Gulf War II: Iraq 2003
Weapons of Mass Destruction As at 5 May, despite
some claims, no
weapons of mass destruction have been found. Mr
Howard said
that weapons had been hidden or had been taken out of Iraq
and it would be impossible to find any hard evidence of weapons’ existence
until the hostilities have ceased. The weapons search is critical for
the coalition which went to war claiming that Iraq
possessed large arsenals of chemical and biological weapons and could
pass them to terrorists. The failure by the Allies to find WMD will add
to sceptical opinions
about the true reasons for their motives for going to war.
US Defence Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld
said
that the US would have to rely on captured Iraqi
officials to disclose the existence of banned weapons as there was
little chance that weapons would be found independently.
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans
Blix claimed that the US
and the UK used shaky intelligence,
including forged documents, in an effort to prove that Iraq
had banned weapons. Blix said that the US
tried to undermine the inspectors work in Iraq.
Now with President Bush declaring that combat
operations were officially over, the US are using inspectors from
the US, Australia and Britain to search for any biological or nuclear
weapons. However, some members of the Security Council say UN inspectors
should be the ones to verify any new discoveries to prevent accusations
of US fabrication that WMD exist
and bring credibility to the inspections.
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