Weapons search in Iraq ends empty-handed

Published on Wednesday 12 January 2005 16:54

THE search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been formally called off without any evidence of the banned materials.

The White House today confirmed a published report that said officials with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) have returned to the US amid growing dangers from insurgents within Iraq. The ISG - comprised of 1,200 military and intelligence specialists - spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

US President George Bush, joined by Britain and other governments, cited Saddam Hussein's manufacture and secret storage of chemical and biological weapons as justification for going to war with Iraq. Instead, the ISG returned empty-handed.

Chief US weapons hunter Charles Duelfer is to deliver his final report on the search next month. Mr Duelfer reported in September that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that the Iraqi leader had no capability of making any either. Mr Bush unapologetically has long defended his decision to invade Iraq.

The Washington Post first reported the story in today's editions. An intelligence official told the newspaper that the chances of weapons being hidden inside Iraq, or having been shipped out of the country before the war, were very small. The search was called off amid the growing insurgency and risk of attack or kidnap in Iraq.

Mr Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq’s weapons was wrong.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said today there no longer is an active search for weapons.

"There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that," but that it has largely concluded.