1 000 experts to find Iraq's WMD

2003-04-18 20:56

Washington - One thousand US experts will scour Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, a US defense official said on Friday amid questions about the US failure to find banned weapons and mounting calls for the return of UN inspectors.

"Digging it out, ferreting it out is going to take some time," said the official, who asked not to be identified. "It's going to be difficult, it's not going to be a cakewalk."

The United States and Britain used accusations of a hidden weapons of mass destruction programme as the primary justification for invading Iraq. But so far no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been officially reported.

Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, has suggested sending back UN inspectors. Blix told the BBC on Thursday they would give the world a "credible report on the absence or the eradication of the programme of weapons of mass destruction."

The White House, however, has said it was not yet time to discuss the return of UN inspectors, and the large-scale US effort signalled that the United States wants to conduct its own search.

"We both want the same thing," said the defence official, referring to Blix's call for the return of UN inspectors. "So I can foresee some collaboration, but that's not something we've talked about at this time."

The new Iraq Survey Group will expand efforts currently under way by a couple of hundred US military personnel with 75th Exploitiation Task Force, who were assigned the task of finding and securing potential weapons of mass destruction sites.

They have visited only about 50 venues on a list of hundreds of sites related to Iraq's weapons programme, the defence official said.

It was not immediately clear when the larger group of experts, who are mainly civilians but include some military personnel, will arrive in Iraq.

The defence official said the military has held off bringing them in until conditions inside the country are stable enough to allow them to work safely.

Thirty to 40 former UN arms inspectors have been asked to join the team, which also includes former and current US government experts and officials.

"In this organistion there are going to be about 1 000 people," he said. "They are going to be involved in document exploitation, in interrogations, in weapons of mass destruction, the whole soup to nuts kind of things," he said.

"The team is significantly sized that we won't have to work in a serial fashion. We'll be able to approach the tasks that lay ahead of it in a parralel fashion, each group working on an area that concern it," he said.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday highlighted concern that the United States might be accused of planting evidence of weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq.

But he insisted controls were in place to ensure evidence is untainted.

"That will not stop certain countries, and certain types of people from claiming, inaccurately, that it was planted," he said.

Even so, he said, Iraq's weapons will likely take time to find and then probably only with information from Iraqis who know where they are hidden.

"It is not like a treasure hunt, where you just run around looking everywhere hoping you find something," said Rumsfeld. "The (UN weapons) inspectors didn't find anything, and I doubt that we will. What we will do is find the people who will tell us."

- AFX