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| Iraq |
| U.N.: Iraq had no WMD after 1994 |
| 2004-03-02 |
| A report from U.N. weapons inspectors to be released today says they now believe there were no weapons of mass destruction of any significance in Iraq after 1994, according to two U.N. diplomats who have seen the document. The historical review of inspections in Iraq is the first outside study to confirm the recent conclusion by David Kay, the former U.S. chief inspector, that Iraq had no banned weapons before last year's U.S-led invasion. It also goes further than prewar U.N. reports, which said no weapons had been found but noted that Iraq had not fully accounted for weapons it was known to have had at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Why not?, Saddam could have saved himself a bunch of trouble. The report, to be outlined to the U.N. Security Council as early as Friday, is based on information gathered over more than seven years of U.N. inspections in Iraq before the 2003 war, plus postwar findings discussed publicly by Kay. Kay reported in October that his team found "dozens of WMD-related program activities" that Iraq was required to reveal to U.N. inspectors but did not. However, he said he found no actual WMDs. The study, a quarterly report on Iraq from U.N. inspectors, notes that the U.S. teams' inability to find any weapons after the war mirrors the experience of U.N. inspectors who searched there from November 2002 until March 2003. The results may have been the same, but the circumstances surely were not, I doubt that the US teams were wined and dined by the Iraqi minders. Many Bush administration officials were harshly critical of the U.N. inspection efforts in the months before the war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in August 2002 that inspections "will be a sham." What do you expect when you've been the hotbed of Anti-Americanism for 5 decades? The Bush administration also pointedly declined U.N. offers to help in the postwar weapons hunt, preferring instead to use U.S. inspectors and specialists from other coalition countries such as Britain and Australia. I'm sure it was viewed that the UN teams were abject failures, so why bother bringing them back? But U.N. reports submitted to the Security Council before the war by Hans Blix, former chief U.N. arms inspector, and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, have been largely validated by U.S. weapons teams. The common findings:
There is no substitute for a good bout of UN bashing, if it wasn't critisism of the search, perhaps we could have moved on to the oil for palaces program, or homicidal dictators on the human rights commission, or the slaughter in Rwanda...... "You cannot say that only the Americans or the British or the Australians currently inspecting in Iraq are the clever inspectors — and the Americans and the British and the Australians that we had were not," he said. Who? pedo Scott Ritter?, there's a credible guy. |
| Posted by:JerseyMike |
| #8 CF,this is about rewriting history. Down the road, the UN official position will be: "If George Bush had been a little Surprised the Kerry & the DNC has not picked up this talking point. |
| Posted by: john 2004-3-2 1:16:56 PM |
| #7 This report is a baldfaced admission that Hans Blix was doing absolutely nothing but run up an expense account in Iraq. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-3-2 11:57:33 AM |
| #6 CF, as SH points out, the game is not over. The WMD will turn up in Syria in the Spring (in the custody of US Special Forces. SH, I would go for a reduction in our dues payments until such time as the UN: (i) accounts for what happened to the Iraq oil-for-food program money, (ii) performs an audit on international aid to the Palestinian Authority, (iii) establishes an office to promote democracy and free markets, (iv) closes the 50-year old Palestinian refugee camps, and (v) adds Japan and India to the Security Council. With the money we save, we should endow a new organization consisting solely of countries with democratically elected governments that espouse free and open markets. I wouldn't mind my tax dollars going to that group. Smokeysinse, No need to kick the UN out of NYC. They fill the posh hotel rooms and the swank restaurants (and thus NYC's tax coffers). |
| Posted by: Tibor 2004-3-2 11:24:19 AM |
| #5 so when are we going too kick the UN out of New York? |
| Posted by: smokeysinse 2004-3-2 10:56:37 AM |
| #4 Ignore it. These little after-the-fact, process-based criticisims are meaningless. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-3-2 10:47:01 AM |
| #3 CF, I think its more like betting on the game in the 4th quarter, loudly, against your boss, while his team is losing. As a US taxpayer, I have little interest in footing the bill for a quarter of this clown's salary. I respect his right to speak. I work hard enough for my paycheck that I don't feel the need to sponsor his undiplomatic grandstanding. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-3-2 9:08:08 AM |
| #2 Isn't this like betting on the game after it is over? |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2004-3-2 8:58:45 AM |
| #1 I don't know why they would release a conclusive study; the UN normally likes to keep things grey in case the situation changes. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-3-2 8:23:50 AM |