Iraq Had no Weapons Stockpiles or Nuclear Program, CIA Says

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Iraq did not possess stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and its program to develop nuclear arms was in decay by March 2003, the CIA said in a report that undercuts a central argument by the Bush administration to justify the invasion.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein never abandoned his ambition to develop weapons, the report says. Research and development were stopped in an effort to persuade the United Nations to lift sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War, Charles Duelfer, special adviser to the director of Central Intelligence for weapons of mass destruction, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony on the report.

``The analysis shows that despite Saddam's expressed desire to retain the knowledge of his nuclear team and his attempts to retain some key parts of the program, during the course of the following 12 years Iraq's ability to produce a weapon decayed,'' Duelfer said.

Duelfer's 1,300-page report contradicts assertions by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to justify the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Cheney in an August 2002 speech said, ``we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.''

Mike McCurry, an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, said the CIA report is ``a very significant commentary on the mistaken case for war.''

At a campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Bush defended the invasion of Iraq. He said the U.S. after the Sept. 11 attacks had to prevent the possibility terrorists would acquire weapons of mass destruction.

``We had to take a hard look at everyplace where terrorists might get those weapons and one regime stood out: the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein,'' Bush said.

Intent

Duelfer said Hussein demonstrated the intention to resume a nuclear program by forbidding the departure of Iraq scientists and keeping them employed in other government areas that might have applied to future nuclear work.

``These efforts cannot be explicitly tied to an intention to revive a weapons program,'' Duelfer said.

The report, which will be posted today on the Web site of the Central Intelligence Agency, draws on analysis from the Defense Intelligence Agency's Iraqi Survey Group set up in April 2003 to uncover weapons that had been expected before the war.

It follows an assessment released in July by the Senate Intelligence Committee that criticized the U.S. intelligence community for overstating the size, scope and in many cases the basic existence of a program portrayed the Bush administration as a ``grave and gathering threat.''

The report names countries and companies that sold Iraq weapons technology in violation of United Nations resolutions.

Investigators discovered that revenue Iraq earned from the UN's Oil-for-Food program was funneled into the military industrial commission responsible for clandestine weapons and technology purchases, Duelfer said.

Available funding increased to $350 million in 2001 from $7.8 million in 1998, Duelfer said.

``During this period many military programs were carried out -- including many involving the willing export to Iraq of military items prohibited by the Security Council,'' he said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Tony Capaccio in Washington  acapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Glenn Hall at  ghall@bloomberg.net