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This has been quite evident all along.Plans for the invasion include Special Forces securing bio-weapons and chemical sites. So why were the inspectors informed of where these are? Because then an invasion would not be necessary. Cheers, Ken Hanly Intelligence value in Iraq questioned Where are all the illegal weapons? Bob Drogin and Greg Miller Los Angeles Times Mar. 8, 2003 12:00 AM UNITED NATIONS - On the eve of a possible war in Iraq, a question looms increasingly large: If U.S. intelligence is so good, why are U.N. experts still unable to confirm that Saddam Hussein is actively concealing and producing illegal weapons? That troubling issue erupted Friday when top U.N. weapons inspectors expressed frustration with the quality of intelligence they have been given. "I would rather have twice the amount of high-quality information about sites to inspect than twice the number of expert inspectors to send," Hans Blix, who heads the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, told the U.N. Security Council. Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, went further, charging that documents may have been faked to suggest the country of Niger sold uranium to Iraq from 1999 to 2001. He said inspectors concluded the documents were "not authentic" after scrutinizing "the form, format, contents and signatures ... of the alleged procurement-related documentation." ElBaradei also rejected three other key claims that U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly cited to support charges that Iraq is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons. Although investigations are continuing, ElBaradei said, nuclear experts have found "no indication" that Iraq has tried to import high-strength aluminum tubes or specialized ring magnets for centrifuge enrichment of uranium. Inspectors also have found "no indication" that Iraq has "any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities" in newly erected buildings or other sites identified by satellite, ElBaradei said. "After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq," ElBaradei said. Bush administration officials insist they are providing all relevant information to the U.N. teams. But some officials privately concede that both the quality and quantity of intelligence is surprisingly thin. "We have some information, not a lot," said one U.S. official who is familiar with the CIA's daily "packages" of material it delivers to a Canadian official who handles intelligence issues for Blix at the United Nations. Although U.N. teams have conducted nearly 600 inspections of about 350 locations since November, only 44 were of new sites based on fresh tips. The issue spilled into Congress this week, when Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., accused the administration of deliberately withholding information on suspected Iraqi weapons facilities from Blix's teams. Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a member of the Intelligence committee, said the inspectors have been given "only a small fraction" of the sites that appear on lists in the intelligence community. Levin also accused the White House of seeking to undermine the inspections, saying the administration has withheld data in part "because they genuinely believe the inspections were useless and said so from the beginning." But CIA officials rejected the charges. In a letter to lawmakers released Thursday, CIA Director George Tenet said the agency has "provided detailed information on all of the high value and moderate sites" to the United Nations. _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk