'Iraq never had WMD'
2004-10-06 15:18
London - A group hunting for banned weapons in Iraq is set to report that it has found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, Sky News reports.
However, the Iraq Survey Group report will say that Saddam Hussein had plans to manufacture weapons in defiance of United Nations sanctions.
The ISG, which is made up of British and American experts, issued an interim report a year ago.
It said it found evidence of "WMD-related activities" but no actual weapons.
No WMD existed
The 2003 report also included discoveries of non-WMD programmes banned by the UN.
These included a network of laboratories that contained equipment suitable for continuing WMD research.
Inspectors also found phials of live botulinum, from which a biological agent could have been produced.
However, their final report, due out later on Wednesday, will conclude that no WMD actually existed in Iraq before the US-led invasion in March 2003.
The report, which will run to over 1 000 pages, will be the most comprehensive account yet of Iraq's weapons programme before the war.
The head of the American-led team, Charles Duelfer, will set out the findings of the final report to the US Senate.
Much of the content was revealed in a leaked draft of the report last month.
Pressure
The failure to find stockpiles of WMD had been widely anticipated and will bring further pressure on Tony Blair, who last week urged the Labour Party to put aside its differences over Iraq and focus on winning a third term in power.
The father of a soldier killed in Iraq said the Prime Minister must now resign.
Reg Keys, whose son Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, 20, was killed by a mob of Iraqis, said the buck had to stop with Blair.
"The Prime Minister fed us a pack of lies," he said.
"My son was told he was going off to fight a country that was threatening to use WMD. Now we know he was lied to. That has been affirmed and reaffirmed again by this report."
Lance Corporal Keys was one of six Red Caps killed by a mob of Iraqis last year.