[Media-watch] US gives up search for Iraq WMD - BBC - 12/01/2005

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4169107.stm



US gives up search for Iraq WMD



Wednesday, 12 January, 2005, 17:07 GMT





Intelligence officials have confirmed the US has stopped searching for 
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.



They say the chief US investigator, Charles Duelfer, is not planning to 
return to the country.



Mr Duelfer reported last year that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical or 
biological weapons at the time of the US-led invasion nearly two years ago.



The existence of WMD had been the stated reason in Washington and London for 
going to war with Iraq.



Mr Duelfer said when he released his interim report in October that former 
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had still had the desire to restart WMD 
programmes, when he could.



He will make a few adjustments to his report, but when the final version is 
published in a few weeks, he will close the book on the hunt, says the BBC's 
Nick Childs in Washington.



Officials are still sifting through a mountain of documents and if they 
produce any leads, they say, they will be followed, but there is no 
expectation that the hunt will be revived.



The Iraq Survey Group, which was responsible for the search, goes on, but 
its focus now is trying to help counter the Iraqi insurgency.



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