Rumsfeld: Banned Weapons in Baghdad, Tikrit
Updated 12:39 PM ET March 30, 2003

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday the United States had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq because troops had not yet reached the area where they are stockpiled.

Asked on the ABC "This Week" program if he was concerned the forces had yet to turn up any of the banned weapons, Rumsfeld said, "Not at all."

The United States and Britain invaded Iraq 11 days ago to disarm Iraq of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons it has accused Baghdad of harboring. Iraq denies having such weapons.

Rumsfeld said U.S. officials believed the weapons are closer to the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, around which most of Iraq's covert arms production and storage historically have taken place.

"The area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial," Rumsfeld said. "It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed.

"We know where they are, they are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north of that," he added. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was born in a village near Tikrit.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that special operations teams from the United States, Britain and Australia had found no banned weapons at 10 targets of highest priority to the U.S. Central Command believed to house chemical warheads, Scud missiles and eight-wheeled transporter-erector launchers, known as TELs.

The Post said the raids were at sites considered the most urgent because if equipped as suspected, they would have posed an immediate threat to U.S. forces.

However, a Joint Staff officer told the Post, "All the searches have turned up negative."