The study by a team of U.S. intelligence analysts, military officers and civilian Pentagon officials warned that U.S. military tactics, guerrilla warfare, looting and lying by Iraqi officials would undermine the search for banned Iraqi weapons. Portions of the study were made available to USA Today. Three high-ranking U.S. intelligence officials described its purpose and conclusions.

"Locating a program that ... has been driven by denial and deception imperatives is no small task," the December 2002 report said. "Prolonged insecurity with factional violence and guerrilla forces still at large would be the worst outcome for finding Saddam's WMD arsenal."

And some parts omitted from the Olympian article, from USA Today:

The study looked at scenarios including Iraqi use of chemical or biological weapons and the possibility that no weapons would be found.

The study considered but rejected the possibility that Iraq had no banned weapons.

The study said arms searchers would be "trying to find multiple needles in a haystack ... against the background of not knowing how many needles have been hidden."

Some of the obstacles outlined by the study included the expected rapid movement of U.S. ground forces over wide areas, leaving critical sites vulnerable to looting. Guerrilla warfare, the report predicted, also would make the weapons search difficult.

In other words, the report is saying, at least from the dribbles provided here, that the chaos in Iraq after major military operations, and Iraq's policies of "denial and deception," would make finding WMD after major combat very difficult. This is news?

How the hell this gets headlined as "Release Damages Prewar Claims" is more than I can see. If anything, it would seem to justify the idea that weapons haven't been found yet because it's damn hard to find them.