'Iraq Had No Wmd Stocks' - Weapons Hunters

'Iraq had no nuclear weapons'

Washington - Iraq had no stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons for military use before last year's United States-led invasion and its nuclear programme had decayed since the 1991 Gulf War, an American weapons inspector said in testimony on Wednesday.

Charles Duelfer's report contrasted with statements by the Bush administration before the invasion, when it cited weapons of mass destruction as the main reason for overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"I still do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are cached in Iraq," said Duelfer, the CIA special adviser who led the hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

He was speaking during testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee.

'Iraq never had WMD'

London - A group hunting for banned weapons in Iraq is set to report that it has found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, Sky News reports.

However, the Iraq Survey Group report will say that Saddam Hussein had plans to manufacture weapons in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

The ISG, which is made up of British and American experts, issued an interim report a year ago.

It said it found evidence of "WMD-related activities" but no actual weapons.

No WMD existed

The 2003 report also included discoveries of non-WMD programmes banned by the UN.

These included a network of laboratories that contained equipment suitable for continuing WMD research.

Inspectors also found phials of live botulinum, from which a biological agent could have been produced.

However, their final report, due out later on Wednesday, will conclude that no WMD actually existed in Iraq before the US-led invasion in March 2003.

The report, which will run to over 1 000 pages, will be the most comprehensive account yet of Iraq's weapons programme before the war.

The head of the American-led team, Charles Duelfer, will set out the findings of the final report to the US Senate.

Much of the content was revealed in a leaked draft of the report last month.

Pressure

The failure to find stockpiles of WMD had been widely anticipated and will bring further pressure on Tony Blair, who last week urged the Labour Party to put aside its differences over Iraq and focus on winning a third term in power.

The father of a soldier killed in Iraq said the Prime Minister must now resign.

Reg Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, 20, was killed by a mob of Iraqis, said the buck had to stop with Blair.

"The Prime Minister fed us a pack of lies," he said.

"My son was told he was going off to fight a country that was threatening to use WMD. Now we know he was lied to. That has been affirmed and reaffirmed again by this report."

Lance Corporal Keys was one of six Red Caps killed by a mob of Iraqis last year.

Edited by Andrea Botha

'No WMDs' at time of US invasion

IRAQ gave up its weapons of mass destruction in 1991 and had no active chemical, biological or nuclear programs at the time of the US-led invasion in 2003, the chief US weapons inspector concluded in a report released today.

Charles Duelfer, head of the US Iraq Survey Group, found that Iraq's nuclear capability, far from being reconstituted as the United States had insisted before the war, was "decaying rather than being preserved" and would have taken years to rebuild, an official familiar with the report said.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, although intent on preserving the "intellectual capital" acquired over the years in developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), set the end of UN sanctions as a higher priority.

This led him to give up stockpiled weapons and ultimately the programs themselves, the official said.

"In terms of getting rid of weapons, by the end of 1991 they had gotten rid of just about everything," said the official, who briefed reporters before Mr Duelfer testified to Congress today.

'Saddam posed a real threat to the world'

Pennslyvania - United States President George Bush on Wednesday defended his call to invade Iraq ahead of a report expected to say that Saddam Hussein did not have the weapons used by the Bush administration to justify the war.

Addressing supporters in Pennslyvania, Bush said that after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the United States had to look for sources of weapons of mass destruction available to terrorists.

"We had to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those weapons," he said. "One regime stood out. The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein."

Bush cited Saddam's history of using such weapons and his listing as a state sponsor of terrorism as justification for the war.

"There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," he said. "In the world after September 11 that was a risk we could not afford to take."

According to the Washington Post, the report to be released on Wednesday, will say Saddam had no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and no solid plans to build such weapons.

The daily, quoting officials familiar with the report by Charles Duelfer, the chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Saddam was not able to make weapons of mass destruction before the war. - Sapa-AFP

"Scandal"-Mongering

Buried among the bloviating about the upcoming VP debate on FNL this morning (10/5) was yet another segment devoted to Fox's ongoing efforts to whip up anti-UN sentiment by sensationalizing an alleged "Oil-for-Food scandal".

In a typical piece of over-hyped & under-sourced reporting, at 10:37am (EDT), Eric Shawn hit the themes that FNL has been pushing for months -- insinuating involvement by "French bankers & consultants", saying that Congress is "grilling" witnesses, & implying that billions of dollars "lined Saddam Hussein's pockets" & enabled him to build palaces. [comment: note that Shawn's report did not repeat sensationalist allegations, made during a David Asman special last month, that tried to imply that anyone & everyone who did business with Iraq under the Oil-for-Food program was, in effect, funding terrorism.] Curiously, although Shawn was in DC & mentioned the current Congressional testimony, he did not update the UN's own investigation of the matter, being headed by Paul Volcker, nor did he mention a US government report that will be released tomorrow.

Today's New York Times covers that report more completely, in an article called "Inspector's Report to Detail Iraqi Plans to Undermine Sanctions and Produce Illicit Arms":

A final take on Iraqi WMD

Mr. Hussein personally believes that WMDs saved his skin twice - first, when he used chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, and second, when their threat helped halt US troops short of Baghdad in the Persian Gulf War.

A huge failure of intelligence

The group concluded it was unlikely that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

It also concluded that he probably meant to make chemical weapons again one day, if sanctions had been lifted.

"The emphasis is on capability and intention not on immediate threat," said one British official familiar with the report.

While the technical assessment is over, barring some unexpected discovery, the political argument is not.

Opponents of the war will quite simply feel vindicated. For them it was an open and shut case which has now been finally shut. Iraq had no weapons and the inspections would have revealed this if they had been allowed to continue.

The assessment that Saddam Hussein was a potential threat provides an escape clause for proponents of the war, even though it was not the basis on which the decision to attack was taken. The basis for war was that he was an imminent, not a potential threat.

Arms inspector�s report undercuts war rationale

Arms inspector Charles Duelfer presented his findings Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee. His report shows that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat when the U.S. invaded Iraq and it undercuts the principal Bush administration rationale for toppling the former Iraqi leader.  

In his findings, Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group and an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, concluded that Saddam had no stockpiles of nuclear weapons but stated that Saddam had the desire but not the means to develop WMD because he found signs of idle plans that Saddam could have revived once international pressure weakened.

Duelfer and his team has completed a 1,500-page report; it is still unclear how much of the report will be made public. Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, who resigned last December, also found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 

Blair 'Should Quit over Iraq Weapons Report'

Blair 'should quit over WMD report'

Blair welcomes Iraq report

Blair's war in his own words

Blair: Iraq report shows sanctions weren't working

The report by the top U.S. arms hunter, however, said Saddam's weapons capability weakened during a dozen years of U.N. sanctions and that no evidence has been found that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991 even after U.N. inspectors were out of the country from 1998 to 2002.

That finding – by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group – undermines the main argument for war put forward by President Bush and Blair. Duelfer did report that Saddam – in questioning after his capture – made clear that he hoped to revive his weapons program if sanctions were lifted.

The British leader has had to defend his support for the way in the face of heavy criticism from some in his own Labour Party.

Blair, speaking during a visit to Ethiopia, said he welcomed the report, issued Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I think what it will show is that this is a far more complicated situation than many people thought," he said.

"And just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is there were no stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren't working," he said.

"On the contrary, Saddam Hussein was doing his best to get round those sanctions, had every intention of redeveloping these programmes and weapons of mass destruction," he said.

"He was retaining the teams of scientists and facilities to do so and that there were multiple breaches of the UN resolutions which after all was the legal justification for the conflict."

Duelfer presented his findings in a report of more than 1,000 pages, and in appearances before Senate committees.

The report said Saddam did not have chemical and biological stockpiles when the war began in March 2003 and his nuclear capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing.

Duelfer found that Saddam, hoping to end U.N. sanctions, gradually began ending prohibited weapons programs starting in 1991. But as Iraq started receiving money through the U.N. oil-for-food program in the late 1990s, and as enforcement of the sanctions weakened, Saddam was able to take steps to rebuild his military, such as acquiring parts for missile systems.

However, the erosion of sanctions stopped after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Duelfer found, preventing Saddam from pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Bremer Comments Put White House On Defensive

Washington — The White House staunchly defended its Iraq policy Tuesday as new questions emerged about President Bush's prewar decisions and postwar planning. An impending weapons report undercut the administration's main rationale for the war, and the former head of the American occupation said the United States had too few troops in Iraq after the invasion.

Four weeks before Election Day, Democrat John Kerry pounced on the acknowledgment by former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer Monday that the United States had “paid a big price” for insufficient troop levels.

Bremer, who shot into the national headlines with his comments, said during a speech Tuesday that his remarks had been somewhat distorted by the media.

“We certainly had enough (troops) going into Iraq. We won the war,” Bremer said at Michigan State University. He added, however: “As I look back now ... I believe it would have been better to stop the looting. ... One way to do that would have been to have more troops on the ground.”

Kerry said there was a “long list of mistakes” that the Bush administration had made in Iraq.

“I'm glad that Paul Bremer has finally admitted at least two of them,” Kerry said, referring to postwar troop levels and a failure to contain chaos.

At a campaign stop in Tipton, Iowa, Kerry said the question for voters was whether Bush was “constitutionally incapable of acknowledging the truth” or was “just so stubborn.”

In a rare day spent in Washington, Bush remained out of sight and silent, letting his surrogates answer Kerry's charges. His speechwriters polished an address that administration aides said would be a sweeping indictment of Kerry's policies on Iraq, the war on terrorism and the economy.

“It's a comprehensive look at two very different records, one of accomplishment, and one of being on the wrong side of history over and over again,” Bush campaign communications director Nicolle Devenish said of the speech. “The president will talk about the choice we face in this election between his commitment to success in the war on terror and John Kerry's record of voting against measures to keep us safe, and attacking policies he once supported.”

The address in the swing state of Pennsylvania was originally to focus on health care, but the White House reversed course and made it about Iraq, seeking to blunt a new report on the absence of weapons of mass destruction there before the war.

The government's most definitive account of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, to be released today, will show that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess or have concrete plans to develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said.

The officials said the 1,000-page report by Charles Duelfer, chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Saddam had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speech that Iraq had posed “a gathering threat.”

The officials said Duelfer, an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, found that the state of Saddam's weapons development programs and knowledge base was less in 2003, when the war began, than it was in 1998, when international inspectors left Iraq.

“They have not found anything yet,” said one U.S. official who had been briefed on the report.

A senior U.S. government official said the report includes comments Saddam made to debriefers after his capture that bolster administration assertions, including his statement that his past possession of weapons of mass destruction “was one of the reasons he had survived so long.” He also maintained such weapons saved his regime by halting Iranian ground offensives during the Iran-Iraq war and deterred coalition forces from pressing on to Baghdad during the Gulf War of 1991, the official said.

The official also said that Duelfer's Iraq Survey Group had uncovered Iraqi plans for ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 kilometers and for a 1,000-kilometer-range cruise missile, farther than the 150-kilometer range permitted by the United Nations, the senior official said.

The official said Duelfer will tell Congress in the report and in testimony today that Saddam intended to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programs if he were freed of the U.N. sanctions that prevented him from getting needed materials.

Duelfer's report said Saddam was pursuing an aggressive effort to subvert the international sanctions through illegal financing and procurement efforts, officials said. The official said the report states that Saddam intended to resume full-scale weapons of mass destruction efforts after the sanctions were eliminated, and details Saddam's efforts to hinder international inspectors and preserve his weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., vice chairman of the House intelligence committee, said she hadn't read Duelfer's report but has been told that it thoroughly undercuts the administration's assertions that Iraq posed a serious threat.

“Intentions do not constitute a growing danger,” said Harman. “It's hardly mushroom clouds, hardly stockpiles,” she added, a reference to administration rhetoric used in the buildup to the war.

Meanwhile, in an unusual public acknowledgment of internal dissent, Bush campaign spokesman Brian Jones said Bremer and the military brass had clashed on troop levels.

“Ambassador Bremer differed with the commanders in the field,” Jones said. “That is his right, but the president has always said that he will listen to his commanders on the ground and give them the support they need for victory.”

Military commanders believed the force level was adequate, said Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.

“Before, during and subsequent to Mr. Bremer's tenure, the military commanders and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the level of U.S. forces in Iraq was the appropriate level, and that was their recommendation to the secretary of defense,” DiRita said.

Kerry said he would listen to military and civilian leaders if elected.

“Commander in chief means you have to make judgments that protect the troops and accomplish the mission,” Kerry told reporters in Iowa. “I would listen to all of my advisers and make the best decision possible.”

The Washington Post contributed to this report. 

Bush defends Iraq war again

CIA inspector drops pre-poll bombshell

The assessment contrasted with statements by President George W. Bush before the invasion, when he cited a growing threat from Iraq�s weapons of mass destruction as the reason for overthrowing President Saddam Hussein.

Final US inspection report expected to undercut key Bush rationale ...

In drafts, weapons hunter Charles Duelfer concluded thatSaddam's Iraq had no stockpiles of the banned weapons but said hefound signs of idle programs that Saddam could have revived ifinternational attention had waned.

''It appears that he did not vigorously pursue those programsafter the inspectors left,'' the official said, speaking oncondition of anonymity in advance of the report's release.

Duelfer was providing his findings Wednesday to the Senate ArmedServices Committee. His team compiled a 1,500-page report after hispredecessor, David Kay, who quit last December, also found noevidence of weapons stockpiles.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., briefed on the report earlierWednesday, said Duelfer found Iraq's capability to produce anddevelop weapons of mass destruction had degraded since 1998.

The report was ''inconclusive'' about what ultimately happenedto Saddam's supposed weapons stockpiles from earlier in the 1990s,which might have been destroyed or transferred to Syria, saidRoberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Pointing to apparent prewar confusion inside the country itself,the report suggests that Saddam's senior advisers, and perhapsSaddam himself, actually believed Iraq had weapons of massdestruction even when it did not, Roberts said.

A Democratic senator briefed on the report, Dick Durbin ofIllinois, said the Bush administration, in justifying war,''created a worse-case scenario on virtually no evidence.''

''There were no weapons of mass destruction,'' Durbin said. ''Atmost, there was an intention or desire to create them.''

The White House continued to maintain that the findings supportthe view that Saddam was a threat.

''We knew the dictator had a history of using weapons of massdestruction, a long record of aggression and hatred for America,''President Bush said in a speech Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.''There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would passweapons or materials or information to terrorist networks. In theworld after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford totake.''

Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmannedaerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintainingindustrial capability that could be converted to produce weapons,officials have said. Duelfer also describes Saddam's Iraq as havinghad limited research efforts into chemical and biological weapons.

Duelfer's report will come on a week that the White House hasbeen put on the defensive in a number of Iraq issues.

Remarks this week by L. Paul Bremer, former U.S. administratorin occupied Iraq, suggested he argued for more troops in theimmediate aftermath of the invasion, when looting was rampant. Aspokesman for Bush's re-election campaign said Bremer indeeddiffered with military commanders.

Bush's election rival, Democrat John Kerry, pounced on Bremer'sstatements that the United States ''paid a big price'' for havinginsufficient troop levels. On weapons, however, the Massachusettssenator has said he still would have voted to authorize theinvasion even if he had known none would be found.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the Duelfer report''will continue to show that he was a gathering threat that neededto be taken seriously, that it was a matter of time before he wasgoing to begin pursuing those weapons of mass destruction.''

Compare that to the words of Vice President Dick Cheney, in aspeech on Aug. 26, 2002, 6½ months before the invasion:

''Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now hasweapons of mass destruction,'' Cheney said then. ''There is nodoubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against ourallies and against us.''

On Wednesday, the White House also continued to assert thatthere were clear ties between Saddam before the invasion and theal-Qaida linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But a CIA reportrecently given to the White House found no conclusive evidence thatSaddam harbored al-Zarqawi before the war, two U.S. governmentofficials said, speaking on condition of anonymity

They stressed, though, that the report did not make a finalconclusion and the question of the al-Zaraqwi-Saddam ties is stillbeing pursued. One of the officials said it is clear thatal-Zarqawi had been planning terrorist attacks while operating outof Baghdad.

The CIA report was first revealed by Knight-Ridder.

During Tuesday night's debate, Cheney said ''there is stilldebate over this question.'' But he added: ''At one point, some ofZarqawi's people were arrested. Saddam personally intervened tohave them released.''

In a speech on Oct. 7, 2002, Bush laid out what he describedthen as Iraq's threat:

''It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. Itis seeking nuclear weapons.''

''We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has agrowing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could beused to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broadareas.''

''Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range ofhundreds of miles far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel,Turkey and other nations in a region where more than 135,000American civilians and service members live and work. ''

Final report by chief US arms inspector: Saddam had no WMD

How bad is Iraq report for Blair?

This is, after all, the moment the prime minister has carefully been preparing voters for over the past few months.

His original line had been to urge his critics to let the ISG complete its work before jumping to conclusions.

By last July, however, he had changed tack and told the MPs on the Commons liaison committee that he had to accept the ISG had not found WMD "and may never find them".

By the time of his party conference speech last week, he had gone so far as to accept that the original intelligence on Saddam's supposed WMD had been wrong.

Most importantly, however, he also completed the process of appearing to shift his justification for the war away from WMD to the removal of Saddam Hussein.

UN resolutions

"I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.

"The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power," he told the conference.

Hussein was waning threat, report says

The officials said the 1,000-page report by Charles Duelfer, chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speeches that Iraq had posed ''a gathering threat."

The officials said Duelfer, an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, found that the state of Hussein's weapons development programs and knowledge base was less in 2003, when the war began, than it was in 1998, when international inspectors left Iraq.

''They have not found anything yet," said one US official who had been briefed on the report.

A senior US government official said the report includes comments Hussein made to debriefers after his capture that bolster administration assertions, including his statement that his past possession of weapons of mass destruction ''was one of the reasons he had survived so long." He also maintained that such weapons had saved his regime by halting Iranian ground offensives during the Iran-Iraq war and deterred coalition forces from pressing on to Baghdad during the Gulf War of 1991.

The official said Duelfer will tell Congress in the report and in testimony today that Hussein intended to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programs if he were freed of the UN sanctions that prevented him from getting needed materials.

Duelfer's report said Hussein was pursuing an aggressive effort to subvert the international sanctions through illegal financing and procurement efforts, officials said. The official said the report states that Hussein intended to resume full-scale efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction after the sanctions were eliminated and details his efforts to hinder international inspectors and preserve his weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California and vice chairwoman of the House intelligence committee, said she hadn't read Duelfer's report but has been told that it thoroughly undercuts the administration's assertions that Iraq posed a serious threat. ''Intentions do not constitute a growing danger," Harman said.

The report is being released at a point in the presidential campaign when Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts is aggressively challenging the Bush administration about its prewar justifications for invading Iraq, which centered largely on the contention that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. People familiar with the report said it was being released today because Duelfer was ready and his schedule permitted him to testify to Congress.

Administration officials discussed some of the report's findings yesterday, publicly arguing that it showed that Hussein was a long-term threat, even though no weapons of mass destruction were found. White House press secretary Scott McClellan called Hussein's effort to evade the UN sanctions ''very revealing."

''We all thought that we would find stockpiles, and that was not the case," McClellan said. ''The fact that he had the intent and capability and that he was trying to undermine the sanctions that were in place is very disturbing. And I think the report will continue to show that he was a gathering threat that needed to be taken seriously, that it was a matter of time before he was going to begin pursuing those weapons of mass destruction."

Duelfer's findings follow reports by the Senate intelligence committee and his predecessor, David Kay, that criticized the prewar assessment that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons.

Another government official briefed on the report said that Iraq's nuclear-related activity in particular had been dormant for years before the invasion. 

In quotes: US policy on Iraq

Iraq's alleged resumption of WMD programmes was singled out as the main reason for going to war while the Bush administration also made much of Saddam Hussein's alleged ties to the Islamist militants behind 9/11.

Inspector's Report to Detail Iraqi Plans to Undermine Sanctions ...

Inspector: Iraq had no WMD before invasion

But Duelfer supported Bush’s argument that Saddam remained a threat. Interviews with the toppled leader and other former Iraqi officials made it clear that Saddam had not lost his ambition to pursue weapons of mass destruction and hoped to revive his weapons program if U.N. sanctions were lifted, his report said.

“What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of use of force and had experiences that demonstrated the utility of WMD,” Duelfer told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Inspectors Find No WMDs Proof In Iraq

It its final report, However, the group will assert that Saddam Hussein had plans to start producing weapons in defiance of UN sanctions, US officials here said.

Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer will reveal the group�s findings on Wednesday as Duelfer is due to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is expected to confirm that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction when the US-led invasion began in March 2003.

The report, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, is being billed as the most definitive account yet of Iraq's weapons programmes.

His team has compiled this huge report; it is unclear how much will be made public. Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, who quit last December, also found no evidence of weapons stockpiles.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday the report will conclude "that Saddam Hussein had the intent and the capability, that he was pursuing an aggressive strategy to bring down the sanctions, the international sanctions, imposed by the United Nations through illegal financing procurement schemes."

Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining industrial capability that could be converted to produce weapons, officials have said. Duelfer also describes Saddam's Iraq as having had limited research efforts into chemical and biological weapons.

Saddam's government fell in early April 2003 after a lightning U.S.-led invasion in mid-March. He was captured in December.

Much of the content of the report has been anticipated since a draft of the report was leaked last month.

That conclusion has been widely anticipated since the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, resigned from his position in January.

American officials told the New York Times that the report would include new evidence that Saddam Hussein had plans to break UN-imposed sanctions and renew the production of banned weapons.

Speaking anonymously, the officials said the report would detail efforts by Iraq to bypass sanctions while they were still in place, and to undermine international support for them.

Those efforts were reported to include the use of clandestine laboratories to manufacture small quantities of chemical and biological weapons for use in assassinations.

With the political stakes in the US so high and Iraq so central to the debate, Republican and Democratic camps in the presidential race will seize on the different elements of the report to argue that it bolsters their case for or againstthe Iraq war.

However, the document will stop short of offering a final judgement about the situation before the war. Instead, the Iraq Survey Group is expected to continue translating and evaluating an estimated 10,000 boxes of documents seized in Iraq.

The final report of the chief U.S. arms inspector for Iraq was expected to undercut a principal Bush administration rationale for removing Saddam Hussein, that Saddam's Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction.

Remarks this week by L. Paul Bremer, former U.S. administrator in occupied Iraq, suggested he argued for more troops in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, when looting was rampant. A spokesman for Bush's re-election campaign said Bremer indeed differed with military commanders.

President Bush's election rival, Democrat John Kerry, pounced on Bremer's statements that the United States "paid a big price" for having insufficient troop levels. On weapons, however, the Massachusetts senator has said he still would have voted to authorize the invasion even if he had known none would be found.

Duelfer's report will come on a week that the White House has been put on the defensive in a number of Iraq issues. However, the White House maintained Duelfer's report will support its view on Iraq's pre-war threat.

Inspectors conclude no WMD in Iraq

But the Iraq Survey Group will assert that Saddam Hussein had plans to start producing weapons in defiance of UN sanctions, U.S. officials say.

Chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer was to reveal the findings on Wednesday.

Much of the content of the report has been anticipated since a draft of the report was leaked last month.

Duelfer is due to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he is expected to confirm that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when the U.S.-led invasion began in March 2003.

That verdict has been widely anticipated since the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, David Kay, resigned from his position in January. ---------Clandestine schemes

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the report would show that Saddam Hussein posed a more serious threat than had previously been imagined.

Speaking in Baghdad, Straw said "the threat from Saddam Hussein in terms of his intentions" was "even starker than we have seen before".

Saddam Hussein would have built up his WMDs had he been left in power, Mr Straw added.

His comments were backed by Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barhem Saleh, who said anyone who doubted that Saddam Hussein had WMDs only needed to visit Halabja - where the former Iraq dictator gassed thousands of Kurds.

"We know Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. He used them," Saleh said, adding that in his view Saddam Hussein was himself a weapon of mass destruction. White House press secretary Scott McClellan acknowledged that no stockpiles of weapons had been found in Iraq, but added: "The fact that he had the intent and capability, and that he was trying to undermine the sanctions that were in place, is very disturbing."

U.S. government officials told the New York Times that the report would include new evidence that Saddam Hussein had plans to break UN-imposed sanctions and renew the production of banned weapons.

The officials, speaking anonymously, said the report would detail efforts by Iraq to bypass sanctions while they were still in place, and to undermine international support for them.

Those efforts were reported to include the use of clandestine laboratories to manufacture small quantities of chemical and biological weapons for use in assassinations.

BBC Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says the report, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, is being billed as the most definitive account yet of Iraq's weapons programs.

Our correspondent says that with the political stakes in the U.S. so high and Iraq so central to the debate, Republican and Democratic camps in the presidential race will seize on the different elements of the report to argue that it bolsters their case for or against the Iraq war.

However, the document will stop short of offering a final judgment about the situation before the war.

Instead, the Iraq Survey Group is expected to continue translating and evaluating an estimated 10,000 boxes of documents seized in Iraq.

Iraq Lacked Weapons or Nuclear Program, CIA Says (Update1)

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Iraq did not possess stockpiles ofchemical and biological weapons and its program to developnuclear arms was in decay by March 2003, the CIA said in a reportthat undercuts the Bush administration's argument to justify theinvasion.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein never abandoned his ambitionto develop weapons, the report says. Research and developmentwere stopped in an effort to persuade the United Nations to liftsanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War, Charles Duelfer,special adviser to the director of Central Intelligence forweapons of mass destruction, told the Senate Armed ServicesCommittee in testimony on the report.

``The analysis shows that despite Saddam's expressed desireto retain the knowledge of his nuclear team and his attempts toretain some key parts of the program, during the course of thefollowing 12 years Iraq's ability to produce a weapon decayed,''Duelfer said.

Duelfer's 1,300-page report contradicts assertions byPresident George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney tojustify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In an August 2002speech, Cheney said, ``we now know that Saddam has resumed hisefforts to acquire nuclear weapons.''

Mike McCurry, an adviser to Democratic presidentialcandidate John Kerry, said the CIA report is ``a very significantcommentary on the mistaken case for war.''

Bush Reaction

At a campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Bushdefended the invasion of Iraq. He said the U.S. after the Sept.11 attacks had to prevent the possibility terrorists wouldacquire weapons of mass destruction.

``We had to take a hard look at every place where terroristsmight get those weapons and one regime stood out: thedictatorship of Saddam Hussein,'' Bush said.

U.K. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended the invasion ofIraq before the public release of the CIA report. ``The reporthighlights the nature of the threat from Saddam in terms of hisintentions and capabilities in even starker terms we have seenbefore,'' Straw said at a news conference in Baghdad. Britain isthe second-largest contributor of troops to the U.S.-led effortin Iraq.

Intent

Duelfer said Hussein demonstrated the intention to resume anuclear program by forbidding the departure of Iraq scientistsand keeping them employed in other government areas that mighthave applied to future nuclear work.

``These efforts cannot be explicitly tied to an intention torevive a weapons program,'' Duelfer said.

In a summary of the report, the CIA said investigators found``no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart'' thenuclear program after 1991. Hussein's ``ambitions in the nucleararea were secondary to his prime objective of ending UNsanctions,'' it said.

The report, which will be posted today on the Web site ofthe Central Intelligence Agency, draws on analysis from theDefense Intelligence Agency's Iraqi Survey Group set up in April2003 to uncover weapons in Iraq.

It follows an assessment released in July by the SenateIntelligence Committee that criticized U.S. intelligence agenciesfor overstating the size, scope and in many cases the basicexistence of a program portrayed by the Bush administration as a``grave and gathering threat.''

On Sept. 8, 2002, on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' Cheney saidthe U.S. knew ``with absolute certainty'' that Hussein ``is usinghis procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs in orderto enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.''

Rumsfeld

Three days before the U.S. attacked Iraq on March 19, 2003,Cheney on ``Meet The Press'' said ``we believe he has, in fact,reconstituted nuclear weapons.''

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate Committee onSept. 19, 2002, that Iraq had ``amassed large clandestinestockpiles of biological weapons, including anthrax, botulismtoxin, possibly smallpox. He's amassed large clandestinestockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, Sarin and mustardgas.''

The inspectors ``found some small numbers of old chemicalweapons rounds,'' Duelfer said. ``These date from before the 1991war. While they are important from a safety concern, they do notrepresent evidence of retained stocks.''

The report names countries and companies that sold Iraqconventional weapons technology in violation of United Nationsresolutions. The list includes suppliers from Ukraine, Cyprus,France, North Korea, Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria, the formerYugoslavia, Syria, Jordan, China and the Czech Republic.

UN Security Council

The report also describes a series of trade agreements, orprotocols, aimed at ``dividing'' Russia, France and China fromthe U.S. and U.K. to force a lifting of sanctions by the UNSecurity Council.

``At a minimum, Saddam wanted to divide the five permanentmembers to foment international public support of Iraq by a savvypublic relations campaign and an extensive diplomatic effort,''the report said.

Investigators discovered that revenue Iraq earned from theUN's Oil-for-Food program set up after the Gulf War was funneledinto the military industrial commission responsible forclandestine weapons and technology purchases, Duelfer said.

Available funding increased to $350 million in 2001 from$7.8 million in 1998, Duelfer said.

``During this period many military programs were carried out-- including many involving the willing export to Iraq ofmilitary items prohibited by the Security Council,'' he said.

Duelfer said investigators evaluating evidence collectedthis year in Baghdad uncovered attempts to make the chemicalagent Ricin for rudimentary weapons such as mortar rounds.

The Survey Group ``undertook a sizeable effort to track downand prevent any lash-up between foreign terrorists or anti-coalition forces and either existing chemical weapons stocks orexperts able to produce such weapons indigenously,'' Duelfersaid. ``I am convinced we successfully contained a problem beforeit matured into a major threat,'' he said.

Iraq Survey Group to concede defeat in search for WMD

Iraq didn't have illegal weapons

The Iraq Survey Group, which has been searching for the weapons in Iraq, said Saddam Hussein hadn't had any illegal weapons since the 1991 Gulf War.

One of the reasons the US and Britain went to war with Iraq was because they thought it was making these weapons.

But the report, released on Wednesday, said that Saddam did plan to start making illegal weapons again.

Iraq had no WMD at time of US invasion: chief inspector

Charles Duelfer, head of the US Iraq Survey Group, found that Iraq's nuclear capability, far from being reconstituted as the United States had insisted before the war, was "decaying rather than being preserved" and would have taken years to rebuild, an official familiar with the report said.

President Saddam Hussein, although intent on preserving the "intellectual capital" acquired over the years of weapons development, set the end of UN sanctions as a higher priority.

This led him to give up stockpiled weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ultimately the programs, the official said.

"In terms of getting rid of weapons, by the end of 1991 they had gotten rid of just about everything," said the official, who briefed reporters before Duelfer's testified to Congress on Wednesday.

Saddam clung to the capabilities to produce weapons until as late as 1996 when the defection of Hussein Kamal, the Iraqi leader's son-in-law, led to the discovery of a biological warfare program by UN arms inspectors, according to Duelfer's account.

More than 1,000 pages long, Duelfer's report traces the forces that propelled Iraq's WMD programs from the 1982-88 war with Iran, through the 1991 Gulf War, the 12-year period after when UN sanctions were in place, and finally 2003 US-led invasion.

His conclusions were drawn from documents, testimony and debriefings of Saddam Hussein.

"He was not loquacious on the WMD activities, but he certainly put into perspective how he viewed threats," the official said of Saddam.

"There is material we have of his internal deliberations which I think are revealing about how he would use the weapons, and it's really kind of interesting that he is really focused on the Iranian threat," he said.

"What he did say was that he was very sensitive to the Iranian program, the Iranian WMD program, and he was going to match them," the official said.

Saddam and other Iraqi officials made clear that they were convinced that chemical weapons saved Iraq from defeat in the 1982-88 war against Iran and had deterred the United States from marching on Baghdad in 1991, the official said.

Duelfer concluded that Saddam intended to restart chemical, biological and nuclear programs once sanctions were lifted.

"Basically he decided his priority was to get out of sanctions, and you see that carried out throughout the rest of the 90s," said the official.

"With that priority, activities were continued to sustain WMD capabilities."

"They were making judgements all along -- what could they get away with?," he said.

Their strategy initially was to go along with UN Security Council resolutions, but when the process dragged on and as Iraq gained unexpected access to funds and influence through the oil-for-food program it shifted to an effort to erode the sanctions, the official said.

But the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States abruptly changed the situation.

The support Iraq gained on the UN Security Council vanished and "the erosion stopped," the official said, suggesting that even as the United States was moving towards war the sanctions regime had tightened.

The US search for weapons after the war found no stockpiles of weapons, no sign chemical weapons had been produced after 1991, no civilian facilities that could be rapidly converted to chemical agent production, and no plans to restart them, the official said.

The few chemical munitions found were made before 1991, and were decaying.

"We found some laboratories under the control of the Mukhabarat," the official said. "It appears they were producing small amounts of poison not as military weapons but for the purposes of assassination. These were laboratories not declared to the UN, which were concealed."

He said it would have taken one to two years to re-establish chemical warfare production and "months" to resume production of biological agents.

The nuclear program was was setback by "years," he said.

"They would have had to do a lot. It's a big infrastructure they would have had to recreate. Certainly not starting from scratch, not starting from scrath. They had a lot of the talent," he said.

Although Saddam tried to keep teams of nuclear scientists together, the official said, "He was further away in 2003 than he was in 1991."

"So the nuclear program was decaying rather than being preserved," he said.

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Iraq had no WMD, report says

The report contradicts claims made by Tony Blair and the US president George Bush before the war that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons.

Presenting the evidence to the US senate, the group's leader Charles Duelfer said: "It is my judgement that retained stocks do not exist. I still do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are hidden in Iraq."

He added, however, that the ISG concluded Saddam had the desire and increasingly the capacity to develop WMD as sanctions weakened, and in 2003 was only months away from producing mustard gas.

"Evidence suggests that, as resources became available and the constraints of sanctions decayed there was a direct expansion of activity of supporting future WMD reconstitution".

Mr Duelfer said that he could not "definitively" say that WMDs were not transferred to other countries nor that stockpiles would not yet be found.

But he said the ISG had made concerted efforts to ensure that Iraqi insurgents would not be able to obtain WMDs - though they had been trying to obtain them - and that it would continue its search for further evidence.

Mr Blair, on a three-day visit to Africa, appealed for people to analyse the "fullness" of the report and to recognise that it showed sanctions were not working.

"Just as I have had to accept that the evidence now is there were no stockpiles of actual weapons ready to be deployed, I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren't working," he said.

Iraq had no WMDs, US arms inspector confirms

Washington — Contradicting the main argument for a war that has cost more than 1,000 American lives, the top U.S. arms inspector reported Wednesday that he found no evidence that Iraq produced any weapons of mass destruction after 1991. The report also says Saddam Hussein's weapons capability weakened during a dozen years of UN sanctions before the U.S. invasion last year.

Contrary to prewar statements by U.S. President George W. Bush and top administration officials, Mr. Hussein did not have chemical and biological stockpiles when the war began and his nuclear capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, according to the report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group.

Mr. Duelfer's findings come less than four weeks before an election in which Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq has become the central issue. Democratic candidate John Kerry has seized on comments this week by the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, that the United States didn't have enough troops in Iraq to prevent a breakdown in security after Mr. Hussein was toppled.

The inspector's report could boost Mr. Kerry's contention that Mr. Bush rushed to war based on faulty intelligence and that sanctions and UN weapons inspectors should have been given more time.

But Mr. Duelfer also supports Mr. Bush's argument that Mr. Hussein remained a threat. Interviews with the toppled leader and other former Iraqi officials made clear to inspectors that Mr. Hussein had not lost his ambition to pursue weapons of mass destruction and hoped to revive his weapons program if sanctions were lifted, the report said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bush cited Mr. Hussein's “history of using weapons of mass destruction, a long record of aggression and hatred for America” in calling the invasion the right thing to do.

“There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks,” Mr. Bush said in a campaign speech in Wilkes Barre, Pa. “In the world after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take.”

Mr. Duelfer presented his findings in a report of more than 1,000 pages, and in appearances before Senate committees.

The report avoids direct comparisons with prewar claims by the Bush administration on Iraq's weapons systems. But Mr. Duelfer largely reinforces the conclusions of his predecessor, David Kay, who said in January, “We were almost all wrong” on Mr. Hussein's weapons programs. The White House did not endorse Mr. Kay's findings then, noting that Mr. Duelfer's team was continuing to search for weapons.

Mr. Duelfer found that Mr. Hussein, hoping to end UN sanctions, gradually began ending prohibited weapons programs starting in 1991. But as Iraq started receiving money through the UN oil-for-food program in the late 1990s, and as enforcement of the sanctions weakened, Mr. Hussein was able to take steps to rebuild his military, such as acquiring parts for missile systems.

However, the erosion of sanctions stopped after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mr. Duelfer found, preventing Mr. Hussein from pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Duelfer's team found no written plans by Mr. Hussein's regime to pursue banned weapons if UN sanctions were lifted. Instead, the inspectors based their findings that Mr. Hussein hoped to reconstitute his programs on interviews with Mr. Hussein after his capture, as well as talks with other top Iraqi officials.

The inspectors found Mr. Hussein was particularly concerned about the threat posed by Iran, the country's enemy in a 1980-88 war. Mr. Hussein said he would meet Iran's threat by any means necessary, which Mr. Duelfer understood to mean weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Hussein believed the use of chemical weapons against Iran prevented Iraq's defeat in that war. He also was prepared to use such weapons in 1991 if the U.S.-led coalition had tried to topple him in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that Mr. Hussein “had the intent and capability” to build weapons of mass destruction, and that he was “a gathering threat that needed to be taken seriously, that it was a matter of time before he was going to begin pursuing those weapons of mass destruction.”

But before the war, the Bush administration cast Mr. Hussein as an immediate threat, not a gathering threat who would begin pursuing weapons in the future.

For example, Mr. Bush said in October 2002 that “Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more.” Mr. Bush also said then, “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.”

Senator Richard Durbin said Wednesday that Mr. Duelfer's findings showed there is “no evidence whatsoever of the threats we were warned about.” The Illinois Democrat spoke after Mr. Duelfer gave a closed-door briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Committee chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said Mr. Duelfer showed Iraq's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction had degraded since 1998. But Mr. Roberts called the report inconclusive on what happened to weapons stockpiles Mr. Hussein is believed to have once possessed.

Iraq inspectors prepare to report

The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said Iraq's nuclear capability had decayed, not advanced, since the 1991 Gulf War.

However, the report, released on Wednesday, suggested that Saddam Hussein intended to resume production of banned weapons when he could.

US President George W Bush has again defended last year's invasion of Iraq.

Mr Bush said the risk of Saddam Hussein passing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to terror groups was "a risk we could not afford to take".

Iraq made no WMDs after 1991: inspector

Iraq planned to produce illegal weapons

Iraqi Weapons Hunt Team to Reveal Findings

Key Findings of Weapons Report on Iraq

Let's get the facts straight on the 2000 election, Saddam's WMDs

NO WMD IN IRAQ: REPORT

New Report Expected To Say No WMDs In Iraq

No Evidence That Saddam Had Wmd Last Year - Report

No Saddam WMD, report concludes

No Saddam terror proof: Rumsfeld

No WMDs In Iraq, Weapons Inspector Tells Congress

No WMDs when US attacked

Washington - Iraq gave up its weapons of mass destruction in 1991 and had no active chemical, biological or nuclear programmes at the time of the US-led invasion in 2003, the chief US weapons inspector concluded in a report released on Wednesday.

Charles Duelfer, head of the US Iraq Survey Group, found that Iraq's nuclear capability, far from being reconstituted as the United States had insisted before the war, was "decaying rather than being preserved" and would have taken years to rebuild, an official familiar with the report said.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, although intent on preserving the "intellectual capital" acquired over the years in developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), set the end of UN sanctions as a higher priority.

This led him to give up stockpiled weapons and ultimately the programmes themselves, the official said.

"In terms of getting rid of weapons, by the end of 1991 they had gotten rid of just about everything," said the official, who briefed reporters before Duelfer's testified to congress on Wednesday.

Saddam clung to the capabilities to produce the weapons until as late as 1996 when the defection of Hussein Kamal, the Iraqi leader's son-in-law, led to the discovery of a biological warfare programme by UN arms inspectors, according to Duelfer's account.

More than 1 000 pages long, Duelfer's report traces the forces that propelled Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes from Iraq-Iran war with Iran in the 1980s, through the 1991 Gulf War, the 12-year period after when UN sanctions were in place, and finally 2003 US-led invasion.

His conclusions were drawn from documents, officials' testimony and debriefings of Saddam Hussein.

"He was not loquacious on the WMD activities, but he certainly put into perspective how he viewed threats," the official said of Saddam.

Edited by Elmarie Jack

No WMDs, final Iraq report expected to say

Washington — Undercutting the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq, the final report of the chief U.S. arms inspector concludes that Saddam Hussein did not vigorously pursue a program to develop weapons of mass destruction after international inspectors left Baghdad in 1998, lawmakers and others briefed on the report say.

In drafts, weapons hunter Charles Duelfer concluded that Mr. Hussein's Iraq had no stockpiles of the banned weapons, although he found signs of idle programs that could been have revived if international attention had waned.

“It appears that he did not vigorously pursue those programs after the inspectors left,” the official said, insisting on condition of anonymity in advance of the report's release.

Mr. Duelfer was providing his findings Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee. His team compiled a 1,500-page report after his predecessor, David Kay, who quit last December, also found no evidence of weapons stockpiles.

Kansas Republican Senator Pat Roberts, briefed on the report earlier Wednesday, said Mr. Duelfer found that Iraq's capability to produce and develop weapons of mass destruction had degraded since 1998.

The report was “inconclusive” about what ultimately happened to the supposed weapons stockpiles from earlier in the 1990s, which might have been destroyed or transferred to Syria, said Mr. Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Pointing to apparent prewar confusion inside the country itself, the report suggests that Mr. Hussein's senior advisers, and perhaps Mr. Hussein himself, actually believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction even when it did not.

A Democratic senator briefed on the report, Dick Durbin of Illinois, said the administration, in justifying war, “created a worse-case scenario on virtually no evidence.

“There were no weapons of mass destruction. At most, there was an intention or desire to create them.”

The White House continued to maintain that the findings support the view that Mr. Hussein was a threat.

“We knew the dictator had a history of using weapons of mass destruction, a long record of aggression and hatred for America,” U.S. President George W. Bush said in a speech Wednesday in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. “There was a risk, a real risk, that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks. In the world after Sept. 11, that was a risk we could not afford to take.”

Mr. Hussein was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of UN agreements and maintaining industrial capability that could be converted to produce weapons, officials have said. Mr. Duelfer also describes Iraq as having had limited research efforts into chemical and biological weapons.

Official: No WMD stockpiles in Iraq

Contrary to prewar statements by President Bush and top administration officials, Saddam did not have chemical and biological stockpiles when the war began and his nuclear capabilities were deteriorating, not advancing, according to the report by Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group.

Duelfer's findings come less than four weeks before an election in which Bush's handling of Iraq has become the central issue. Democratic candidate John Kerry has seized on comments this week by the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, that the United States didn't have enough troops in Iraq to prevent a breakdown in security after Saddam was toppled.

The inspector's report could boost Kerry's contention that Bush rushed to war based on faulty intelligence and that sanctions and U.N. weapons inspectors should have been given more time.

Pre-poll shock for Bush: Saddam had no WMDs

Report Discounts Iraqi Arms Threat

Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons investigator in Iraq, told Congress today that Saddam Hussein destroyed his stocks of chemical and biological weapons and agents in 1991 and 1992 and that his nuclear weapons program had decayed to almost nothing by 2003.

Duelfer, a former U.N. inspector and the personal representative of the CIA director, said the former Iraqi dictator had intentions to restart his program, but after weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, Hussein instead focused his attention on ending the sanctions imposed by Western governments following his incursion into Kuwait and the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

Report Finds Iraq's Pursuit of WMD Was Ebbing