U.S. cuts back crew searching for Iraq weapons

Hint that Bush team may no longer hope to find banned arms

Douglas Jehl, New York Times Thursday, January 8, 2004

Washington -- The Bush administration has quietly withdrawn from Iraq a 400-member military team whose job was to scour the country for military equipment, according to senior government officials. The step was described by some military officials as a sign that the administration might have lowered its sights and no longer expected to uncover the caches of chemical and biological weapons that the White House cited as a principal reason for going to war last March.

Just announced. Dozens of shells armed with mustard gas. That's just the tip of the iceberg though. If the rest is not in Syria, it will still be practically impossible to find. It's reckoned that the whole kit would be fit in an ordinary garage. Finding that in a country the size of Iraq was always going to be difficult, without co-operation.