United States disbands Iraq WMD search team
 

The U.S. has disbanded its team that searched for weapons of mass destruction in post-war Iraq.

Instead, the 1,700 members of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) are being re-assigned to counter-insurgency efforts, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

"You can only search so many places for WMD," one official told Reuters.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said "there may be a couple, a few people that are focused on that," but otherwise, the search is over.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

Charles Duelfer, the CIA special adviser and leader of the ISG, will deliver a final report next month.

In September, Duelfer reported that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, had not made any and had no capability to make new ones.

Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction were cited by both the U.S. and Britain as the primary reason for the March 2003 invasion of the country and the overthrowing of Hussein's regime.

Former CIA director George Tenet had told U.S. President George W. Bush that finding such weapons would be a "slam dunk."

In the lead-up to the war, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation to the United Nations in which he said the U.S. possessed "irrefutable and undeniable" evidence that Iraq was hiding banned weapons.

"I cannot tell you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling," Powell said.

In April 2004, he told reporters, "It appears not to be the case that it was that solid."

Bush has ordered an investigation into why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong.

Since March 2003, more than 1,350 U.S. troops have died and at least 10,000 more wounded. Another 160 coalition troops have also died.

The death toll of Iraqi civilians has been estimated at 17,000 from direct military causes, but one study estimated the total number of civilian deaths attributable to the invasion and occupation could be as high as 100,000.

With files from The Associated Press

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...16_3?hub=World

Is anyone surprised they lied?

i bet they hid them all in iran and syria....looks like we go there next.

if there is any doubt that the media treats Bush with kid gloves, watch this story. WMD's is one of the primary reasons we invaded Iraq. There are none to be found anywhere in the country and I'm willing to bet very few news agencies spend much, if any time covering this story.

How's that search for Osama going?

Iraq war was absolutely worth it: Bush

Washington: US President George W Bush has said the war in Iraq, which ousted Saddam Hussain and cost the lives of some 1,300 American military personnel and billions of dollars, was 'absolutely' worth it even though no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been found.
Bush's comments came as the White House said the US had quietly halted its search for WMDs in Iraq, the key reason for going to war.



"Well, like you, I felt like we'd find WMDs," Bush said, according to excerpts released from an ABC television interview. "Or like many, many here in the United States, many around the world, the UN thought he had weapons of mass destruction, and so, therefore, one, we need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering.

"Saddam was dangerous. And... the world is safer without him in power," Bush made his comments on the ABC News 20/20 programme.

Asked whether it was worth it to invade Iraq even without WMDs being found, Bush replied, "Oh, absolutely." Meanwhile, the White House confirmed that US has ended the physical search for WMDs in Iraq.

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13648116

:Oh crap :Oh crap :Oh crap

Clueless...do you really think all of the above intel agencies lied?

they didn't lie. . . they just didn't do the job correctly. Colin Powell stood in front of the UN and showed sattelite photos and said " we know these are chemical weapons plants." He said " we know he has the WMD and we know exactly where they are." Yet for some reason they would not allow the UN weapons inpectors to stay in the country and actually look for the weapons. When they were there they went to some of these places and said " you're wrong that is not a chemical weapons plant." They didn't find anything and wanted more time to continue to do the job but Bush insisted they get out of there so we could invade.

Sadam had done nothing for 10 years. What would another 6-9 months have hurt? At least then we could have let the weapons inspectors work with our intelligence groups to what the real threat was.

Sadam was a bad guy. He did terrible things to his people and, hopefully in the future things will be better for them now that he is out of power. But we should have looked harder before invading. in this country you cannot put someone in jail unless you can proove they did the crime you are accusing them of. I think we should hold the same standard when/if we invade a country. " sadam is bad and we think we will find WMD's" isn't good enough for me.

even foxnews keeps blabbing about it
not saying bush lied but mentioning "wmds where one of the main reasons for bush's plan for invading Iraq"

I don't know you or anything about you but I would ask you this. If the Bush admin came to you and said we want to invade Iraq and take saddam out, it sounds like you would agree with them. If they then told you " now pick one of your kids ( if you don't have kids pick you wife or a family member ) because they have to die for us to do this." Would you still be so gung ho?

Maybe more diplomacy could have worked. I'm not saying that saddam wasn't a bad guy, he was. But I have always felt that if we are going to send our soldiers into combat three things need to be certian. 1. it must be the absolute last resort. 2. we should have clear plan for winning as quickly and effectivly as possible and 3. our soldiers should be given anything and everything they need to do the job. In the case of Iraq none of these is true. 1. they could have done a lot more looking and explored other avenues and if it came down to combat being the only way to solve the problem, at least they would have then had more support from the world. 2. they had a great plan for taking him out and then they expected everyone to embrace us with open arms. Bush actually said he thought we would have no casulties on our side. once things didn't go as they had planned, they clearly had no plan B and C. around 40K of the soldiers in Iraq today don't have body armor. Many of the national guard troops ( which now make up about half the soldiers in Iraq ) are still using a vietnam era M-16. Many of the vehicles don't have adequet armor. The first two are still not being solved the third only when it was caught on national TV when a soldier asked rumsfeld why that was. Yet, Bush seems to be able to raise 40 million dollars for his inaugeration balls. That is unacceptable. I'm not a supplier but I know 40 million could buy a lot of rifles and flax jackets.

they didnt lie stupid!

BUSH lied,
these news are a fucking JOKE!!

i see this question asked over and over and its quite old at this point. im sure if you'd been alive and asked parents if they'd send their children to die fighting nazi germany they'd be against it simply because its their children, agreeing with the war or not.

This came about a year too late...

because it has been asked before does not make it less relevent. Also, you cannot compare WW2 with the war in Iraq. To me the question simply means this: is the situation so dire, so without any other means of solution that you would be willing to sacrifice life for it? If you answer no then you should keep looking at for more solutions. I find that many people have a very pro-war, bomb this bomb that, nuke em, fuck em, kill em all, attitude when it is not them or thier family that will do the dying.

would i be willing to sacrifice life for it or the life of my child? dont change the question mid point
would i sacrifice my neighbor bill to remove saddam from power? sure, i hate bill and could careless
would i sacrifice my child for any reason whatsoever? NO

maybe I should have been more clear about who's life. I agree that most people would never choose to sacrifice thier child and your answer, as I think mosts would be, confirms that. What if you child grows up and at 18-20years old joins the military. You may or may not be happy about that. Regardless of why they join they know that there is a risk that they could end up in a war. When your kid joins that military you are now putting thier lives in the hands of our elected leaders who, if they are good leaders, should look at the military as family because the people who elected them are now trusting them with thier lives. They should look at them as if each one of them was thier child and they should make their decisions with that in mind.

we are a nation that champions life above all else. We want to preserve life so badly that we outlaw assisted suicide. We have developed medicines and medical proceedures that can save and lengthen lives. We will spend 10's of 1000's of dollars giving medicide to someone that is terminally ill so that they can live a few more weeks or months. When a country has a tragedy ( like the recent tsunami ) we are there help ( most of the time ) I can't count how many times I have heard our leaders say that the people are this countries' most precious commodity. So why should we then throw them away and then say " we thought there were weapons there"? If they are so precious why did they not take the proper steps to insure that military action was the last possible solution? why did they not plan for the worst so that they could keep as many soldiers safe as possible. You wouldn't let your kid ride thier bike without a helmet or get in your car without a seat belt.

You might not choose to sacrifice your child. . . but your government has show it will. It is our duty to question them and call them out on this. How do you think the families of the 1300 that have died ( not to mention those that have been seriously injured or crippled ) in Iraq feel when they see the president, who not long ago said we know they have weapons and they have ties to Al Quede now find out that neither of those things is true and the only asnwer is " we thought we would find them and it doesn't really matter, we had to do it anyway." To me that's a slap in the face to anyone who served in iraq or was wounded or killed.

maybe I'm rambling. I'm tired and heading to bed. But for me it comes down to a pretty basic thing. Many say bush didn't lie that he had bad intel. That's not true. He now says that he would do what he did even knowing what we know now. So when he told us we are invading because of WMD's or links to terrorist, that was not true. We were invading and those were the best reasons at the time. We will never hear for him exactly why we invaded and that's a shame. He says the people of this country deserve the best. We also deserve the truth and if he can spend 40 million for his parties and give 10 billion to tabacco growers who are now not making as much because fewer people are smoking I think he can come up with the money to at least equip our soldiers properly before he lies to them and sacrifices them for his agenda. . . whatever that may be.

Hey WORLD - WE in the US need you help

Stop complaing about George Bush and throw your own leaders out of power for caving into him

This week, Bush told us Americans that he will legalize the 30-40 million ILLEGAL immigrants in our country. Plus he's a creating a guest worker program to bring more non-English speaking 3rd worlders here.

He's destroying Amrica like he destroyed Iraq

Bush has ordered US Iraq commander Gen. Casey to prepare attack on Syria. Don't believe me??!!!!...

Why is Bush pressuring Russia to stop tactical missiles sales to Syria at this moment?

Why did he warn Israel to prepare for hezbollah attacks on their northern border?

WHy did the WMD search in Iraq finally end now? Bush is going to say the WMD are in southern Syria.

Saddam Hussein claimed he was offered by Bush to stay in power if he would recognize ISrael. But he refused. Bush invaded. The same offer went to Syria's Assad. Assad refused. Bush will invade

We have lost America while everybody is jerking off to internet porn. PRetty soon you're all going to realize that this is World War 3 and there is nowhere to hide...