No evidence Hussein transferred weapons to al-Qaeda
November 17, 2003
The CIA has found no evidence that toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
tried to transfer chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction to
al-Qaeda or other groups, the Washington Post reported yesterday, citing a
military and intelligence expert.
Details about the results of the weapons investigation were released in a
report by Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies, based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq
from David Kay, the CIA adviser who is directing the search for
unconventional weapons in Iraq, the Post said.
The paper reported that after Kay's briefing Cordesman wrote: "No evidence
of any Iraqi effort to transfer weapons of mass destruction or weapons to
terrorists."
"Only possibility was Saddam's Fedayeen (his son's irregular force) and talk
only," Cordesman wrote.
In an interim report in October, Kay said that no such weapons had been
found in Iraq. Critics have said the White House may have exaggerated the
threat Iraq posed in order to justify the war.
According to the Post, Cordesman, who visited several Iraqi cities from
November 1 to 12, noted that Kay said Iraq "did order nuclear equipment from
1999 on, but no evidence (has turned up) of (a) new major facility to use
it."
The Post report said although there was no evidence of chemical weapons
production, Cordesman wrote that Kay said he had located biological work
"under cover of new agricultural facility" that showed "advances in
developing dry storable powder forms of botulinum toxin."
During his visit to Baghdad, Babel, Tikrit and Kirkuk, Cordesman met combat
commanders and staff in high-threat areas, including Iraq's US administrator
Paul Bremer.
Based on a briefing by Bremer, Cordesman said 95 per cent of the threat came
from former Hussein loyalists while most foreign militants, who entered Iraq
before the war, arrived from Syria, with some from Saudi Arabia and only "a
few from Iran," according to the report.
Reuters
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/16/1068917669535.html
--
"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory
after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would
have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there,
and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of
the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered
American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on."
- Norman Schwarzkopf, from his 1993 autobiography, "It Doesn't
Take a Hero."
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