US government investigation report: Iraq had no WMD weopons
Iraq-USA, Politics, 10/7/2004

A report published by the investigation group which is led by Chief US weapons inspectors in Iraq Charles Duelfer stressed that Iraq had no program on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons when it was invaded by the US in March 2003 and that it gave up its mass weapons destruction program in1991.

The report stressed that Saddam Hussein was preoccupied with lifting the sanctions from his country and that he was keen to preserve the accumulated scientific credit Iraq had along the years as a result of the development of mass destruction weapons.

Upon the release of the report, Duelfer ruled out before the military committee at the US senate finding out mass destruction weapons hidden in this country in amounts important from the military aspect. Duelfer said he has reached this conclusion despite the fact that nerve gas and chemicals date back to 1991 were found.

The expert found out that the Iraqi program to manufacture weapons was less developed before the war of 2003 than what it had been when he had left Iraq with the UN inspectors in 1998. He explained that Iraq in 2003 was able to produce Mustard gas within months and nerves gas within less than one year.

On the nuclear weapons, Duelfer said that the necessary time for Iraq to produce a nuclear weapon would be longer had the international sanctions continued. But he added that the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has not given up his nuclear ambitions.

He said that many questions on the Iraqi nuclear abilities and intentions in the field of mass destruction weapons are still unanswered, noting that work of the inspectors is still continuous.

However, despite the issuance of the American report, the British prime minister Tony Blair cling to his previous allegations and stressed in statements to press men in Addis Ababa that Saddam Hussein was intending to develop mass destruction weapons and he did not want to comply with UN security Council resolutions.

Duelfer said Hussein tried to retain the intellectual capability to produce a nuclear weapons program after 1991, but Duelfer's inspectors did not find an active program. "We found no evidence, nor do we judge that there was one," Duelfer said.

"They have absolutely nothing to do with any biological weapons," Duelfer testified.

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