IASPS "Clean Break" study had proposed.

This is but the briefest of summaries

of the massive evidence in hand.

The current campaign to induce President Bush

and the U.S. Congress into a war with Iraq,

one that would surely unleash the "Clash of Civilizations,"

is a direct continuation of the Pollard affair.

President Bush is being pressured

—from inside his own national security apparatus—

to adopt an Israeli Likud foreign policy!

What nation is dictating policy to the United States?

This is a scandalous hoax,

far worse than the Gulf of Tonkin affair of the late 1960s.

From the point that Perle, Feith, the Wurmsers, et al.

first delivered the "Clean Break" policy to Netanyahu,

this crowd has been obsessed with inducing the United States

government to adopt and implement it. All prior efforts failed,

until Sept. 11, 2001 created a new context for reviving

and pushing it—under the guise of the "war on terrorism."

Does this raise questions about the true, mysterious authors

of the 9/11 attack? What are the links between the events of

Sept. 11 and the subsequent unabated drive for war against Iraq?

From Perle and Feith, to others pressing the Netanyahu scheme

from outside the Administration—including Frank Gaffney,

Steven Bryen, and Michael Ledeen—the entire crew were among

the leading suspected Israeli spies, tasking Jonathan Pollard

to steal the most precious national security secrets

of the U.S.A., from inside the Reagan-Bush national security apparatus.

They avoided prosecution, and later emerged as "The Vulcans,"

assigned to "teach" President Bush the ins and outs

of foreign and national security policy.