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Draft report said to cite no success in Iraq arms hunt

WASHINGTON � 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 major combat on May 1.

Mr. Kay's team has spent nearly four months searching suspected sites and interviewing Iraqi scientists believed to have knowledge about the country's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

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 had found evidence of precursors and dual-use equipment that could have been used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons.

They also said that Mr. Kay's team had interviewed at least one Iraqi security officer who said he had worked in such a chemical and biological weapons program until shortly before the American invasion in March.

Sections of the interim report by Mr. Kay are expected to be made public later this month. A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, Bill Harlow, said in a statement today that Mr. Kay was still receiving information from the field and that his progress report would not "rule anything in or out."

The administration's inability to uncover evidence of banned weapons has prompted increasing criticism from Capitol Hill. Until now, administration officials had insisted that they did not know what Mr. Kay's report might conclude. The effort by the C.I.A. today to emphasize the interim nature of any document seemed intended to minimize political fallout from his findings.

The failure to find banned weapons has been cited by Democratic presidential candidates and other critics of the war as evidence that the administration exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq to secure public support for toppling the government in Baghdad, a course that some of Mr. Bush's deputies had long promoted.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Harlow said that Mr. Kay's report was still being drafted and that it would be premature to describe any draft as reflecting even interim conclusions. Mr. Kay reports to George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and oversees the Iraq Survey Group, an organization made up of about 1,400 American and British weapons experts, security teams and support personnel.

Mr. Kay returned to the United States from Iraq about a week ago, government officials said, and is working from an office at C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia.

The details of Mr. Kay's findings have been closely held within the administration as part of a strategy that officials said was intended both to prevent unauthorized leaks and to minimize internal disputes about any emerging findings. Issues related to the Iraqi weapons program have been contentious inside the administration as well as outside, with the State Department's intelligence branch and some officials at the Defense Intelligence Agency taking issue with a report made public in May by the C.I.A. that said mysterious trailers discovered in Iraq were used to manufacture biological weapons.

Mr. Bush, who said at the time that the discovery of the trailers meant that the administration had found illicit weapons in Iraq, has not repeated such statements in recent months. But in a recent television interview, Vice President Dick Cheney called the trailers "mobile biological facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing the capacity for an attack."

In early June, American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence disputed claims that the trailers were used for making deadly germs. They said in interviews with The New York Times that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment.

As recently as Monday, Mr. Bush said he believed that Saddam Hussein buried or dispersed his stockpiles of illicit weapons before the United States mounted its invasion in March. But Mr. Bush said it would take Mr. Kay "a while" to uncover the truth about what happened to them.

People who have been hunting for weapons in Iraq have said that Mr. Kay has been frustrated over the lack of progress in the search, initially over problems involving coordination with military commanders charged in some cases with detaining the very Iraqis whose cooperation Mr. Kay's team was seeking.

Those problems have been largely resolved, the weapons hunters said, but Mr. Kay has still found it difficult in recent weeks to investigate leads that seemed worth pursuing, in part because the unstable security situation in Iraq has made it difficult for his teams to travel to some areas.

Iraq acknowledged having stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons after the Persian Gulf war of 1991 but maintained that it destroyed all such weapons after that conflict, a position that Iraqi officials in American custody are said to have reiterated in recent interrogations.

In a formal National Intelligence Estimate last October, the C.I.A. and the rest of the American intelligence community concluded that "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons" and that "if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade." That general view was shared at the time by the United Nations and most foreign governments but support for the position has been eroded by the American failure to discover the weapons in Iraq.

A United Nations inspection team headed by the Swedish diplomat Hans Blix said in June that Iraq had never accounted for weapons and materials it claimed to have destroyed. But Mr. Blix said in more recent interviews that he now believes that Iraq destroyed its banned weapons long before the United States mounted its invasion in March.

Addressing the United Nations on Tuesday, Mr. Bush showed no sign of backing away from the administration's view that the Iraqi claims were not credible. At the White House on Monday, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said that at the time of the war there had been "nobody who knew anything about Iraq who believed that Saddam Hussein had destroyed all of his weapons of mass destruction."

"I think we will find that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction can be accounted for and we'll know the truth," Ms. Rice said, but she added: "David Kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time."

Douglas Jehl and Judith Miller, The New York Times

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Originally posted by Jay the Obscure:
It's going to take a long, long, long time to find those weapons that were such a immediate threat.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lee:
Keep the faith, Robert.

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"We will bury you."
 

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
 
So far, the only burying being done involves your WMD theories.

"...but I don't think anybody truly believes that the actual report will say they found weapons of mass destruction"

Are you kidding? If they had, that report would be WAY past first draft stage by now.
 

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Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
 
Bush administration WMD hypnosis regimen:

"Look deep into my eyes.

You are getting sleepy.

We have found the two trailers of death. We have found the two trailers of death.

Saddam was clearly a bad, bad person. He could have used those trailers on us with only 45 minutes notice.

Programs are WMDs.

You must listen to and believe only us.

Now, cluck like a chicken."
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
Deployable within 45 min. of the order being given. Ready to be used within 45 min. of the order being given. Its in the British report.
 

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
 
Ah yes, the report that was livened up by Blair's spin doctors. Because in ACTUAL TRUTH an Iraqi officer had told MI6 that Saddam was capable of contacting his regional commanders about the deployment of WEAPON SYSTEMS within 45 minutes of an attack, NOT that there were WMDs ready to be used. Do check your sources (like, oh, the Hutton Inquiry) once in a while.
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Yes, it is, isn't it? Now go away - preferably for good, but if you do feel it's necessary to come back - and read the procedings of the Hutton Enquiry.

http://www.the-hutton-inquiry.org.uk/
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
The wording of this entry escapes you. "Ready to be Deployed within 45min. of the order being given". "Ready".
How long would it take to pick up a phone and contact a ready and waiting field commander in the event of an attack? 45min. is a long time under those conditions.
That was of course before the Iraqi Government Chickened out

After that they tried to destroy as much evidence as they could.

Where exactly did the traces of weapons grade uranium come from that were found in Iran?
Where did Saddam sent his usless but expensive Russian built fighters for safe keeping during the last war? Iran.
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Well, I know that last time I refenced Sneakers no-one remembered the film, but. . .

quote:

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Mother: Were you still in C.I.A. in '72?
Donald Crease: Yeah, why?
Mother: Did you know the Deputy Director of Planning was down in Managua, Nicaragua the day before the earthquake?
Donald Crease: Now what are you saying, the C.I.A. caused the Managua earthquake?
Mother: Well, I can't prove it, but...

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
Another reference to an obscure film. David Kelly said he never made the statements attributed to him. And now the BBC is backing off on some of their claims. Any comments on that.
 

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Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
 
I've seen Sneakers. It's not very obscure. After all, it has Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier, and James Earl Jones in it, among others. It was also directed by Phil Alden Robinson, who did the movies Clear and Present Danger, The Sum of All Fears, and Rabbit Proof Fence, among others.

But this thread is not a debate about what films are obscure. It is a debate about WMD. It should not turn into another shouting match between MM & other members that will get it closed down by CC.
 

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Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
 
As for Iran--Saddam did a pretty dumb thing giving his planes to them in '91. They kept them, in fact, at least for a while.
But that incident does not mean Saddam gave Iran his WMD's simply because inspectors found enriched uranium at an Iranian nuclear site. No, that just means Iran developed it on their own.
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
Yet Iran claims the traces of enriched uranium were there because the equipment they bought second hand from an unnamed source were contaminated. The BBCs Apology for Giligans actions should be some indication that all is not right.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
They hired someone named "Giligan"?
Yeah, something's definitely not right.
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
Yeah I thought that was kind of funny to. This Gilligan character apparently made up alot of this stuff himself and then let everyone think that Kelly told it to him. The BBC has begun to distance itself from him and the whole deal is caving in. Damn shame about Kelly. He did nothing wrong and caught all the heat because Gilligan wanted to sell a story. http://www.guardian.co.uk./hutton/story/0,13822,1049622,00.html

[ September 27, 2003, 07:39 PM: Message edited by: Mountain Man ]
 

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Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
 
To quote Sneakers: "I can't talk to this guy anymore."

Not you, MM.
 

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Posted by Mountain Man (Member # 1114) on :
 
Actualy I saw the Movie Sneakers I was not impressed,at least not to the extent some aparently were.
I would link you all to some very enlightening info on the Hutton inquiry but it would be a waste of time. The TV movie will hold your interest much better. It could be on the Fox Channel by Christmas.
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 

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I would link you all to some very enlightening info on the Hutton inquiry but it would be a waste of time.

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Where did Saddam sent his usless but expensive Russian built fighters for safe keeping during the last war? Iran.

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Lets not start Trolling Again

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Look up the information yourself if you like. If not just wait for the mini-series.

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Now,Now. Lets not start Trolling Again Dr. Bashir,excuse me "Lee" if that is your real name.

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• The use of pseudonyms and the subject of trolling was brought up awhile back by several of the most vocal of the anti-american members here.
• I assume this tactic has been developed over the years to shout down anti-communist and pro-American members.
• In my oppinion the trolling phenomenon is one that certain left wing types have created for their own purposes.
• That of course is my oppinion from the behavior I've seen here and from having read a few webpages about it lately. Since it has never been mentioned in any other forum that I have visited.
• The Anti-Trolling Trolling that another member mentioned in relation to Lees attitude shows that he has trolled before while giving the appearrance of being anti-troll.
• Strange case but not completely unexpected.
  And not something that Lee is the only party to here.
• Look to your own behavior before casting stones in a glass house.

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Originally posted by Veers:
Very soon, one of these WMD threads will be closed down...

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Originally posted by Mountain Man:

If not for sly remarks and insults directed towards me this thread would have drawn little or no interest at all.

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Mr Gilligan was in some respects a great journalist in terms of gathering information but he lacked "nuance and subtlety" in the way the information was presented, said Mr Sambrook (BBC director of news)

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Not quite the same as lying, is it? Just repeating something over and over will not make it true. Although i suppose their all commies are they? No doubt there'll be something on the web that you've read but won't link to as we wouldn't appreciate it.
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Boy, I hate to think what Mountain Troll will make of my surname. . . He'll think I'm involved in it all somehow! I must be! I have the same name as the scientist, I'm a left-wing communist anti-American, and my accent clearly indicates I'm bisexual.

Of course, I shouldn't be making such jokes given how literally Cunting Man takes everything. You'd think he'd have put the word 'sarcasm' into whatever magical search engine he uses to find all these links we don't deserve to see. I wonder what other little biographical details I can put into my posts for him to pick up on and exploit? Ah, fuck it, I'll let the little shit do a search here and see what he can find. 8)
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
But...you name is "Lee"!
Surely a Son O' The South such as yourself needs to hear all about Tenn. possibly not being a confederate state or some fuckin' thing....
 

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Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
 
Tennessee wasn't Confederate?! You surprise me. I'd have thought it would be. . . 8)
 

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Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
 
*sigh*

Bye.
 

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