Bush gives up hunt for WMD in Iraq

Bush gives up hunt for WMD in Iraq  Washington: Bush has finally given up the search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which was cited by the first administration of President George W. Bush as the main reason for invading, a report said on Wednesday quoting American officials.

“The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein,” ‘The Washington Post’ said.

“The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley (Virginia),” it added.

In interviews, officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) told the Post that the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort “shortly before Christmas.”

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every assertion about Iraq made by top Bush Administration officials, a senior intelligence official said.

     The findings will stand as the ISG’s final conclusions and will be published this spring, the Post said.

President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top Administration officials asserted before the US invasion in March 2003 that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and biological weapons and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such weapons to use against the US.