Wednesday, July 09, 2003

UK: WMDs "unlikely to be found"

BBC:

Iraq weapons 'unlikely to be found'

Teams of UN weapons inspectors were sent to Iraq before the war Senior figures inside Whitehall no longer believe weapons of mass destruction are likely to turn up in Iraq, the BBC has learned. BBC political editor Andrew Marr says "very senior sources" have virtually ruled out the possibility of finding weapons in Iraq.

The development "is of important political significance", he adds.

Not to mention constitutional significance (in this country).

Andrew Marr told the BBC's Ten o'Clock News on Wednesday: "Right at the top of Whitehall, they no longer believe that weapons of mass destruction are likely to turn up in Iraq. ...

"[T]he actual weapons, the tubs of the evil stuff, the rusting missiles, no, belief that that will actually be available, can be shown to cameras, that is trickling away very fast at the top of government."

"But as time has gone on, those weapons don't seem to be there and the best explanation going around at the moment ...

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... is that some time shortly before the war Saddam Hussein destroyed them or hid them beyond discovery."


Right, then. "Hid them beyond discovery." Maybe under a very, very big rosebush?