Hunt for Iraq banned weapons yields nothing: paper

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 25, 2003

Hunt for Iraq banned weapons yields nothing: paper

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An intensive six-month search in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction has failed to discover a single trace of an illegal arsenal, the British Guardian newspaper quoted a report circulating in Washington and London as saying on Thursday.

The report, which was compiled by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) of 1,400 weapons experts and support staff led by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and is expected to be published next month, will instead focus on former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's capacity and intentions to build banned weapons, the paper said.

"It will mainly be an accounting of programs and dual-use technologies," the paper quoted a US intelligence source as saying, adding that drafts of the report have been sent to the White House, the Pentagon and the Downing Street.

The BBC reported Wednesday that the survey group, which includes British and Austrian investigators, had come across no weapons of mass destruction (WMD), or delivery systems, or laboratories involved in developing such weapons.

The report is expected to include computer programs, files, paperwork and pictures suggesting Saddam's regime was developing a WMD program, the BBC said.

Although the United States and Britain were likely to focus on documentary evidence that the Saddam regime was capable of producing WMD, the Guardian said, the report would fall far short of proving Iraq was an "imminent threat" even to its neighbors.

Later in the day, the Downing Street dismissed the leak of the report as speculation, stressing that people should wait.

The disclosure seems not to be a piece of good news for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who put forward Iraq's banned weapons as the reason for going to the US-led war in Iraq and has been insisting that the weapons would be found.

Recent opinion polls showed the popularity of Blair, the staunchest US ally on Iraq, has fallen as the US-led coalition has failed to find Iraq's alleged banned weapons.

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