Inquiry unlikely to report finding Iraq arms

12.00pm

UNITED NATIONS/WASHINGTON - An eagerly awaited US inquiry is expected to report finding "documentary evidence" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons programmes but no proof of actual arms, a senior US official said on Wednesday.

The expected finding in a report by David Kay, who served as a UN nuclear inspector in Iraq in 1991, would be a blow to US President George W. Bush who, before ordering the invasion of Iraq last March, argued Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat that justified war.

The failure to turn up any such weapons has eroded US credibility as Bush now seeks greater help from the international community to stabilise and rebuild Iraq.

The Bush administration has not given up, however, and seems to be pinning its hopes on Iraq's former defence minister who was given "effective" immunity from prosecution when he surrendered to US forces last week.

Washington believes former Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed, seen at Saddam's side in what is thought to have been the ousted dictator's last public appearance, could provide significant information on Iraqi weapons activities, the senior US official told Reuters.

The official, speaking anonymously, said other "lower level guys who were technical functionaries in Iraq's weapons programmes" were also given immunity and have been assisting Kay in his Iraqi arms inquiry.

Ahmed, number 27 on Washington's wanted list of Iraqi fugitives, turned himself in to US troops in the northern city of Mosul on September 19 after weeks of negotiations.

"I don't know what he's going to say, but he's knowledgeable about what their actual weapons capacity is and he is going to be very important. I think that's one reason why, when they agreed to accept this surrender, they, in effect, agreed not to prosecute," the US official said.

"It's more and more apparent the weapons were either very hidden, and we haven't found the people who know where they are," the official added, or Saddam kept an arms production capacity that could have been revived once UN inspectors left the country.

US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters that reports about Kay's findings were premature and cautioned against jumping to "definitive conclusions."

It was uncertain when Kay, who was at the CIA this week working on the report, would brief members of the US Congress, but some sources said it could be as early as next week.

US forces have been searching unsuccessfully for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq for more than five months.

The Iraq Survey Group, headed by Major General Keith Dayton of the Defence Intelligence Agency, has led the search since June, with the guidance of Kay, a CIA adviser.

The report "generally will be about chemical and biological weapons and I think he's going to find evidence, documentary evidence, statements by Iraqi scientists and technicians, that they had chemical and biological weapons production programmes," the senior US official said.

"Whether they will find or disclose anything on the weapons themselves, I doubt," he added.

The CIA described the report as an initial document that will "reach no firm conclusions."

"Dr Kay is still receiving information from the field. It will be just the first progress report and we expect that it will reach no firm conclusions, nor will it rule anything in or out," CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said.

When Kay briefed lawmakers in July, he said there could be "surprises" uncovered. But a congressional aide told Reuters: "I'm unaware of any major surprises."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a chief US ally in the Iraq war, has also come under attack over the weapons issue.

At the UN General Assembly, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw dismissed news of Kay's likely findings as "speculation on an as yet unpublished report." He refused to say if he had seen a draft.

Straw said the case for military action was debated in the United Nations last year when "the whole of the international community came to a unanimous agreement that Iraq posed a threat to international peace and security because of its development of WMD and its unlawful missile systems."

"And if people want evidence, they don't have to wait for Dr. Kay's report. What they can do is look at the volumes of reports from the (UN) weapons inspectors, going back over a dozen years, including the final report" last March.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq