The WaPo:
The new chief U.S. weapons inspector for Iraq reported to Congress today that no breakthrough has been made in the search for Saddam Hussein's chemical or biological weapons, but he said new information supports a theory that Iraq was developing a capability to produce them on short notice.
Uh-huh.
In his first appearance since replacing David Kay last January, Charles Duelfer this morning told the Senate Armed Services Committee he has refocused the work of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) to seek to determine Hussein's intention. He said this included what the former Iraqi leader ordered, whether weapons were hidden and "was there a plan for a break-out production capacity."
Making that task more difficult, he said, was that "some of these decisions may not have been recorded in traditional ways," and they "may have been orally transmitted or conveyed to only a select group, a trusted inner circle."
Oh, certainly.
...
After the morning session, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), ranking Democrat on the Armed Services panel, said that the unclassified version of Duelfer's statement given to reporters left out information in the classified report given to senators. The classified version, he said, "would lead one to doubt" what Levin described as Duelfer's "suspicions as to Iraq's activities."
To put it, um, mildly.




