US weapons team ends its search with no discovery

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=405395
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
12 May 2003
The team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is ending its
operation without having found proof that Saddam Hussein had stocks of
chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
It investigated numerous sites identified by US intelligence as those likely
to harbour weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but has now all but accepted
that it is unlikely to find any weapons. Operations are being wound up and a
scaled-down unit called the Iraq Survey Group will take over.
The leader of the US Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, Colonel Richard
McPhee, said his team of biologists, chemists, computer experts and
documents specialists arrived in Iraq believing the intelligence community's
warning that Saddam had given "release authority" to those in charge of a
chemical arsenal.
"We didn't have all those people in protective suits for nothing," he
toldThe Washington Post. "[But if they planned to use those weapons] there
had to have been something to use and we haven't found it. Books will be
written on that in the intelligence community for a long time."
Saddam's alleged possession of such weapons was one of the central pretexts
given by Washington and London for the war against Iraq. In a February
presentation to the UN, Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, identified
sites he said were producing WMD.
When George Bush made his declaration of victory aboard the USS Abraham
Lincoln on 1 May, he said: "We've begun the search for hidden chemical and
biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be
investigated."
Some progress has been made. It was reported on Thursday that a team of
experts searching for WMD had concluded that a trailer found near the city
of Mosul in northern Iraq last month was a mobile biological weapons
laboratory. The team admitted, however that other experts disagreed. Some
officials claim that up to three such laboratories have been discovered
although no biological or chemical agents have been found at any of them.
Yesterday, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of
staff, said WMD might still be in the hands of Iraqi special units.
"Were they full-deployed and could they have been brought to bear on us, or
are they still perhaps out there somewhere in some sort of bunker and could
have been used?" he said at the US regional headquarters in Qatar. "We are
trying to run that one to the ground."
But those on the ground appear more sceptical. US central command started
the war with a list of 19 priority suspected weapons sites. All but two have
been searched without uncovering any evidence. A further 69 were identified
as sites that might offer clues to the whereabouts of WMD. Of these, 45 have
been searched without success.
Some experts believe that one of the problems has been that WMD search teams
were held back for too long, allowing Iraqi forces to dismantle or destroy
equipment. Others believe that the assessment that such weapons existed was
wrong. One Defence Intelligence Agency official said: "We came to bear
country and we came loaded for bear and we found that the bear was not here.
The question was 'where are Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological
weapons?' What is the question now? That is what we are trying to sort out."
The search for WMD will continue under the auspices of the Iraq Survey
Group, which will also hunt for information about Saddam's regime. The White
House has claimed this is a bigger unit than the task force. But officials
admit that the number of staff hunting for weapons will be scaled back.