*Ø* Blogmanac | Ex-Arms Hunter Kay Says No WMD Stockpiles in Iraq

"I don't think they existed" Kay tells Reuters

By Tabassum Zakaria

"WASHINGTON - David Kay stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for banned weapons in Iraq on Friday and said he did not believe the country had any large stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

"In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.

"'I don't think they existed,' Kay said. 'What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties,' he said.

"David Kay, who stepped down as leader of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction, said on January 23, 2004 that he does not believe there were any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. 'I don't think they existed,' Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview ...

"The CIA announced earlier that former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who has previously expressed doubts that unconventional weapons would be found, would succeed Kay as Washington's chief arms hunter.

"Kay said he believes most of what was going to be found in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has been found and that the hunt would become more difficult once America returned control of the country to the Iraqis.

"The United States went to war against Baghdad last year citing a threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. To date, no banned arms have been found ..."
Source: Common Dreams