US scales down search for weapons of mass destruction

By ANDREW BUNCOMBE in WASHINGTON

The team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is ending its operation without having discovered any proof that Saddam Hussein had stocks of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, it was revealed yesterday.

Having investigated numerous sites identified by United States intelligence as those likely to harbour stocks of weapons of mass destruction, the team has all but accepted it is unlikely to find any. The team will wind up operations and a new, scaled-down unit will take over the task.

The leader of the US Army's 75th Exploitation Task Force, Colonel Richard McPhee, said his team of biologists, chemists, computer experts and documents specialists had arrived in Iraq fully believing the intelligence community's warning that Saddam had given "release authority" to those in charge of a chemical arsenal.

"We didn't have all those people in protective suits for nothing," he told the Washington Post. "[But if they planned to use those weapons] there had to have been something to use and we haven't found it. Books will be written on that in the intelligence community for a long time."

Saddam's alleged possession of the weapons was one of the central pretexts given by Washington and London for the war against Iraq. In February, Secretary of State Colin Powell identified a number of sites he said were producing them.

When President George W. Bush made his declaration of victory aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, he said: "We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated."

Some progress has been made. It was reported that a team of experts had concluded that a trailer found near the city of Mosul in northern Iraq last month is a mobile biological weapons laboratory. The team admitted, however, that other experts disagreed with their assessment. Yesterday, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, said weapons of mass destruction may still be in the hands of Iraqi special units.

But those on the ground appear more sceptical.

US Central Command started the war with a list of 19 priority suspected weapons sites. Of those, all but two have been searched without uncovering any evidence. A further 69 were identified as sites that might offer clues to the whereabouts of the weapons.

Of these, 45 have been searched without success.

Some experts believe that one of the problems has been that search teams were held back from the front lines for too long, allowing Iraqi forces to dismantle or destroy equipment. Others believe that the assessment that such weapons existed was wrong.

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Herald Feature: Iraq