After nearly two years of thorough searching, the "Iraq Survey
Group" has given up the search and gone elsewhere, having found
... a globe! (nothing). Not a "Winnebago of Death" to be found.

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Last Update: Thursday, January 13, 2005. 6:12am (AEDT)

US gives up WMD hunt in Iraq

By John Shovelan in Washington and agencies

The Bush administration in the United States has confirmed it has
given up its hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.

The 700 members of the Iraq Survey Group have been redeployed.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan announced the hunt was over.

"The weapons that we all believe were there based on the intelligence
were not there," he said.

The Bush administration and its allies said the threat posed by Saddam
Hussein's stockpiles of WMD and his intention to reconstitute a
nuclear weapons program justified the invasion and the war.

The US's top weapons hunter, CIA specialist Charles Duelfer, has
returned home to the US.

Mr McClellan says a lot of the Iraq Survey Group's mission is now
focused elsewhere.

He says nothing has changed President Bush's view that Saddam's regime
had the intent and capability to use such weapons.

"Saddam Hussein was pursuing an aggressive strategy to undermine the
UN oil-for-food program and bring down the United Nations sanctions
through illicit finance and procurement schemes," Mr McClellan said.

"He intended to resume his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction once
those sanctions were eliminated."

An interim report last September concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles
of biological and chemical weapons.

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Source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1280990.htm


Cheers, Steve..

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