Monday, September 08, 2003

U.N. inspectors found Iraq's nuclear program in disarray and unlikely to be able to support an active effort to build weapons, the atomic agency chief said in a confidential report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei reiterated that his experts uncovered no signs of a nuclear weapons program before they withdrew from Iraq just before the war began in March.

The United States and Britain invaded Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein's regime was developing nuclear arms as well as chemical and biological weapons.

"In the areas of uranium acquisition, concentration and centrifuge enrichment, extensive field investigation and document analysis revealed no evidence that Iraq had resumed such activities," ElBaradei said in the report, made available to the AP by a diplomat.

"No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq," he said....


--AP

And, beyond that, there's the Newsweek story that reports,

U.S. analysts are also taking more seriously stories detained Iraqi leaders are telling about what happened to Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. U.S. sources say that captured Iraqis insist Saddam’s top strategic objective was to persuade the United Nations to relax sanctions on his regime. So, after Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel, head of his unconventional weapons programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, Saddam ordered intensified efforts to hide or destroy blueprints, “dual use” technology and any remaining germs or chemicals. Not only was material stashed or obliterated, but records showing what had been destroyed were also pulped. Some U.S. and British intel officials still say stockpiles of chemical or biological agents will turn up. But U.S. Defense analysts are paying more attention to a “working hypothesis,” based on stories told by Iraqi captives, that no live WMD may ever be found.

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