Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: US: Iraq was free of WMDs

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ECF3A8C1-789B-44DA-AA85-3C8D65DF34B7.htm
US: Iraq was free of WMDs
Wednesday 06 October 2004, 22:34 Makka Time, 19:34 GMT    
Bush has given varying justifications for the invasion
 
Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost the lives of
more than 15,000 Iraqis and over 1000 US soldiers, the US' top weapons
inspector has declared that Iraq was free of WMDs before last year's
invasion.
In a report presented to the US House of Representatives on Wednesday,
Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group appointed by President
George Bush to hunt for Iraqi WMDs, said Iraq had no stockpiles of
biological and chemical weapons and its nuclear programme had decayed
since the 1991 Gulf War. 
The conclusions flew in the face of statements made by the US
president before the invasion. Bush had cited a growing threat from
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for overthrowing
former president Saddam Hussein. 
Speaking earlier in the day in testimony prepared for the Senate Armed
Services Committee on Wednesday, Duelfer said: "I still do not expect
that militarily significant WMD stocks are cached in Iraq," 
He said Baghdad's nuclear weapons programme had deteriorated
significantly since the 1991 Gulf War.
The issue has figured prominently in the campaign for the US
presidential election, with Bush's Democratic opponent John Kerry
saying Bush rushed to war without allowing UN inspections enough time
to investigate Iraq's armaments. 
Bush, who has given varying justifications for the war, said in a
speech in Pennsylvania on Wednesday that the concern was that
terrorists would get banned weapons from Saddam. 
"There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons
or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said. 
"In the world after September 11, that was a risk we could not afford
to take," he said, referring to the 2001 attacks on the United States
by al-Qaida.
Assumptions
 
Bush says the risk was that 
Saddam could pass on WMDs
 
Duelfer said a risk that has emerged since he last briefed the US
congress on the status of the WMD hunt was a connection between
chemical weapons experts from Saddam's former regime with fighters
against the US-led forces now in Iraq. 
"I believe we got ahead of this problem through a series of raids
throughout the spring and summer. I am convinced we successfully
contained a problem before it matured into a major threat," Duelfer
said. 
"Nevertheless, it points to the problem that the dangerous expertise
developed by the previous regime could be transferred to other hands,"
he added. 
Duelfer said that by the time of the war in 2003, Iraq would have been
able to produce mustard agent in months and nerve agent in less than a
year. 
"We have not come across explicit guidance from Saddam on this point,
yet it was an inherent consequence of his decision to develop a
domestic chemical production capacity," he said. 
The top weapons inspector said that "despite Saddam's expressed desire
to retain the knowledge of his nuclear team, and his attempts to
retain some key parts of the programme (after 1991), during the course
of the following 12 years Iraq's ability to produce a weapon decayed".
According to one official familiar with the report who spoke on
condition of anonymity, Saddam "was further away in 2003 than he was
in 1991" from acquiring nuclear weapons.
US acknowledgement
Duelfer briefed the senate intelligence committee behind closed doors
about his report in the morning and then testified before a senate
armed services committee hearing.
 
The US says Saddam was only 
trying to escape UN sanctions
 
"While it is clear that Saddam wanted a long-range missile, there was
little work done on warheads. It is apparent that he drew the line at
that point ... so long as sanctions remained," Duelfer said. 
One of Saddam's priorities was to escape UN sanctions, he said. 
"Over time, sanctions had steadily weakened to the point where Iraq,
in 2000-2001 was confidently designing missiles around components that
could only be obtained outside sanctions," Duelfer said.
Duelfer's key conclusion tallied with that of his predecessor, David
Kay, who said when he resigned in January that no large stockpiles of
biological and chemical weapons existed in Iraq when the US went to
war.
Reuters 
 
 

its nuclear programme had decayed since the 1991 Gulf War.
Comunque aspetto di leggere la versione originale e non certo le
citazioni di Al Jazeera :)
-Stefano