REPORT: No Info on WMD

Saturday, June 7, 2003
Agence France-Presse

In a scathing attack yesterday, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, an ardent critic of the war against Iraq, expressed amazement over the president's complacency. "It is his truthfulness that is being questioned. It is his integrity that is on the line."

AFP
The Defence Intelligence Agency reported before the war with Iraq it had "no reliable information" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, a US defence official confirmed today.

"It is fair to say there was no reliable information to say declaratively, 'yes, there was stuff," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

But the official said that there was reliable information to say "with a degree of confidence that there was a weapons program," the official said.

The cautious DIA assessment contrasted with unqualified assertions by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials that Iraq had amassed large stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

US claims that Iraq was hiding chemical and biological weapons from UN inspectors and had revived a nuclear program became the prime rationale for the US-led invasion of Iraq in March and ouster of the regime of Saddam Hussein three weeks later.
(More: News Interactive)
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6558455%255E1702,00.html
2003 © Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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Dan