Chief US weapons searcher David Kay says he found no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, and only limited evidence of secret programs to develop weapons, drawing fresh complaints about the Bush administration's prewar assertions of a serious threat from former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Kay, in a report to Congress on Thursday, described evidence of a possible small-scale Iraqi biological weapons effort and said searchers had substantial evidence of an Iraqi push to boost the range of its ballistic missiles beyond prohibited ranges.
But his team had found only limited evidence of any chemical weapons effort, he said. And there was almost no sign that a significant nuclear weapons project was under way.
Mark Gwozdecky, spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said yesterday that the Vienna-based agency could not comment on Kay's report "without access to his findings."
"The IAEA still has an inspection mandate in Iraq, both under Security Council resolutions and under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to ensure that Iraq has no nuclear weapons-related activities," Gwozdecky said.
"We therefore expect that Mr. Kay's findings will be shared with us, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1441, to enable us to fulfill our responsibilities."
A Western diplomat familiar with IAEA activities in Iraq, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday that he doubted the agency "will be very impressed" by Kay's report.
"It appears that Kay hasn't unearthed much that wasn't already understood by the nuclear inspectors," the diplomat said. "What he is reporting is far from evidence of a nuclear weapons program."
Taken together, the findings do not appear to so far validate most of the George W. Bush administration's prewar assertions of widespread and advanced Iraqi weapons programs, critics said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday "it will be unfortunate" if it turns out that intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq turns out to have been seriously flawed.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, however: "This detailed interim report documents how Saddam's regime was in clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1441."
The resolution, which the US cited as justification for the war, threatened Iraq with "serious consequences" if it failed to show it had handed over or destroyed its WMD.
"While Dr. Kay notes it is too early to reach conclusions, we are pleased with the progress being made to uncover the full extent of the regime's WMD programs, and we look forward to the final report," the spokesman said.
Kay said he should know within six to nine months if there is more to be found in Iraq. The administration is asking for US$600 million to continue the search, according to congressional officials.
"We have not found at this point actual weapons," Kay said after briefing Congress behind closed doors. "It does not mean we've concluded there are no actual weapons."
"In addition to intent, we have found a large body of continuing activities and equipment that were not declared to the UN inspectors when they returned in November of last year," he said.
But the lack of substantive findings brought immediate negative reactions from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress -- and also seemed certain to raise new questions among allies overseas about the Bush administration's justification for going to war.
"I'm not pleased by what I heard today, but we should be willing to adopt a wait-and-see attitude -- and that's the only alternative we really have," said Senator Pat Roberts, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The administration's assertions about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorism, and the intelligence conclusions behind those assertions, had driven the administration's case for war.
Tenet's statement came in response to a blistering letter from representatives Porter Goss and Jane Harman, the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. That letter, dated Sept. 25, cited "significant deficiencies with respect to the collection activities concerning Iraq's WMD and ties to al-Qaeda prior to the commencement of hostilities there."
The findings cited by Kay included:
-On biological weapons, a single vial of a strain of botulinum, a poison that can be used as a weapon, located at the home of a known biological weapons scientist.
-On chemical weapons, multiple sources told the weapons hunting group that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled program after 1991. There had been reports that Iraq retained some of its old chemical weapons but Kay said none had been found.
-On nuclear weapons, Kay said in his statement to Congress that despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, "to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material."
-But on missiles, Kay said the team had "discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements."
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