CIA: No weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq

The CIA told the US Senate yesterday in a statement by David Kay about the US three month search for the alleged weapons of mass destruction that "We have not yet found stocks of weapons."

Kay said to the Congress "I cannot emphasize too strongly that the Interim Progress Report, which has been made available to you, is a snapshot, in the context of an on-going investigation, of where we are after our first three months of work. The report does not represent a final reckoning of Iraq's WMD programs, nor are we at the point where we are prepared to close the file on any of these programs."

Kay added "While solid progress - I would say even remarkable progress considering the conditions that the ISG has had to work under - has been made in this initial period of operations, much remains to be done. We are still very much in the collection and analysis mode, still seeking the information and evidence that will allow us to confidently draw comprehensive conclusions to the actual objectives, scope, and dimensions of Iraq's WMD activities at the time of Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Kay asked "Why are we having such difficulty in finding weapons or in reaching a confident conclusion that they do not exist or that they once existed but have been removed? Our search efforts are being hindered" by several factors, he said.

Worth noting the the US has alleged that it knew for certain that Iraq had mass destruction weapons, and that these were weapons were a threat to the US, and used these unsubstantiated allegations as pretext to launch a war against Iraq without UN approval.