A leaked US intelligence report:"no reliable information" on WMD

["e. ahmet tonak" <eatonak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

How about this?  Fresh from BBC web site!

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US 'doubted Iraq's arsenal'

A leaked US intelligence report has cast fresh doubt on the coalition
claims that Iraq had banned weapons which served as justification for
going to war.

The secret September 2002 Pentagon intelligence report concluded that
there was "no reliable information" that Iraq had biological or chemical
weapons.

It is believed the report was widely circulated among the Bush
administration at a time when senior officials were putting the case for
military action.

The latest twist in the weapons row came as United Nations nuclear
experts arrived in Iraq to investigate post-war looting of material from
the country's main nuclear facility.

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says the 80-page report
from the Defence Intelligence Agency will only fuel the controversy over
alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD).


It contradicted Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's claim at the time
that Iraq had amassed large stockpiles of nerve agent and mustard gas.

US forces have not yet found any WMD in Iraq. Two suspect mobile
laboratories have been located but have not provided any proof of banned
weapons programmes.

Senior Pentagon officials confirmed that the report said there was no
reliable information on whether Iraq was stockpiling and producing
chemical weapons.

But the officials stress that there was no US or international presence
on the ground in Iraq at the time and that therefore there could be no
definitive evidence.

They also say the report suggests that there was no doubt Iraq had the
capability and expertise to produce such weapons and was probably doing so.

Intelligence criticised

US administration officials still insist that their claims about Iraqi
WMD will be proved to be accurate.

The CIA has launched an investigation to see if intelligence reports
were distorted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

The UN chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, has criticised the quality of
intelligence given to him by the US and Britain about Iraq's alleged WMD.

Mr Blix told the BBC that his teams followed up US and British leads at
suspected sites across Iraq, but found nothing when they got there.

Contamination

The team of seven experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) will spend two weeks at the Tuwaitha complex, 50 kilometres (30
miles) south of Baghdad.


They will try to determine what is missing, deal with what is left and
make it safe.

The UN experts at Tuwaitha are being blocked from investigating the
reports of contamination and sickness. The US argues that as the
occupying power it is responsible for the health of the Iraqi people.

The number of inspectors has been limited by the Pentagon to seven, and
their assessment has to be completed in two weeks.

Local people have been using barrels that held highly radioactive
material to store food or wash clothes and some have complained of
subsequent health problems, such as nose bleeds and vomiting.

The inspectors were allowed in after the IAEA director, Mohamed
ElBaradei, said a radiological emergency could be brewing at the plant
after looters left behind piles of uranium and spilled radioactive
materials.

Local people say looters were not after the uranium itself. They tipped
it onto the ground so they could take away the containers to store food
and water, the BBC's Caroline Hawley reports from Baghdad.

Workers living on the site, worried about being contaminated themselves,
buried the spilled uranium in cement and appealed for international help.

Limited access

Before the war, the site held two tons of low-grade enriched uranium and
several tons of natural uranium. A storage facility near the site held
several hundred other radiological sources.

The IAEA will check stocks of enriched uranium and "yellow cake", or
processed mined uranium, against its detailed inventory lists.

US defence officials quoted by the Reuters news agency insist that US
troops accompany the UN inspectors at the site, and that the visit sets
no precedent for a future IAEA role in Iraq.

The Americans will deal with the search for WMD themselves - a US-backed
team of 1,400 inspectors is due in Iraq in the coming days.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2970064.stm
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E. Ahmet Tonak
Professor of Economics

Simon's Rock College of Bard
84 Alford Road
Great Barrington, MA 01230

Tel:  413 528 7488
Fax: 413 528 7365
www.simons-rock.edu/~eatonak