US report finds no illicit arms
Obstacles cited in three-month hunt in Iraq
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's chief arms inspector said yesterday that his 1,200-person team has not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and has unearthed scant evidence of a nuclear weapons program after three months of searching.
David Kay, speaking to reporters, said his investigators have uncovered convincing evidence that Iraq maintained the capability to manufacture chemical and biological weapons, in part by using components for civilian purposes. But Kay said it seems Iraq had not produced chemical or biological weapons since before the 1991 Gulf War.
He said, however, that his team is encountering unexpected problems in conducting the search -- Iraq remains a dangerous place, much evidence has been hidden or destroyed, and some Iraqis are still too fearful to talk. He said the search will require six to nine more months and hundreds of millions of dollars to make definitive conclusions. Kay's findings fell short of what he and the administration promised after his last appearance before Congress, on July 31. At that time, officials said he would present a case to the world that would justify prewar assertions that Saddam Hussein's weapons threatened the stability of the region and the world.
Democratic and Republican legislators said yesterday that the failure so far to find actual weapons raises serious questions about the ability of American intelligence agencies to gather reliable intelligence, especially in an era of global terrorism, in which heading off enemies before they strike has become a priority. They called for a complete reevaluation of intelligence-gathering practices.
And a prominent conservative Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the cochairman of the Intelligence Committee, joined Democrats in criticizing the Bush administration's presentation of evidence in making the case for the war last winter.
Asked whether the evidence uncovered by Kay matches the statements made by members of the administration before the war, Roberts said, "No." He added: "Some [statements] do not, and some do. It's mixed reporting."
"It makes me believe that our intelligence was very badly flawed," Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California who is a member of the intelligence panel, said in a brief interview after hearing Kay's findings.
Kay's 13-page public report, based on interviews with top Iraqi scientists and policy makers, the seizure of documents, and searches of hundreds of facilities, concluded that Iraq was hiding a variety of outlawed activities from United Nations inspectors, even if it was not actually making weapons of mass destruction. One irrefutable conclusion, according to Kay, is that Iraq was building conventional missiles with ranges prohibited by the UN.
His unclassified testimony states that at least one vial of of botulinum, which could be used to make a biological weapon, was found in a scientist's home.
Interviews with Iraqi scientists disclosed that they researched anthrax as well. Inspectors found clandestine laboratories, including one in a prison, that were "suitable for preserving [biological weapons] expertise," according to Kay's public report. The two tractor-trailer trucks initially thought to be mobile bio-weapons labs do not seem to be suitable for the production of biological weapons, but such a use has yet to be ruled out, Kay said.
Acquiring chemical weapons was also a goal. Weapons such as sarin and mustard gas were being explored, according to "multiple sources" who are not specified.
According to the same multiple sources, Hussein had asked a senior military official in 2001 or 2002 how long it would take to produce agents and was told that it would take six months for mustard gas. His son Uday wanted chemical weapons for the Fedayeen Saddam guerrillas in mid-2002 and was told that mustard gas would take two months and the more deadly sarin would take two years.
Many civilian chemical plants and technologies, meanwhile, seem to have been suitable for transition to military use in the future, Kay's report said.
"Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 [chemical weapons] stocks," Kay reported. Reports that Iraqi troops were ordered to use chemical weapons could not be verified, despite Kay's assertions that it would be proved. The search for chemical weapons continues, particularly among the countless weapons depots that contain thousands of conventional arms.
As for nuclear weapons, Kay's findings discounted the notion that Iraq was aggressively seeking a nuclear weapon, a view expressed in prewar intelligence reports.
Kay offered legislators a few theories on why weapons have not been found, speculating that they could have been hidden well, taken out of the country, or broken into component parts and converted to innocuous-seeming civilian uses that could be reassembled once international sanctions and weapons inspections ended. Kay also speculated that Iraqi scientists may have lied to Hussein, pretending such weapons were being produced, legislators said.
Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, told reporters that a program that was "broken down" but retained the necessary expertise for future use is the "most likely scenario."
Representative Porter Goss, Republican of Florida and cochairman of the Intelligence Committee, stressed that the war to remove Hussein was justified. 