Where Are Saddam's WMD?

Officials say the U.S. search has, so far, found no banned weapons to vindicate Washington's case for war. That could hurt the President as he looks for help enforcing the peace.

By TONY KARON

Friday, Sep. 26, 2003

President Bush this week told the UN General Assembly that he went to war in Iraq to defend the credibility of the international body. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction represented an intolerable threat to international security, Bush said, and if the UN was derelict in its duty to confront that threat, the U.S. could afford no such luxury. But the Bush administration's current efforts on the sidelines at the UN to persuade reluctant nations to send troops to relieve the burden carried by U.S. forces in Iraq has not been helped by the absence of evidence to support the centerpiece of Washington's case for war: Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction threat.

For the past six months, the Bush administration and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair have urged skeptics to be patient. The weapons will be found, they've said repeatedly. It's a big country, and Saddam had a decade to perfect his concealment techniques. Wait for David Kay and his 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group to complete their work. But with Kay due to submit a preliminary report to Congress in the next two weeks, either the Bush administration is playing an excellent game of rope-a-dope by deliberately dampening expectations ahead of a major surprise, or else the search has been a bust.

U.S. and British officials told various media sources this week that Kay's group has found no unconventional weapons or laboratories to build them, despite their freedom of access throughout Iraq and cooperation from officials of Saddam's regime. More...