The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come
to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to
disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts
are back at Langley. In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq
Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of
new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before
Christmas. Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons
hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted
nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush
administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the
findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be
published this spring. President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other
top administration officials asserted before the U.S. invasion in March
2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had
chemical and biological weapons, and maintained links to al Qaeda
affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the United
States. Bush has expressed disappointment that no weapons or weapons
programs were found, but the White House has been reluctant to call off
the hunt, holding out the possibility that weapons were moved out of
Iraq before the war or are well hidden somewhere inside the country. [more]
Pictured above:
Soldiers' families and National Guard defy Pentagon, allow media to
film and photograph remains coming home in flag-draped
coffins. [more]
