Colin Powell admits doubt over intelligence on Iraq weapons

2.15pm


TBILISI - US Secretary of State Colin Powell says it is an "open question" whether stocks of weapons of mass destruction will be found in Iraq and conceded it was possible Saddam Hussein had none.

Powell made the comments today after David Kay, the leader of the US hunt for banned weapons in Iraq, stepped down yesterday and said he did not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons in the country.

"The open question is how many stocks they had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't that known beforehand?" Powell said to reporters as he flew to Tbilisi to attend Sunday's inauguration of Georgian President-elect Mikhail Saakashvili.

The Bush administration's central argument for going to war against Iraq last year was that Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction that could threaten the United States and its allies.

No banned arms have been found in Iraq since the United States invaded and toppled Saddam.

Kay told Reuters on Friday he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons produced after the 1991 Gulf War. Its nuclear activities had not resumed in any significant way, he said.

The comments dented the credibility of the administration's case for the war, which was presented most extensively by Powell at the UN Security Council on February 5, 2003.

Asked which was right -- Kay's statements or Powell's argument then that Iraq had failed to account for vast quantities of chemical weapons -- Powell replied: "I think the answer to the question is, I don't know yet.

"Last year when I made my presentation it was based on the best intelligence that we had at the time," Powell added.

"It was consistent with the views of other intelligence agencies and other governments and it was consistent with a body of reporting over the years... that there were large, unanswered questions about what they had or did not have."

- REUTERS


Herald Feature: Iraq