- The Bush administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein
probably had no weapons of mass destruction.
-
- Senior officials in the Bush administration have admitted
that they would be 'amazed' if weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were found
in Iraq.
-
- According to administration sources, Saddam shut down
and destroyed large parts of his WMD programmes before the invasion of
Iraq.
-
- Ironically, the claims came as US President George Bush
yesterday repeatedly justified the war as necessary to remove Iraq's chemical
and biological arms which posed a direct threat to America.
-
- Bush claimed: 'Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
We will find them.'
-
- The comments from within the administration will add
further weight to attacks on the Blair government by Labour backbenchers
that there is no 'smoking gun' and that the war against Iraq -- which centred
on claims that Saddam was a risk to Britain, America and the Middle East
because of unconventional weapons -- was unjustified.
-
- The senior US official added that America never expected
to find a huge arsenal, arguing that the administration was more concerned
about the ability of Saddam's scientists -- which he labelled the 'nuclear
mujahidin' -- to develop WMDs when the crisis passed.
-
- This represents a clearly dramatic shift in the definition
of the Bush doctrine's central tenet -- the pre-emptive strike. Previously,
according to Washington, a pre-emptive war could be waged against a hostile
country with WMDs in order to protect American security.
-
- Now, however, according to the US official, pre-emptive
action is justified against a nation which simply has the ability to develop
unconventional weapons.
- http://www.sundayherald.com/33628
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