9 December 2003

US, Britain pressed on Iraq arms hunt

Controversy has raged over whether the Baghdad regime had WMD, cited as a main reason for the US-led war that ousted Saddam Hussein earlier this year. The Iraq group's report in October said none had been found so far.

The two countries told the closed-door meeting that they want the report to be handed over to UNMOVIC, the UN arms team which monitored Baghdad's weapons programmes but left before the start of the war in March.

A US spokesman at the United Nations downplayed the requests and said the US-led coalition in Iraq had been regularly 'supplying information' about the hunt for the alleged banned weapons.

The call from Russia and France followed a presentation to the council from acting UNMOVIC chairman Demetrius Perricos, who was introducing the latest update report from the still-functioning UN inspection team.

Among other details, the update noted that 1.5 million dollars per month is now being spent on UMMOVIC, which says it is ready to resume the search if authorised to do so by the Security Council.



It is unclear if the Man of Steel or his government have had access to the body of the ISG interim report.

The problem with crying Wolf! whether it's Nigerien yellow wolf or aluminum wolves is that you can only do it once or twice with any effect. The conclusions in the ISG interim report are not supported by any evidence that goes beyond conjecture. Some statements, such as co-storage of conventional and unconventional weapons are outright false. If the body of the interim report supports the conclusions why is it not released to the Security Council? One would have thought the last tactic was sewing further doubt among US allies about US veracity.

Or is the US merely yelling about wolves of mass destruction?

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