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Originally posted by Sly_RJ
Still fighting? Surely a couple weeks is enough time to find any WMD's. Intelligence stated that Iraq had them, intelligence should know where they are.
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To clear up a couple of things. Iraq is the one that stated they had materials for WMD back in '91. They stated that they had X amount of this and X amount of that. By 1998 when the inspectors left Iraq much of their capability had been destroyed, but X amount of this and X amount of that had not been.
1441 demanded that Iraq prove they had no WMD materials and implicit in that demand was for Iraq to account for the remaining WMD materials that were known to exist when the inspectors pulled out in '98. Iraq stated that they had destroyed the remaining materials, but offered zero proof that they in fact had done this. They said that they destroyed the paper work when the destroyed the remainder of WMD materials. They failed to produce physical evidence of the destruction of the remainder of the WMD materials. They failed to produce the scientists and other personell that would have been involved in the destruction of the remaining WMD materials.
Based upon this failure of Iraq to offer any proof that the remaining WMD materials had been destroyed and whatever intelligence we had, or thought we had, it was assumed that the WMD materials still existed.
These WMD materials may, or may not exist, but if they do, because of the type of materials we are speaking about they can be easily hidden and may in fact take years of searching, unless someone in the know in Iraq comes forward.