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Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"

Survey chief resigns saying Iraq never had stockpiles

Duncan Campbell and Patrick Wintour
Saturday January 24, 2004
The Guardian

Tony Blair last night suffered a blow on the eve of the most testing week of his premiership when the US official at the helm of the hunt for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction asserted Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
Resigning from his post after nine fruitless months in charge of the Iraq Survey Group he said he did not think there had been a large-scale weapons programme inside Iraq since 1991.
David Kay, a hardline CIA official close to the Republicans also criticised President George Bush for failing to give him adequate support.
His remarks will add to the pressure on Mr Blair as he battles to win backbench support ahead of Tuesday's vote on top-up tuition fees and tries to avert criticisms in the Hutton report into the death of the government weapons scientist David Kelly.
Lord Hutton is due to rule on whether the government exaggerated the September 2002 intelligence dossier on the threat of Saddam's arsenal.
Opposition parties are demanding an independent inquiry into whether there was a massive intelligence failure - an inquiry that would probe much wider than the narrower terms of reference handed to Lord Hutton.
Mr Blair has already shifted ground from saying he was absolutely confident that Saddam's weapons arsenal would be located to saying instead that evidence of weapons programmes would be found.
More recently on the BBC Frost programme he said he did not know if any weapons would be found.
Downing Street had already been discussing the possibility of a confidence vote next week if Mr Blair failed to win Commons backing for tuition top-up fees.
Backbench rebels claimed the government needed to win over as many 30 rebels ahead of Tuesday's vote, findings confirmed by a Guardian survey today.
The news from Washington over the resignation of Mr Kay will reduce Mr Blair's authority ahead of Tuesday's vote and also raise fundamental questions about his judgment that urgent military action in Iraq was necessary.
Mr Kay said of Iraqi weapons "I don't think they existed.”
"What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production programme in the 90s."
His suggestion that Saddam had no illegal weapons means Saddam was involved in a gigantic bluff to shore up his international prestige.
Mr Kay added that the hunt would become even more difficult once the US has handed over power to Iraqis in June. His departure had been anticipated, but will be seen as indication that the search for WMD may turn out to be futile.
The US wants to hand back power to Iraqis through a carefully crafted process of selecting appointees to a transitional government, but vociferous opposition from Shia clerics, who want direct elections, is forcing a rethink.
A leading member of the Iraqi governing council close to the Bush administration said yesterday that elections were possible, and urged Washington to change its mind.
"Elections are possible," Mr Chalabi told a thinktank conference in Washington. "Seek to make them possible and they will be possible."
His replacement, former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, has also spoken sceptically about prospects for locating the menace that was used as the casus belli. I think the reason that they haven't found them is they're probably not there," he said recently.
Downing Street responded by calling for patience, saying: "There is still more work to be done, and we await that."
But the Liberal Democrats seized on the resignation with the party's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell claiming
"David Kay's admission that he does not believe that Iraq possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons casts severe doubt on the government's case for war.
Donald Anderson, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, acknowledged that it now appeared "likely" that Saddam did not have the weapons attributed to him.
Mr Anderson told Newsnight: "It looks increasingly forlorn that there are any chances now of finding those stockpiles."
The Bush administration has tried to shift the emphasis from the hunt for WMD on to efforts to improve security and pave the way for a handover of power to Iraqis.
The White House said last night it was hoping to learn soon whether the UN would agree to send a team back to Iraq to examine how best to elect a new Iraqi government.
Two UN security experts arrived in Baghdad last night to explore whether security is good enough to allow a full UN team back in.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has said the UN should play a part but not at the expense of the safety of its staff.
The US says security is improving, but incidents continue to kill and maim, the latest bombing on Thursday killing two men at an Iraqi Communist Party office.
Two US pilots meanwhile died last night when their helicopter came down in northern Iraq.
It was unclear what caused the crash.
• The US military indicated yesterday that they may fill the "spider hole where Saddam Hussein was eventually captured so that it does not turn into an attraction for tourists.
A spokeswoman for the 4th Infantry Division, said yesterday: "To get rid of the hole would reduce the amount of traffic to the area, which only complicates our military mission."

to assert – zapewniać
to avert – unikać, odwracać (uwagę)
backbench – members of the British Parliament who do not have official positions in the government or in an opposition political party
blow – cios
Bluff – blef
Casus belli- An act or event that provokes or is used to justify war
confidence vote – wotum zaufania
dossier – akta
on the eve – w przededniu
forlorn – rozpaczliwy
fruitless – bezowocny
Futile – daremny
hardline – dogmatyczny
at the helm – u steru
inquiry – dochodzenie
to maim – okaleczać
Menace – groźba
to pave the way for – utorowac drogę dla
to probe – badać
To seize on – wykorzystać, podchwycić
To shift ground – zmienić zdanie
To shore up - podeprzeć
Stockpiles – skład
Thinktank – sztab ekspertów
top-up – brakująca część
tuition fee – czesne
Vociferous – głośny, hałaśliwy
WMD = weapon of mass destruction – broń masowej zagłady


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