US forces have found some old Iraqi WMD, says general
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-06-30 14:39 The U.S. military has found
more Iraqi weapons in recent months, in addition to the 500 chemical munitions
recently reported by the Pentagon, a top defense intelligence official said on
Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, did not
specify if the newly found weapons were also chemical munitions. But he said he
expected more.
"I do not believe we have found all the weapons," he told the House of
Representatives Armed Services Committee, offering few details in an open
session that preceded a classified briefing to lawmakers.
Responding to questions from lawmakers anxious to make political points ahead
of the November congressional elections, U.S. defense officials said the 500
chemical weapons discovered in Iraq were "weapons of mass destruction." However
their degraded state may make them more dangerous to those who find them than
anyone else.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence
Committee, Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra, wrote to U.S. intelligence
chief John Negroponte accusing intelligence officials of downplaying the
significance of the finds.
Hoekstra said intelligence officials at a June 21 press briefing told
journalists the weapons predated the 1991 Gulf War, were too degraded to be used
as originally intended and posed no threat to U.S. forces deployed in the region
during the run-up to the 2003 invasion.
"I am very disappointed by the inaccurate, incomplete, and occasionally
misleading comments made by the briefers," Hoekstra said in the letter.
At the Armed Services Committee, Maples also asserted that the rockets and
artillery rounds that had been found were produced in the 1980s and could not be
used as intended.
|
