GUEST, 15 Jun 04 - 11:27 AM

"At the end of the day, no Nuclear, Biological or chenical weapons have been produced by either Bush or Blair to justify the invasion."

Was that ever a requirement? The objective from the point of view of the United Nations going back over the last 14 years was to effect the total elimination of the WMD possessed by Iraq, in a verifiable manner, in order that that country would no longer pose a thread to the peace and stability of the region.

That process was clearly defined to include:
- Elimination of all Iraqi WMD, both nuclear and chemical/biological.
- Elimination of the munitions and weapons systems that could deliver them.
- Eradication of all research and development programmes relating to those weapons.
- Destruction of all proscribed munitions and weapons systems
- Destruction of all precursor chemicals and chemical/biological agents.

Now the stocks, WMD agents, weapons systems, etc were detailed by UNSCOM in 1999. Now let's see how far down that list the international community has progressed in the last 15 months:

1. Does Iraq possess any nuclear weapons - No it does not.
2. Does Iraq currently have any research and development work related to attaining a nuclear weapons capability running - No it does not.
3. Does Iraq possess, in being, or in development, weapons systems capable of deploying nuclear weapons - No it does not.
4. Does Iraq possess any chemical/biological weapons - No it does not.
5. Does Iraq currently have any research and development work related to attaining a chemical/biological capability running - No it does not.
6. Does Iraq possess, in being, or in development, weapons systems capable of deploying chemical/biological weapons - No it does not.

Seems to me that we are a fair way down that road? Thanks to the US.

Left to the UN and UNMOVIC 4, 5 & 6 above would still be "black holes", I believe that Dr. AlBaradei was well on the way to establishing points 1 to 3 above.