Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (17952)	4/24/2003 12:17:00 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

U.K. Advises Independent Iraq Arms Search 2 hours, 18 minutes ago By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer CAMP AS SAYLIYAH - The search for banned weapons in Iraq (news - web sites) could be conducted by a country that is not a member of the U.S.-led coalition, instead of by the United Nations (news - web sites), Britain's defense secretary said Thursday. : Geoff Hoon said a "number of countries" were ready to take on the task and maintained the United Nations was not the only body capable of verifying that Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction. "We need independent verification of the discoveries that I'm confident we will make in due course," Hoon told reporters after visiting British troops. "I do not necessarily believe that it has to be the United Nations that provides that independent verification, but clearly the United Nations could be one of the organizations that does so." The United States has said it will search Iraq for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on its own. But U.N. Security Council members who opposed the war in Iraq — France, Russia and Germany — are pushing for U.N. inspectors to return to the country. They have indicated that a compromise could help bring an end to U.N. sanctions holding back Iraq's reconstruction efforts, a move Washington would welcome. U.S. search teams, each with about a dozen members from the CIA (news - web sites), the Pentagon (news - web sites), the FBI (news - web sites) and other agencies, have visited about 50 sites in Iraq but have not found any banned weapons. The Americans have replaced U.N. inspectors that worked from November until mid-March under chief inspector Hans Blix. The U.N. team didn't find any evidence that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction. Hoon said he believes Iraq has banned weapons, even though none were used against invading coalition troops. "That was because of the very considerable success of coalition forces, right at the outset disrupting the ability of the leadership of the regime to deliver the instructions required," he told the British Broadcasting Corp. "The weapons of mass destruction remained hidden." Hoon was at U.S. Central Command in Qatar a day after meeting with British troops in the southern Iraqi cities of Basra and Umm Qasr, the first senior coalition politician to visit the country since the war. He met with U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of the war, as well as British troops here, before returning to London, British officials said.