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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (393981)	4/17/2003 10:36:51 AM
From: JEB	Respond to of 769669

<g> , ...hmm, ...it would be appropriate but not in keeping with politicians.

To: CYBERKEN who wrote (393981)	4/17/2003 11:31:40 AM
From: Bill	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769669

ANALYSTS' VIEW: Why Have No WMD Been Found in Iraq? Thu April 17, 2003 10:43 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - The United States launched the war to disarm Iraq after accusing Baghdad of concealing weapons of mass destruction. Baghdad denied having any banned weapons, and so far there have been no confirmed findings of any on Iraqi territory. President Bush urged the United Nations on Wednesday to lift 13-year-old sanctions on Iraq, which would allow it to sell oil to help pay for postwar construction following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the sanctions cannot be ended until the U.N. inspection agency UNMOVIC certifies Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction and the 15-nation Security Council adopts a resolution lifting them. Following are comments from defense analysts who were asked why no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and whether the U.S. case for war will be lost if no such weapons are found. BARTHELEMY COURMONT, RESEARCHER AT THE FRENCH INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL AND STRATEGIC RELATIONS "In my opinion they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because there quite simply aren't any. I'm convinced there is nothing there to find. "It does create a bit of a problem in terms of legality of the conflict because the existence of banned weapons was given as the main reason for it. They can only justify the war in terms of fighting terrorism and installing democracy. "If there were any significant arms, they would have been found by now, or Iraq would have used them. It would have been ridiculous for Iraq not to use such weapons, if it had them, to defend itself against the Americans. "The Americans will keep searching in Iraq, but I think at best they will find empty chemicals containers. They will also keep putting pressure on Syria to be allowed to search there, as it's possible Iraqi arms were moved there." AZIZ ALKAZAZ, RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE GERMAN INSTITUTE FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES "It doesn't appear as if there are any (weapons of mass destruction). It would appear from various experts that Iraq had fundamentally disarmed. For example they did not have the trigger systems that would have been required for weapons. They were destroyed. "It would also appear illogical, if he had had them, that Saddam Hussein would not have used any in the war. This was a conflict over his very existence. "The inspectors must be allowed to finish their work and give their opinions. The United Nations wants them to complete their task. "The war cannot be justified after the event. It was for the inspectors to find weapons and arguably they were in a position to do so. There would also be question marks about the credibility of the United States and the British if any suspect material were found. Independent inspectors have to be sent in. "Bush proclaimed two aims in going to war against Iraq: to disarm the country and to change the regime. The latter is not a justified aim. The former cannot serve to legitimize the war because there was no Security Council resolution. However, if they find no weapons, then it becomes crystal clear. It would confirm to the world that the war should not have taken place." LOREN THOMPSON, ANALYST WITH THE LEXINGTON INSTITUTE, A MILITARY AFFAIRS THINK TANK IN VIRGINIA "The prevailing view is that they're in some deeply buried, very secret facility. The most likely geographic location would be relatively close to Baghdad because the regime's power was less certain the further you got from Baghdad, so it tended to cluster its most important assets relatively close to the capital. But they could be in the desert. They could be under palaces. They could be in the heart of a mountain somewhere. We don't know. The administration has narrowed its search to about three dozen possible locations." "The behavior of the Iraq government before the war indicated very high confidence that inspectors would not find the weapons. That suggests several possibilities, the most obvious is that they're extremely well hidden within Iraq itself. The other possibility is that they're not in Iraq, that they're in another country." He mentioned Syria as a possibility. "I honestly don't believe there's any political cost if we find no weapons of mass destruction. I also think that the possibility (of not finding anything) is quite remote. But in the very unlikely event that no weapons of mass destruction are found, the political consequences for the United States are effectively zero because the war is over, we have prevailed and the rest of the world will simply acknowledge that reality." reuters.com