A report from U.N. weapons inspectors to be released today says they now believe there were no weapons of mass destruction of any significance in Iraq after 1994, according to two U.N. diplomats who have seen the document.
What is the "significance" threshold? Did the UN resolutions specify a certain number necessary before the weapons program could be classified as a violation?
Kay reported in October that his team found "dozens of WMD-related program activities" that Iraq was required to reveal to U.N. inspectors but did not. However, he said he found no actual WMDs.
...The common findings:
Iraq's nuclear weapons program was dormant.
No evidence was found to suggest Iraq possessed chemical or biological weapons. U.N. officials believe the weapons were destroyed by U.N. inspectors or Iraqi officials in the years after the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq was attempting to develop missiles capable of exceeding a U.N.-mandated limit of 93 miles.
Demetrius Perricos, the acting executive chairman of the U.N. inspection teams, said in an interview that the failure to find banned weapons in Iraq since the war undercuts administration criticism of the U.N.'s search before the war.
No, the criticism wasn't of failure on the part of the UN search team but rather on the lack of pressure on Hussein's regime to actually comply with the resolutions. Hans Blix testified that there was not full compliance, and there was not full disclosure under Hussein's regime. The criticism was about the process and the unwillingness in the UN security council to enforce the resolutions. Inspections did not work because the inspectors were there to verify the regime's compliance with the full support of the Iraqi government; the UN inspectors were not intended or equipped to find Hussein's hidden programs on their own.