Content, War in Iraq

Next

Previous

- Until March 30, 2003, the US and British troops have been unable to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq although they inspected at least ten so-called suspect sites.
- On April 14, 2003, outside Karbala, the US forces found eleven vans buried underground that could be mobile chemical and biological weapons laboratories. About 1,000lb of documentation was found inside the vans. The UN weapons inspectors had visited the site without finding anything suspicious. In fact it was soon found that the vans had no military significance.
- The USA decided on April 17, 2003, to send qualified weapons inspectors to Iraq to find some weapons of mass destruction at any cost. They will send 1,000 scientists, intelligence analysts, and others. This could create more international disagreement -especially with France, Germany, Russia and other UN Security Council members- over who should do the job since, after all, the UN has still a valid mandate to do it.
- On April 27, 2003, no weapons of mass destruction have been found yet. Washington is getting nervous that they decided to increase the number of their own inspectors from 500 to 1,500. An Iraqi scientist, Nissar al-Hindawi, formerly linked to the biological weapon programme, said that order had been received from the top to destroy all prohibited weapons of mass destruction. He added that if some had not been destroyed, they would have degraded making them useless by now.
- Suspicious drums of white powder were found near Tikrit on April 27, 2003. Washington, without waiting for the final analysis, claimed that they had found "biological weapons". Nothing is certain yet and again it will soon be evident that the powder is harmless.
- By May 2003, no weapons of mass destruction have been found yet. Donald Rumsfelt now feels that the old Iraqi leaders will not help finding them and he is now relying -or hoping he can- on junior officials will be more helpful.
- On May 7, 2003, the Americans are at it again: they have found a "smoking gun." This time it is a mobile laboratory that could, perhaps, have been used to produce chemical or biological weapons. However there is no proof for it and all the necessary tests have not been made yet, so let us wait and see, once more!
- On May 12, 2003, we were told the US military task force hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is to leave the country within a month. After seven weeks of search, they have found no traces of prohibited weapons. Another and larger US force -the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG)- will continue the search. Sixty two out of sixty-eight most important sites have been visited without result.
- On June 15, 2003, the so-called mobile laboratories found in Northern Iraq, and described by the US and British authorities to be mobile germ warfare laboratories, were in fact used to produce hydrogen gas to fill artillery balloons as the Iraqis have always said. Both Britain and the US said that this was the proof that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction. The truth was that they were only producing
- On June 26, 2003, we were told that an Iraqi nuclear scientist, Mahdi Obeidi, and his family have been taken out of Iraq after he told the Americans that components necessary to build an atomic bomb were buried under a rose bush in his garden. This he said he did at the request of Saddam Hussein's regime, 12 years ago. He handed to the Americans the parts necessary to build a gas centrifuge system for enriching uranium as well as many documents. He also said that other scientists had been told to do the same in order to be able to restart the programme once sanctions were lifted. It looks like the Iraqi military nuclear research programme had not been reactivated after the 1991 war and one has been found is not the "smoking gun" the British and Americans are looking for.
- On July 11, 2003, we are told that there soon would be 1,400 experts looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Until now nothing has been found and this latest information shows that both the US and Britain are desperate to find anything at all.
- The head of the US search team for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector, said that his team was uncovering "solid evidence". He refused to give any details asking the American people to be patient but to expect news in a few more days.
- On August 11, 2003, Mr David Kay who is heading the US 1,400 strong team from the coalition searching for weapons of mass destruction said that Iraqi forces had received the order to fire chemical shells at invading coalition troops. He had to admit that no such weapons have been found yet. Mr Kay added that his team is making good progress and that "conclusive proof" would soon be disclosed. Let us wait and see!
- On September 24, 2003, the interim report written at the end of 6 months of search by the 1,400 strong CIA-led Iraqi survey group (ISG) had to admit that they have found no trace whatsoever of weapons of mass destruction.
- The list of what they did not found is impressive: No 3,000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, no Tabun (a nerve agent), No mustard agent, no sarin nerve agent, no 1.5 tonnes of VX nerve agent, no raw material for 25,000 litres of anthrax spores, no botulin toxin, no aftatoxins, no ricin, no mobile laboratories, no 30,000 bombs, rockets and shells to deliver poison agents, no L-29 remote-piloted vehicle programme supposed to be able to deliver WMD agents, no nuclear weapon material, and no 20 al-Hussein missiles with a 400-mile range. In other words, they found nothing, the UN inspectors and Dr Hans Blix were right and Bush and Blair are … liars.
- On October 2, 2003, the report from the head of the American and British arm inspectors was delivered to the US Senate. Its content is not officially revealed but it is known that its boss, David Kay, had to admit that his 1,400 team of American and British experts had not found any weapons of mass destruction in six months of free search all over Iraq.
- Now the US administration and the CIA are saying that, perhaps, they were told lies by the Iraqi refugees who pretended to know everything about Saddam Hussein's arms. It was their interests to induce the Americans to invade Iraq. The main group responsible for informing the CIA is the Iraqi National Council of Ahmad Chalabi. The CIA and the State Department had their doubts about what Chalabi said but the Pentagon believed him mainly because his so-called true information justified the invasion of Iraq. Of course, it is also possible that Saddam Hussein bluffed when he boasted about the weapons at his disposal or he did not know the whole truth about them. As we say in Europe, "Wake up, America, the dream is over."
- As The Guardian said on October 3, 2003, "There are no shining weapons" in Iraq!" The Iraqi Survey Group could only find one vial of botulinum -and it is ten years old- in months of free search. Moreover the botulinum found was of a limited strength strain that could have been used to vaccinate livestock or even in the form of "Botox" in cosmetic surgery! It seems now certain that Iraq abandoned its research and production of chemical and biological weapons in 1993 and that it did not seek to buy uranium to make nuclear bombs. All Kay could say was that it looks like that "It was Iraq's intention to revive a weapon programme"! It is sad, really, for such big countries like the US and Britain to cheat their own people by telling lies.
- On December 9, 2003, we were told that the Iraqi scientists (with 8 exceptions) who had been detained and interrogated about weapons of mass destruction were finally liberated. Those still in custody were involved in the past in biological weapon programmes.
- On December 18, 2003, it was rumoured that David Kay, the head of the coalition team searching weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would resign in the next few month, before the group finishes the inspections and before the completion of its final report.
- On January 10, 2004, British and Danish soldiers found 36 shells buried in the desert near al Quarnah, southern Iraq. Preliminary tests showed that they contain a liquid blister agent. The damaged shells are believed to be about 10 years old and leftover from the eight-years war between Iraq and Iran. On January 14 US officials had to admit that test results were negative for chemical agents. More tests are to be done in a laboratory in Idaho.
- On January 23, 2004, the leader of the US search team for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, David Kay, resigned and was replaced by Charles Duelfer, an ex-UN weapons inspector and former MIT student (Master). Kay believes that Iraq did not produce any weapons of mass destruction since the end of the Gulf War in 1991 and that it had no important programmes to do it. This contradicts President Bush in his State of the Union Address in which he said that Saddam Hussein had such programmes.
- On January 24, 2004, US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, said that it is quite possible that Iraq had no large quantity of weapons of mass destruction, confirming what the chief US inspector David Kay said a few days before and contradicting President Bush and Tony Blair who still pretend that Iraq had such weapons when the war started. Where are they? Kay is saying that Saddam Hussein could have sent his weapons of mass destruction to Syria but there are no evidences.
- Speaking in Davos at the World Economic Forum, Vice President Cheney called to the countries that opposed the war to cooperate now with the US in the war against terrorism and in the reconstruction of Iraq.
- On Sunday January 25, Kay repeated again that Iraq had no significant amount of weapons of mass destruction before the invasion and that the US Intelligence Agencies failed to detect it. He added that he did not think President Bush owned an explanation to the nation for this mistake but the Intelligence agencies own one to the president.
- On January 28, Kay appeared before the Senate Armed Service Committee. He repeated his previous allegations that "we were all wrong" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Republicans said that the intelligence services were the problem while the Democrats questioned possible pressure on the analysts by the White House in particular Dick Cheney that goes on saying that these weapons exist and will be found.
- On January 27, 2004, President Bush refused to repeat his previous claims that weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq. But he insisted that the war was justified because Saddam Hussein had posed a "grave threat to America and the World".
- On March 2, 2004, David Kay, the former head of the CIA team that searched for weapons of mass destruction after the invasion of Iraq, asked the Bush administration to "come clean with the American people", and admit that it was wrong and that Iraq had no such weapons. Refusing to admit it, he added, will delay necessary reforms of the intelligence agencies and undermine the credibility of the USA abroad. He added that the US bi-partisan inquiry on pre-war intelligence on Iraq was a good thing, and certainly better that the limited Butler inquiry in Britain.
- On March 30, 2004, the new head of the US team looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, reported to the Senate that his team had found evidence that Iraq had civilian "dual use" factories able to produce quickly biological and chemical weapons. However they did not yet found any weapons of mass destruction.
- On July 7, 2004, we were told that US specialists removed from Iraq 1.7 ton of enriched uranium and radioactive materials that could have been used as "dirty bombs."
- On August 4, 2004, the head of the American-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG), Charles Duelfer, confirmed that the new head of MI6, John Scarlett, sent him suggestions about what to include in his final report due in September. Duelfer did not reject the emails but did not include their content in his report because they were not relevant.
- On August 11, 2004, Dr Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, the top Iraqi nuclear scientist, said that all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were destroyed after the 1991 Gulf War. They were none left in 2003 as the programmes were not reactivated, and Iraq did not try to buy uranium from Niger.
- On September 10, 2004, the Iraq Survey Group has concluded that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at the time of the invasion. The absence of banned weapons has long been suspected, but the finality of the report's conclusion will be controversial. Both US President George Bush and Blair claimed that Hussein had a covert programme to produce chemical and biological weapons, to manufacture ballistic missiles and had renewed search for a nuclear bomb. They were only lying!
- Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, written by President George W. Bush's handpicked investigator Charles Duelfer and presented to the US Senate on October 6, 2004. In the 18 months since Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, justifying the decision by saying that Saddam Hussein was "a gathering threat" to the United States, Americans have come to realize that Iraq had no chemical, nuclear or biological weapons. But the report issued Wednesday goes further. It says that Iraq had no factories to produce illicit weapons and that its ability to resume production was growing more feeble every year. While Saddam retained dreams of someday getting back into the chemical programs, if discovered by inspectors, would only keep them in place.
- On October 12, 2004, it was believed that high-precision equipment that could be used to make nuclear weapons have been "systematically" disappearing, and may present a new proliferation risk. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has told the UN Security Council of the "widespread and apparently systematic dismantlement" of buildings in Iraq that once housed key dual-use items. The missing equipment could be useful to a nation or terrorist group to build a nuclear bomb. The fact that it's now unaccounted for raises questions about the quality of protection of such sensitive sites by US-led forces in Iraq.
- On October 24, 2004, the Iraqi interim government informed officially the USA and the Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives are missing from a former military installation, al Qaqaa. It was supposed to be under US military control. The explosives -mainly HMX and RDXO- are very powerful and could be used to detonate nuclear weapons. The IAEA had informed the USA before the invasion of Iraq, but obviously they ignored the message and now this dangerous material has been looted. It could have been used by the insurgents or making bombs.
- On October 28, 2004, the US ABC television broadcasted videotape showing American soldiers opening munitions bunkers in which the famous 380 tons of explosives were stocked. This video was taken nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein. This seems to show that the US army did not secure these dangerous explosives although they knew about it. Obviously the explosives were looted. The question is by whom?
- On November 6, 2004, we were told by the American Intelligence agencies that about 6,000 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems have disappeared in Iraq. Nobody knows where they are. After the 380 tons of potent explosives, it does not seem that the Americans did a good job controlling dangerous materials after they occupied Iraq.
- On January 12, 2005, we were told that the USA was giving up searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They did not find any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Just as the UN inspectors had said before the war. This confirms that the war was based on lies and the biggest liars are Bush, Blair, Chenay, Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. Iraqi oil has always been the only objective.The US chief weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, said on April 26, 2005, that the inquiries into weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have "gone as far as feasible". Mr Duelfer also said an official transfer of WMDs to Syria ahead of the Iraq war was not likely. However, he said Saddam Hussein had wanted to restart WMD programmes.