U.S. investigators hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have found no evidence that such material was moved to Syria for safekeeping before the war, according to a final report of the investigation released yesterday. Although Syria helped Iraq evade U.N.-imposed sanctions by shipping military and other products across its borders, the investigators “found no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD.” Because of the insular nature of Saddam Hussein’s government, however, the investigators were “unable to rule out unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials.”
Many have maintained they were moved right along. Satellite photos mentioned in the Dulfer report could not prove what was in the convoys. They watched the convoys but the Dulfer report could not with certainty say what was in them. The press then reported - no WMD’s!!!
Proving a negative is a tad difficult. I’m sure investigators cannot rule out the fact that all the WMD components were handled by left handed dwarves but it is intrinsically unlikely that they were. Likewise it is intrinsically unlikely that useable workable WMD components exist in Syria. Such things require infrastructure which is sattellite visible. Chemicals stored in the sand degrade to useless elements without proper storage facilities. Warheads require missiles which require factories.
There were no WMD’s in Iraq at the time of the invasion or during the build up to it. A fact who’s unpalatability to you does not make it less true.
The only thing they can say is that they can’t find any evidence that WMD was moved. It may have been moved and it may not of been moved. If large amounts were moved you would expect some kind of paper trail. They have found none. That doesn’t prove over a shadow of a doubt that large amounts of WMD were not moved.
I would say this study is evidence that WMD may not have been moved. But it is inconclusive.
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