[CLUE-Talk] a new note in the usa/iraq tune

[Jeff Cann]

On Monday 26 January 2004 8:18 am, Randy Arabie wrote:

> Yes, it does appear that Iraq didn't have massive stockpiles of WMD of any
> sort. But, there were still active WMD programs. 

I don't think so, according to David Kay.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=444516&section=news

<quote>
Text of interview with David Kay
 Fri January 23, 2004 05:23 PM ET 

 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The following are excerpts of a telephone interview 
conducted with David Kay, after he stepped down as the chief U.S. arms hunter 
in Iraq:

 Q. What about the nuclear program?

 A. "The nuclear program was as we said in the interim report, I think that 
will be a final conclusion. There had been some restart of activities, but 
they were rudimentary.

 "It really wasn't dormant because there were a few little things going on, 
but it had not resumed in anything meaningful."

 Q: You came away from the hunt that you have done believing that they did not 
have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country?

 A: "That is correct."

 Q. Is that from the interviews and documentation?

 A. "Well the interviews, the documentation, and the physical evidence of 
looking at, as hard as it was because they were dealing with looted sites, 
but you just could not find any physical evidence that supported a larger 
program."


 Q: Do you think they destroyed it?

 A: "No, I don't think they existed."

 Q. Even though in the mid-1980s people said they used it on Halabja?

 A. "They had stockpiles, they fought the Iranians with it, and they certainly 
did use it on the Kurds. But what everyone was talking about is stockpiles 
produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War and I don't think there 
was a large-scale production program in the '90s."

</quote>
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