Yonivore
09-25-2003, 07:16 AM
...when he "lied" to the U.N. the other day.
I wonder where this will lead:
Quote:Saddam minister granted immunity
Former Iraqi Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed has been granted immunity from prosecution following his surrender to US forces.
Mr Ahmed - number 27 on the Americans' list of most wanted former Iraqi officials - gave himself up in the northern city of Mosul last Friday.
White House officials say they have high hopes he will provide significant information on Iraq's alleged weapons programmes.
The news came as US officials indicated that an interim report by the Iraqi Survey Group - charged with locating weapons of mass destruction in the country - would contain no evidence of illegal weapons.
But nther would it close the door on the possibility that such weapons might still be found, they said.
Pentagon officials said the survey group - headed by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector and now a special adviser to the CIA - had found what they regarded as evidence of Iraqi preparations to produce chemical and biological weapons.
They say there will be enough suspicious evidence uncovered to convince reasonable people that something was afoot.
At present, President George W Bush has more pressing concerns, specifically the cost of the operation in Iraq - a source of ongoing controversy - and the difficulties in getting UN support.
But the BBC's Justin Webb says the issue of weapons of mass destruction may well come back to haunt him.
'No proof'
On Wednesday, a Bush administration source who spoke to the BBC said the interim report - which is likely to be published next month - concludes it is highly unlikely that weapons of mass destruction were shipped out of the country to places like Syria before the US-led war on Iraq.
The Bush administration source told the presenter of BBC television's Daily Politics show, Andrew Nl, that Saddam Hussn had mounted a huge programme to decve and hinder the work of UN weapons inspectors.
Mr Nl said that, according to the source, the report will say that the inspectors have not even unearthed "minute amounts of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons material".
'Speculation'
Nther have they uncovered any laboratories involved in deploying weapons of mass destruction, not any delivery systems for the weapons.
But, Mr Nl added, the report would publish computer programmes, files, pictures and paperwork which it says shows that Saddam Hussn's regime was attempting to develop a weapons of mass destruction programme.
Mr Nl, a former editor of the British Sunday Times newspaper, stressed he had not seen the draft report, and was reporting what a single source had said its findings were likely to be.
Both the UK Government and the US administration have dismissed the claims as speculation.
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-...137732.stm
Published: 2003/09/25 07:01:33 GMT
? BBC MMIII ?Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.? - - President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
?We will make no distinction between those who committed these acts and those who harbor them.? - - President George W. Bush
"As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." - - Arthur Carleson, WKRP in Cincinnati
RIP Gordon Jump
________
ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES (http://www.ecigarettes123.com/)
I wonder where this will lead:
Quote:Saddam minister granted immunity
Former Iraqi Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed has been granted immunity from prosecution following his surrender to US forces.
Mr Ahmed - number 27 on the Americans' list of most wanted former Iraqi officials - gave himself up in the northern city of Mosul last Friday.
White House officials say they have high hopes he will provide significant information on Iraq's alleged weapons programmes.
The news came as US officials indicated that an interim report by the Iraqi Survey Group - charged with locating weapons of mass destruction in the country - would contain no evidence of illegal weapons.
But nther would it close the door on the possibility that such weapons might still be found, they said.
Pentagon officials said the survey group - headed by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector and now a special adviser to the CIA - had found what they regarded as evidence of Iraqi preparations to produce chemical and biological weapons.
They say there will be enough suspicious evidence uncovered to convince reasonable people that something was afoot.
At present, President George W Bush has more pressing concerns, specifically the cost of the operation in Iraq - a source of ongoing controversy - and the difficulties in getting UN support.
But the BBC's Justin Webb says the issue of weapons of mass destruction may well come back to haunt him.
'No proof'
On Wednesday, a Bush administration source who spoke to the BBC said the interim report - which is likely to be published next month - concludes it is highly unlikely that weapons of mass destruction were shipped out of the country to places like Syria before the US-led war on Iraq.
The Bush administration source told the presenter of BBC television's Daily Politics show, Andrew Nl, that Saddam Hussn had mounted a huge programme to decve and hinder the work of UN weapons inspectors.
Mr Nl said that, according to the source, the report will say that the inspectors have not even unearthed "minute amounts of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons material".
'Speculation'
Nther have they uncovered any laboratories involved in deploying weapons of mass destruction, not any delivery systems for the weapons.
But, Mr Nl added, the report would publish computer programmes, files, pictures and paperwork which it says shows that Saddam Hussn's regime was attempting to develop a weapons of mass destruction programme.
Mr Nl, a former editor of the British Sunday Times newspaper, stressed he had not seen the draft report, and was reporting what a single source had said its findings were likely to be.
Both the UK Government and the US administration have dismissed the claims as speculation.
Story from BBC NEWS:
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-...137732.stm
Published: 2003/09/25 07:01:33 GMT
? BBC MMIII ?Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.? - - President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
?We will make no distinction between those who committed these acts and those who harbor them.? - - President George W. Bush
"As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." - - Arthur Carleson, WKRP in Cincinnati
RIP Gordon Jump
________
ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES (http://www.ecigarettes123.com/)