Oh my Gosh...In the NYT yet~~~U.S. Inspector Sees Much to Pursue in Iraqi Weapons Search
NYT~~ October 5, 2003
By BRIAN KNOWLTON,
International Herald Tribune
nytimes.com
ASHINGTON, Oct. 5 — The government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq reiterated today that his team was searching for a possible cache of lethal anthrax and was pursuing hints that Saddam Hussein might have concealed Scud missiles.
David Kay, who leads the Iraq Survey Group of weapons inspectors, conceded again, however, that his 1,200-member team had come across no fully developed weapons of mass destruction or documentary evidence of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda — the chief pillars of the Bush administration's case for war.
Dr. Kay's remarks came three days after he reported to Congress on his survey team's interim findings, following four months of work. Critics of the Iraqi war, including several Democrats in Congress, said the report confirmed that the Bush administration had seriously exaggerated the imminence of an Iraqi threat in order to justify the war.
But Dr. Kay insisted in a televised interview on "Fox News Sunday," as he had in his report, that the picture was far more complicated, and he called attention to several findings on Iraq — "both their intent and their actual activities" — which he said had damning implications.
Iraqi scientists had come forward "with equipment, technology, diagrams, documents" on potential weapons programs that they had been ordered to conceal, and which United Nations inspectors had not found.
One Iraqi scientist said he had been told to hide in his refrigerator a vial of what Dr. Kay's report called "live C. botulinum Okra B, from which a biological agent can be produced." The scientist had also told the search team of a second "large cache of agents" that Dr. Kay said was thought to include anthrax.
President Bush on Friday pointed to the botulinum finding, as well as to the evidence cited by Dr. Kay of clandestine biological laboratories, sophisticated concealment efforts and design work on prohibited long-range missiles, in insisting that the war with Iraq was justified.
But Dr. Kay said today that the botulinum was "not the weapon in the sense that it was ready to be fired," though it could have been used to produce such a weapon.
Dr. Kay said that evidence had also been found of research on Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, potentially of use in biological weapons.
More than two dozen biological laboratories were "hidden in the Iraqi Intelligence Service, the Mukhabarat" and "carried on activities that should have been declared" to the United Nations, he said.
His statement, however, referred largely to Iraq's potential, capacities and purported intentions to develop banned weapons, not to any weapons that were ready for use against American troops or others.
Asked about the state of Iraqi nuclear programs, Dr. Kay said there was "evidence that they were putting small amounts of money and starting rudimentary experiments." The program was "at a very early stage."
The report said that no evidence yet pointed to any "significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons."
Of greater interest, he indicated, was evidence that Iraq had continued efforts to design longer-range missiles, and retained a capacity as late as early 2002 to make the liquid fuel and oxidizer used to power banned Scud missiles.
"Scud missile fuel is only useful in Scud missiles, no other class of missiles that Iraq has," he said. "And yet, Iraq declared that it got rid of all of its Scud missiles in the early 1990's."
In his television appearance, Dr. Kay emphasized that his search was far from complete, a point Mr. Bush and other administration officials have underscored. Conditions in Iraq were extremely difficult, he added.
One scientist interviewed by survey team members was killed later the same day, he said, and another person was shot six times.
The continuing threat underscored the reasons, he said, that the search could not now be turned back over to the United Nations, which withdrew much of its foreign staff after two explosions killed more than 20 of its employees.
"I've had teams attacked four times in September, and four serious injuries," Dr. Kay said. "Everyone of the people we have on the ground, including myself, is weapons-qualified, or routinely carries weapons. We operate in a very nonpermissive environment."
He added, "That's not what the U.N. does."
Dr. Kay was also asked about reports that Iraq might have transported arms into Syria, Jordan and Iran. Inspectors know that convoys entered those countries just ahead of or during the war, he said.
"We do know that documents were taken to Jordan," Dr. Kay said, because his team is negotiating for the return of such papers with an Iraqi unrelated to the government, who fled to that country.
He cited no evidence, however, that weapons had gone to any other country.
Asked how likely his team was eventually to find banned weapons in Iraq, Dr. Kay said, "I simply don't know."
But he said that he had devised an approach "that guarantees that if they are there, we will find them."
"I don't want to estimate," he added. "I want to have proof." |
