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| Iraq |
| Frustrated WMD Arms Team to Leave Iraq |
| 2003-05-11 |
| The group directing all known U.S. search efforts for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is winding down operations without finding proof that President Saddam Hussein kept clandestine stocks of outlawed arms, according to participants. The 75th Exploitation Task Force, as the group is formally known, has been described from the start as the principal component of the U.S. plan to discover and display forbidden Iraqi weapons. The group's departure, expected next month, marks a milestone in frustration for a major declared objective of the war. Leaders of Task Force 75's diverse staff -- biologists, chemists, arms treaty enforcers, nuclear operators, computer and document experts, and special forces troops — arrived with high hopes of early success. They said they expected to find what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 — hundreds of tons of biological and chemical agents, missiles and rockets to deliver the agents, and evidence of an ongoing program to build a nuclear bomb. Scores of fruitless missions broke that confidence, many task force members said in interviews. (con't see link) |
| Posted by:Anonymous |
| #2 We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated." Stephen A. Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that U.S. forces had surveyed only 70 of the roughly 600 potential weapons facilities on the "integrated master site list" prepared by U.S. intelligence agencies before the war. But here on the front lines of the search, the focus is on a smaller number of high-priority sites, and the results are uniformly disappointing, participants said. The intense scrubbing of the bio-lab vans indicates a high-priority campaign to hide the existence of WMD, so as to deny the US charges post-facto and call into question future US assertions of WMD, just as the reporter of this article is obviously editorializing. This is longer term thinking than I would normally give Saddam credit for. This stinks of the French. Suppose Dominique made a "solemn promise based on France's Sacred Honor" to block the USA provided that Saddam destroy the evidence for existing WMD. In return, France helps Saddam survive and press claims against the USA when the recently-destroyed WMD is obviously not found. I still find the silence of the Scientists supicious, both before and after the war. I don't think they are suspicious, but their behavior implies some kind of plan of pressure to be applied to them. I wonder if packing the whole lot up and sending them to Cyprus or Germany for questioning, outside of the country, would loosen some tounges. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-05-11 14:12:47 |
| #1 Interviews? Hell, it's policy and regulation you don't even talk about American WMD. The stuff is neither confirmed or denied. Just who was giving and taking interviews? Sounds very very fishy to me. |
| Posted by: Don 2003-05-11 09:28:32 |