[Peace-discuss] new wmd searcher

[Randall Cotton]

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Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 4:20 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] new wmd searcher

: CIA Picks New Iraq Weapons Inspector
: By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
:
: Filed at 1:54 p.m. ET
:
: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq is stepping down
: from the position and will be succeeded by a veteran of weapons inspections
: during Saddam Hussein's regime, CIA Director George Tenet announced Friday.

This AP report is indistinguishable from a White House press release.
For the real story, read the following report from The Independent:

---------------------

Saddam's WMD never existed, says chief American arms inspector
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
24 January 2004
David Kay, who stood down yesterday as head of the Bush administration's hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, said that he
did not believe that any stockpiles of such weapons ever existed.

Mr Kay, who was formally replaced by Charles Duelfer, another former UN inspector, said that most of what was going to be found in
the hunt for Saddam Hussein's WMD had already been uncovered. The returning of sovereignty to the Iraqis would make the search more
difficult, he added. "I don't think they existed," Mr Kay said, referring to Saddam's alleged stockpiles of chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the [1991] Gulf War and I don't think
there was a large-scale production programme in the Nineties." Mr Kay's comments will be an embarrassment for the Bush
administration. Earlier this week the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, one of Washington's most outspoken hawks who led the rallying cry
for war insisting that Saddam possessed WMD, said the outcome of the search was not clear. "I think the jury is still out," he said.
"It's going to take some additional considerable period of time in order to look in all of the cubby holes and ammo dumps in Iraq
where you might expect to find something like that."
Despite having the resources of more than 1,000 personnel dedicated to the hunt for such weapons, an interim report issued by Mr Kay
last October conceded that no weapons had been found, even though there was evidence Iraq had retained the "template" of a weapons
programme.
The Bush administration appears determined to continue its public stance that such weapons could be discovered. Announcing Mr Kay's
replacement, the CIA director George Tenet said: "At a time when our WMD hunt efforts were just beginning, David provided a critical
strategic framework that enabled the Iraq Survey Group to focus the hunt for information on Saddam's WMD programmes." He added:
"Building on the framework that David has put in place, I am very confident that Charlie and the ISG will continue to make progress
in the months ahead in determining the status of the former Iraqi regime's WMD programmes."