Saddam's WMD have been found
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms

Posted: April 26, 2004
1:36 p.m. Eastern

By Kenneth R. Timmerman
2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc.

New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam
Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success

being reported.

Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the media

critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have

true after all.

But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media,

the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been

In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic

-- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the Iraqi
dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons inspectors.

The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by

Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the

arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that

prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior

official tells Insight.

"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been

none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were

for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."

Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that the
evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime was

"material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the last of

resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make a
complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a

manner.

The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as one
justification for going to war.

Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories

safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its prohibited
chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. "They

a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on

subjects."

They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only

use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these

"Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their

to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.

But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide

ambiguity and a lack of sensational-looking finds for not reporting some
discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they have

excuse for their silence.

"Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior administration
official told Insight.

"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam dunk

you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the first
official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight on
condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but

accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in every

area.

When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that the
United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, his
conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG had

in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

October, few took notice.

Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been amplified

subsequent inspections in recent weeks:


A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing of

agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. inspections

explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam interested

testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a
biological-weapons program?

"Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents were

beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We

was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has been
written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"

New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean

fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not declared

United Nations.

A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully declared

undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one

their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350
kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit."

"Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only

prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at

until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they

told to conceal from the U.N."

"Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up

at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the

limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer range

have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East,

Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]."
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized documents

other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made "clandestine
attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology
related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles --

No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles and

prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.

In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed the ISG had

evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of making
chemical- and biological-warfare agents.

The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a "high-speed

gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons materials.

came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's main
declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic Energy
Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been intended

"a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."

In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said his
investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit financing

this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government
protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback

made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program."

What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as the

dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed

to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June

Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus

such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to
international peace and security."

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of Mass
Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100

tons [MT] and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare]

much of it added in the last year."

That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the final
report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted

what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of precursor
chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but for

it no longer could account.

Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with those
precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the
administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for

Iraq.

But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was anyone
seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted warehouses
packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, with
labels written in English?

Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to

vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory?

Stockpiles found

In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer for

Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, some of
those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in nice

order -- but found all the same.

Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20

a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions security
officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a

analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence unit

the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science and
Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal employment

Iraqi WMD scientists.

In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online

AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units and

information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed been
found.

Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this

in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting

since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.

But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly

nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials that
constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot like
pesticides, which they indeed resemble.

"Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson

fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the
'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."

The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his
chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian
chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s as

production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were producing
pesticides, or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, which

used to produce mustard gas.

When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of

and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by Army

Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was how
quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how silent

have been on the significance of these caches."

Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the

of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely what

are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the
precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly."

Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under oath

Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to relaunch
production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At

U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what appeared

a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the drums

stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters --

unpleasant results.

"More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN cameraman,

Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve

Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of negative,

of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and injuries
dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of the
obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate

One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business gains

securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. The
'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump --
evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."

That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable CW
stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, where
Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States from
nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division

55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass

analysis as cyclosarin -- a nerve agent.

Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks and

mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the site.

"Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only the
ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It

Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free,

the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom that

WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"

At Taji -- an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of

U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially

containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard

drum.

Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of the
canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and
Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled as
pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides stored

ammo dumps."

Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells

with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister

subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding.

"If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More

Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain

from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do bad

to the enemy."

The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the problem:
Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit the image the

and the president's critics carefully have fed to the public of what

weapons ought to look like. A senior administration official who has gone
through the intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier

from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented allegation.

"The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a powerful nerve gas,

claimed they had never weaponized it. The U.N. inspectors "felt they had

But where did it go?" The Iraqis never provided any explanation of what

happened to their VX stockpiles.

What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large garage,"

official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every bit

gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts to

large garage in an area the size of the state of California.

Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will

inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and attempt

interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their

lives to conceal their activities from the outside world.

"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very conducive,"

official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This is

exercise in spinning or censoring."

Saddam's WMD have been found
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms

Posted: April 26, 2004
1:36 p.m. Eastern

By Kenneth R. Timmerman
2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc.

New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam
Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success than is
being reported.

Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the media and by
critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have been
true after all.

But this stunning news has received little attention from the major media, and
the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been found.

I

Saddam's WMD have been found
New evidence unveils chemical, biological, nuclear, ballistic arms=20
=20
Posted: April 26, 2004
1:36 p.m. Eastern
=20
By Kenneth R. Timmerman
2004 Insight/News World Communications Inc.=20
=20
New evidence out of Iraq suggests the U.S. effort to track down Saddam
Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction is having better success =

being reported.=20
=20
Key assertions by the intelligence community widely judged in the =

critics of President Bush as having been false are turning out to have =

true after all.=20
=20
But this stunning news has received little attention from the major =

the president's critics continue to insist that "no weapons" have been =

=20
In virtually every case -- chemical, biological, nuclear and ballistic =

-- the United States has found the weapons and the programs that the =

dictator successfully concealed for 12 years from U.N. weapons =

=20
The Iraq Survey Group, ISG, whose intelligence analysts are managed by =

Duelfer, a former State Department official and deputy chief of the =

arms-inspection teams, has found "hundreds of cases of activities that =

prohibited" under U.N. Security Council resolutions, a senior =

official tells Insight.=20
=20
"There is a long list of charges made by the U.S. that have been =

none of this seems to mean anything because the weapons that were =

for by the United Nations remain unaccounted for."=20
=20
Both Duelfer and his predecessor, David Kay, reported to Congress that =

evidence they had found on the ground in Iraq showed Saddam's regime =

"material violation" of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the =

resolutions that promised "serious consequences" if Iraq did not make =

complete disclosure of its weapons programs and dismantle them in a =

manner.=20
=20
The United States cited Iraq's refusal to comply with these demands as =

justification for going to war.=20
=20
Both Duelfer and Kay found Iraq had "a clandestine network of =

safe houses with equipment that was suitable to continuing its =

chemical- and biological-weapons [BW] programs," the official said. =

a prison laboratory where we suspect they tested biological weapons on =

subjects."=20
=20
They found equipment for "uranium-enrichment centrifuges" whose only =

use was as part of a clandestine nuclear-weapons program. In all these =

"Iraqi scientists had been told before the war not to declare their =

to the U.N. inspectors," the official said.=20
=20
But while the president's critics and the media might plausibly hide =

ambiguity and a lack of sensational-looking finds for not reporting =

discoveries, in the case of Saddam's ballistic-missile programs they =

excuse for their silence.=20
=20
"Where were the missiles? We found them," another senior =

official told Insight.=20
=20
"Saddam Hussein's prohibited missile programs are as close to a slam =

you will ever find for violating United Nations resolutions," the =

official said. Both senior administration officials spoke to Insight =

condition that neither their name nor their agency be identified, but =

accounts of what the United States has found in Iraq coincided in =

area.=20
=20
When former weapons inspector Kay reported to Congress in January that =

United States had found "no stockpiles" of forbidden weapons in Iraq, =

conclusions made front-page news. But when he detailed what the ISG =

in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on =

October, few took notice.=20
=20
Among Kay's revelations, which officials tell Insight have been =

subsequent inspections in recent weeks:=20
=20
=20
A prison laboratory complex that may have been used for human testing =

agents and "that Iraqi officials working to prepare the U.N. =

explicitly ordered not to declare to the U.N." Why was Saddam =

testing biological-warfare agents on humans if he didn't have a
biological-weapons program?=20
=20
"Reference strains" of a wide variety of biological-weapons agents =

beneath the sink in the home of a prominent Iraqi BW scientist. "We =

was a big deal," a senior administration official said. "But it has =

written off [by the press] as a sort of 'starter set.'"=20
=20
New research on BW-applicable agents, brucella and Congo-Crimean =

fever, and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin that were not =

United Nations.=20
=20
A line of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs, or drones, "not fully =

undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested =

their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 kilometers [311 miles], 350
kilometers [217 miles] beyond the permissible limit."=20
=20
"Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful =

prohibited Scud-variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at =

until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said =

told to conceal from the U.N."=20
=20
"Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with =

at least 1,000 kilometers [621 miles] -- well beyond the =

limit [93 miles] imposed by the U.N. Missiles of a 1,000-kilometer =

have allowed Iraq to threaten targets throughout the Middle East, =

Ankara [Turkey], Cairo [Egypt] and Abu Dhabi [United Arab Emirates]."
In addition, through interviews with Iraqi scientists, seized =

other evidence, the ISG learned the Iraqi government had made =

attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea =

related to 1,300-kilometer-range [807 miles] ballistic missiles -- =

No Dong -- 300-kilometer-range [186 miles] antiship cruise missiles =

prohibited military equipment," Kay reported.=20
=20
In testimony before Congress on March 30, Duelfer, revealed the ISG =

evidence of a "crash program" to construct new plants capable of =

chemical- and biological-warfare agents.=20
=20
The ISG also found a previously undeclared program to build a =

gun," a device apparently designed for testing nuclear-weapons =

came in addition to 500 tons of natural uranium stockpiled at Iraq's =

declared nuclear site south of Baghdad, which International Atomic =

Agency spokesman Mark Gwozdecky acknowledged to Insight had been =

"a clandestine nuclear-weapons program."=20
=20
In taking apart Iraq's clandestine procurement network, Duelfer said =

investigators had discovered that "the primary source of illicit =

this system was oil smuggling conducted through =

protocols negotiated with neighboring countries [and] from kickback =

made on contracts set up through the U.N. oil-for-food program."=20
=20
What the president's critics and the media widely have portrayed as =

dramatic failure of the U.S. case against Saddam has been the claimed =

to find "stockpiles" of chemical and biological weapons. But in a June =

Washington Post op-ed, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Rolf Ekeus =

such criticism "a distortion and a trivialization of a major threat to
international peace and security."=20
=20
The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraqi Weapons of =

Destruction concluded that Saddam "probably has stocked at least 100 =

tons [MT] and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW [chemical warfare] =

much of it added in the last year."=20
=20
That assessment was based, in part, on conclusions contained in the =

report from U.N. weapons inspectors in 1999, which highlighted =

what the Iraqis reported to the United Nations and the amount of =

chemicals U.N. arms inspectors could document Iraq had imported but =

it no longer could account.=20
=20
Until now, Bush's critics say, no stockpiles of CW agents made with =

precursors have been found. The snap conclusion they draw is that the
administration "lied" to the American people to create a pretext for =

Iraq.=20
=20
But what are "stockpiles" of CW agents supposed to look like? Was =

seriously expecting Saddam to have left behind freshly painted =

packed with chemical munitions, all neatly laid out in serried rows, =

labels written in English?=20
=20
Or did they think that a captured Saddam would guide U.S. troops to =

vats full of nerve gas in an abandoned factory?=20
=20
Stockpiles found=20
=20
In fact, as recent evidence made public by a former operations officer =

Coalition Provisional Authority's intelligence unit in Iraq shows, =

those stockpiles have been found - not all at once, and not all in =

order -- but found all the same.=20
=20
Douglas Hanson was a U.S. Army cavalry reconnaissance officer for 20 =

a veteran of Gulf War I. He was an atomic demolitions munitions =

officer and a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer. As a =

analyst in Iraq last summer, he worked for an operations intelligence =

the CPA in Iraq, and later, with the newly formed Ministry of Science =

Technology, which was responsible for finding new, nonlethal =

Iraqi WMD scientists.=20
=20
In an interview with Insight and in an article he wrote for the online =

AmericanThinker.com, Hanson examines reports from U.S. combat units =

information confirming that many of Iraq's CW stockpiles have indeed =

found.=20
=20
Until now, however, journalists have devoted scant attention to this =

in part because it contradicts the story line they have been putting =

since the U.S.-led inspections began after the war.=20
=20
But another reason for the media silence may stem from the seemingly =

nature of the "finds" Hanson and others have described. The materials =

constitute Saddam's chemical-weapons "stockpiles" look an awful lot =

pesticides, which they indeed resemble.=20
=20
"Pesticides are the key elements in the chemical-agent arena," Hanson =

fact, the general pesticide chemical formula (organophosphate) is the
'grandfather' of modern-day nerve agents."=20
=20
The United Nations was fully aware that Saddam had established his
chemical-weapons plants under the guise of a permitted civilian
chemical-industry infrastructure. Plants inspected in the early 1990s =

production facilities had been set up to appear as if they were =

pesticides, or in the case of a giant plant near Fallujah, chlorine, =

used to produce mustard gas.=20
=20
When coalition forces entered Iraq, "huge warehouses and caches of =

and agricultural' chemicals were seized and painstakingly tested by =

Marine chemical specialists," Hanson writes. "What was surprising was =

quickly the ISG refuted the findings of our ground forces and how =

have been on the significance of these caches."=20
=20
Caches of "commercial and agricultural" chemicals don't match the =

of "stockpiles" of chemical weapons. But, in fact, that is precisely =

are. "At a very minimum," Hanson tells Insight, "they were storing the
precursors to restart a chemical-warfare program very quickly."=20
=20
Kay and Duelfer came to a similar conclusion, telling Congress under =

Saddam had built new facilities and stockpiled the materials to =

production of chemical and biological weapons at a moment's notice. At =

U.S. troops stumbled upon 55-gallon drums of pesticides at what =

a very large "agricultural supply" area, Hanson says. Some of the =

stored in a "camouflaged bunker complex" that was shown to reporters =

unpleasant results.=20
=20
"More than a dozen soldiers, a Knight-Ridder reporter, a CNN =

Iraqi POWs came down with symptoms consistent with exposure to a nerve =

Hanson says. "But later ISG tests resulted in a proclamation of =

of story, nothing to see here, etc., and the earlier findings and =

dissolved into nonexistence. Left unexplained is the small matter of =

obvious pains taken to disguise the cache of ostensibly legitimate =

One wonders about the advantage an agricultural-commodities business =

securing drums of pesticide in camouflaged bunkers 6 feet underground. =

'agricultural site' was also colocated with a military ammunition dump =

evidently nothing more than a coincidence in the eyes of the ISG."=20
=20
That wasn't the only significant find by coalition troops of probable =

stockpiles, Hanson believes. Near the northern Iraqi town of Bai'ji, =

Saddam had built a chemical-weapons plant known to the United States =

nearly 12 years of inspections, elements of the 4th Infantry Division =

55-gallon drums containing a substance identified through mass =

analysis as cyclosarin -- a nerve agent.=20
=20
Nearby were surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, gas masks =

mobile laboratory that could have been used to mix chemicals at the =

=20
"Of course, later tests by the experts revealed that these were only =

ubiquitous pesticides that everybody was turning up," Hanson says. "It =

Iraqi soldiers were obsessed with keeping ammo dumps insect-free, =

the reading of the evidence now enshrined by the conventional wisdom =

WMD stockpiles have been discovered.'"=20
=20
At Taji -- an Iraqi weapons complex as large as the District of =

U.S. combat units discovered more "pesticides" stockpiled in specially =

containers, smaller in diameter but much longer than the standard =

drum.=20
=20
Hanson says he still recalls the military sending digital images of =

canisters to his office, where his boss at the Ministry of Science and
Technology translated the Arabic-language markings. "They were labeled =

pesticides," he says. "Gee, you sure have got a lot of pesticides =

ammo dumps."=20
=20
Again, this January, Danish forces found 120-millimeter mortar shells =

with a mysterious liquid that initially tested positive for blister =

subsequent tests by the United States disputed that finding.=20
=20
"If it wasn't a chemical agent, what was it?" Hanson asks. "More =

Dish-washing detergent? From this old soldier's perspective, I gain =

from putting a liquid in my mortar rounds unless that stuff will do =

to the enemy."=20
=20
The discoveries Hanson describes are not dramatic. And that's the =

Finding real stockpiles in grubby ammo dumps doesn't fit the image the =

and the president's critics carefully have fed to the public of what =

weapons ought to look like. A senior administration official who has =

through the intelligence reporting from Iraq as well as the earlier =

from U.N. arms inspectors refers to another well-documented =

=20
"The Iraqis admitted they had made 3.9 tons of VX," a powerful nerve =

claimed they had never weaponized it. The U.N. inspectors "felt they =

But where did it go?" The Iraqis never provided any explanation of =

happened to their VX stockpiles.=20
=20
What does 3.9 tons of VX look like? "It could fit in one large =

official says. Assuming, of course, that Saddam would assemble every =

gas his scientists had produced at a single site, that still amounts =

large garage in an area the size of the state of California.=20
=20
Senior administration officials stress that the investigation will =

inspectors comb through millions of pages of documents in Iraq and =

interview Iraqi weapons scientists who have been trained all their =

lives to conceal their activities from the outside world.=20
=20
"The conditions under which the ISG is working are not very =

official said. "But this president wants the truth to come out. This =

exercise in spinning or censoring."=20