EVEN THE MARINES ARE QUESTIONING BUSH'S LIES
latimes.com
Iraq Weapons Hunt Will Shift to New Sites
May 30, 2003
By Greg Miller, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. Marine commander in Iraq said today that intelligence reports led him to expect that Iraqi units were planning to unleash chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces, and that he is surprised that no evidence of those weapons has been found.
"It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons," Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said from Baghdad in a teleconference with reporters in Washington.
"It's not for lack of trying," he continued. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."
Conway said he still believes it is possible that so-called weapons of mass destruction will be found. But his comments are likely to feed growing concern in Washington that the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was flawed.
Conway's remarks came as the Pentagon disclosed details of its plans to send a new, larger team to search for evidence of proscribed weapons.
The effort is to be led by Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence service.
In a separate press briefing today, Dayton seemed to suggest that it is possible that U.S. intelligence agencies were duped by Iraqi efforts to conceal the status of its alleged weapons programs.
"We may find out three months from now that there was an elaborate deception program and the stuff was destroyed," Dayton said.
Asked whether he believed the new search teams would uncover evidence of illicit munitions, Dayton offered a cautious reply.
"Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do," he said. |
