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Saddam might have been misled by own scientists on WMD: Report
New York, Sept 29: Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein might have been duped by his own scientists, who didn`t tell him that their work on weapons of mass destruction was not getting far, a media report said today.
New York, Sept 29: Ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein might have been duped by his own scientists, who didn't tell him that their work on weapons of mass destruction was not getting far, a media report said today.
Quoting unidentified sources time magazine said that western intelligence intercepted communications from Saddam Hussein that indicated he was taking a keen interest in the
progress of ongoing WMD programmes.
But a captain in Iraq's special security organisation, the agency that was responsible for, among other things, the security of weapons sites, told the magazine that no such arms were available. "Trust me," he was quoted as saying, "If we had them we would have used them, especially in the battle for the airport. We wanted them but didn't have any."
Over the past three months, time said, it has interviewed many Iraqi weapons scientists and former government officials.
Saddam Hussein's "henchmen," it said, all make the same claim: that Iraq's once-massive unconventional weapons programme was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt; that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove it; and that the shell games Saddam Hussein played with UN inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems - missiles, air defences, radar - not biological or chemical programmes. And many of them said Saddam himself may not have known what he actually had, or more to the point, didn't have.
Saddam's underlings appear to have invented weapons programmes and fabricated experiments to keep the funding coming, the report said.
Bureau Report
But a captain in Iraq's special security organisation, the agency that was responsible for, among other things, the security of weapons sites, told the magazine that no such arms were available. "Trust me," he was quoted as saying, "If we had them we would have used them, especially in the battle for the airport. We wanted them but didn't have any."
Over the past three months, time said, it has interviewed many Iraqi weapons scientists and former government officials.
Saddam Hussein's "henchmen," it said, all make the same claim: that Iraq's once-massive unconventional weapons programme was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt; that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove it; and that the shell games Saddam Hussein played with UN inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems - missiles, air defences, radar - not biological or chemical programmes. And many of them said Saddam himself may not have known what he actually had, or more to the point, didn't have.
Saddam's underlings appear to have invented weapons programmes and fabricated experiments to keep the funding coming, the report said.
Bureau Report