The
Final Verdict: Iraq Had No WMD
By Julian Borger
18 September , 2004
The Guardian
The
comprehensive 15-month search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
has concluded that the only chemical or biological agents that Saddam
Hussein's regime was working on before last year's invasion were small
quantities of poisons, most likely for use in assassinations.
A draft of the Iraq
Survey Group's final report circulating in Washington found no sign
of the alleged illegal stockpiles that the US and Britain presented
as the justification for going to war, nor did it find any evidence
of efforts to reconstitute Iraq's nuclear weapons programme.
It also appears
to play down an interim report which suggested there was evidence that
Iraq was developing "test amounts" of ricin for use in weapons.
Instead, the ISG report says in its conclusion that there was evidence
to suggest the Iraqi regime planned to restart its illegal weapons programmes
if UN sanctions were lifted.
Charles Duelfer,
the head of the ISG, has said he intends to deliver his final report
by the end of the month. It is likely to become a heated issue in the
election campaign.
President George
Bush now admits that stockpiles have not been found in Iraq but claimed
as recently as Thursday that "Saddam Hussein had the capability
of making weapons, and he could have passed that capability on to the
enemy".
The draft Duelfer
report, according to the New York Times, finds no evidence of a capability,
but only of an intention to rebuild that capability once the UN embargo
had been removed and Iraq was no longer the target of intense international
scrutiny.
The finding adds weight to Mr Bush's assertions on the long-term danger
posed by the former Iraqi leader, but it also suggests that, contrary
to the administration's claims, diplomacy and containment were working
prior to the invasion.
The draft report
was handed to British, US and Australian experts at a meeting in London
earlier this month, according to the New York Times. It largely confirms
the findings of Mr Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, who concluded "we
were almost all wrong" in thinking Saddam had stockpiled weapons.
The Duelfer report goes into greater detail.
Mr Kay's earlier
findings mentioned the existence of a network of laboratories run by
the Iraqi intelligence service, and suggested that the regime could
be producing "test amounts" of chemical weapons and researching
the use of ricin in weapons.
Subsequent inspections
of the clandestine labs, under Mr Duelfer's leadership, found they were
capable of producing small quantities of lethal chemical and biological
agents, more useful for assassinations of individuals than for inflicting
mass casualties.
Mr Duelfer, according
to the draft, does not exclude the possibility that some weapons materials
could have been smuggled out of Iraq before the war, a possibility raised
by the administration and its supporters. However, the report apparently
produces no significant evidence to support the claim. Nor does it find
any evidence of any action by the Saddam regime to convert dual-use
industrial equipment to weapons production.
"I think we
know exactly how this is going to play out," said Joseph Cirincione,
a proliferation expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"You'll see
a very elaborate spin operation. But there's not much new here from
what the ISG reported before," he said. "There are still no
weapons, no production of weapons and no programmes to begin the production
of weapons. What we're left with here is that Saddam Hussein might have
had the desire to rebuild the capability to build those weapons."
"Well, lots
of people have desire for these weapons. Lots of people have intent.
But that's not what we went to war for."
The motives for
war, meanwhile, came under fresh scrutiny last night as the Telegraph
reported that Tony Blair was warned in Foreign Office papers a year
before the invasion of the scale of dealing with a post-Saddam Iraq.
The Liberal Democrat
foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell, said that if authenticated,
the papers "demonstrate that the government agreed with the Bush
administration on regime change in Iraq more than a year before military
action was taken".
Mr Duelfer, who
is reported to still be in Baghdad, did not respond to a request for
an interview on the question of WMD yesterday.
Earlier this year,
he told the Guardian that he expected his report would leave "some
unanswered questions".