US weapons adviser confident of finding Iraqi arms
famulus.msnbc.com
WASHINGTON, July 15 — The head of the Bush administration team charged with finding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction said on Tuesday he expected to have enough evidence within six months to accomplish his mission.
David Kay, a former U.N. chief nuclear weapons inspector, said on ''NBC Nightly News'' that U.S. forces had collected a massive amount of documents that when completely analyzed would prove ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
Three months after toppling Saddam, the United States and Britain have found no banned weapons. Both countries held out Iraq's weapons program as a major justification for going to war.
''You cannot believe how many cases we have of documents and equipment stored in private residences,'' Kay said in an interview in Baghdad.
''I've already seen enough to convince me, but that's not the standard. I've got to have enough evidence to convince everyone of that,'' he said.
Asked how long it would take for him to present a convincing case, Kay responded, ''I think we'll have a substantial body of evidence before six months.''
Kay's Iraq Survey Group, which includes dozens of former U.N. weapons inspectors, is sifting through Iraqi documents in search of clues -- from personnel records of laboratory workers to lab results.
''We're finding progress reports, Kay said. ''They actually went to Saddam and said we have made this progress. There are records, audiotapes of those interviews which give us that.''
Kay told NBC the documents also showed workers got financial rewards from Saddam by indicating breakthroughs in the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Kay expressed confidence he could make the case against Saddam but conceded his assessment must be solid.
''What worries me is I know if we can't explain the WMD program of Iraq, we lose credibility with regard to other states like Iran, Syria, North Korea,'' he said. |
