Iraq arms report to draw blank on WMDs

A much-anticipated interim report by the Bush administration’s chief weapons hunter David Kay in Iraq will offer no firm conclusions ab...

A much-anticipated interim report by the Bush administration’s chief weapons hunter David Kay in Iraq will offer no firm conclusions about the former Iraqi government’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes.

Kay is expected to present his report to Congress late next week — an event that senior US officials had just weeks ago pointed to as providing a possible vindication for the administration’s pre-war claims that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

But officials Wednesday sought to play down expectations that Kay’s report will contain any major revelations. Kay, who is in Washington this week finishing the document, is ‘‘still gathering information from the field,’’ the CIA’s chief spokesman, Bill Harolow, said. ‘‘Don’t expect any firm conclusions. He will not rule in or rule out anything.’’ Kay is CIA Director George Tenet’s representative in Baghdad and directs the search for WMDs being carried out by the 1,200-person Iraq Survey Group. One intelligence official said recently that Kay’s early analysis of Iraqi documents will prove that Saddam had the ‘‘intent’’ to resume weapons production once sanctions were lifted and UN inspectors were gone.

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Kay said last month he was initially focusing on Iraq’s programme to deceive UN inspectors and that his report would contain illustrations of how large that effort was, using it to indicate there were weapons to be hidden.

After testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kay told reporters that his team had ‘‘found some physical evidence.’’ More recently, however, other officials, some of whom have spent time in Iraq, said the survey team had not gathered any substantial information, in part because the military members of Kay’s group were threatening and arresting some Iraqi scientists and technicians who had in the past worked on weapons programmes.

White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters three days ago that there ‘‘may’’ be interim reports from Kay but, ‘‘I don’t know what the public nature of them will be.’’ One former UN inspector said any interim report Kay made would be ‘‘conservative’’ because he has been working with two senior British scientists with past experience in Iraq ‘‘who will keep him honest.’’ (LAT-WP)

MEANWHILE

Council member dies
BAGHDAD: Akila al-Hashemi, a member of Iraq’s US-appointed Governing Council, died on Thursday from wounds sustained in a gun attack. Gunmen fired on a car carrying Hashemi, near her home in a Baghdad suburb on Saturday morning. She sustained wounds in the abdomen.

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Saddam almost hit
ABU DHABI: Iraq’s former Information Minister, Saeed al-Sahaf, nicknamed ‘‘Comical Ali’’, told Abu Dhabi TV on Wednesday that US air strikes once came within hundreds of metres of hitting Saddam Hussein during the war. ‘‘Once they were within 400-500 metres,’’ he said.

Bush popularity dips
WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush’s job approval has dipped to 49 pc in an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, the lowest by the network. Bush’s job approval soared to 90 pc after 9/11 terrorist attacks, but have dropped over last 2 years.

‘Support not given’
WASHINGTON: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has made clear that his country’s support for a US-backed resolution on Iraq was not a given, and Berlin may abstain if its conditions are not met. (Agencies)