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Pentagon report found 'no reliable evidence' of WMD in Iraq
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington

07 June 2003

A report by the Pentagon's intelligence agency concluded last year there was "no reliable evidence" to prove Saddam Hussein had developed chemical weapons - further undermining claims from Washington and London that the Iraqi regime presented a genuine threat to the West.

A leaked copy of the report by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) reveals that, despite extensive analysis, experts were unable definitively to conclude Iraq was either stockpiling or producing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The report's contents will add to the considerable pressure Tony Blair and President George Bush face as their pre-war claims come under intense scrutiny.

"There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities," a summary page of the DIA report said. The report does not suggest Iraq did not have WMD. Indeed, it concludes that Iraq "probably" has such stockpiles. But its language is far more circumspect than that of senior Bush administration officials and the President himself, who insisted Iraq not only had large stocks of WMD but it was capable of delivering them in weapons....