WASHINGTON -- U.S. investigators are
unlikely to find Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons at any
site suspected of having them before the war, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld said Sunday.
"We've got multi-agency teams doing what
they do," Rumsfeld told CNN's "Late Edition." "They're looking at the sites
we have knowledge of, and of course the reality is that, if we have knowledge
of a site -- and a suspect site is probably the way we should phrase it
-- it's very likely things are not there."
He predicted that a better way to learn
the location of the weapons would be through Iraqis volunteering information
to U.S. authorities.
"The only way I know we're going to get
it is through people. If anyone has any ideas, we're always happy to hear
them," he said.
Before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the
Bush administration had said pre-emptive military action was needed to
strip former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime of its alleged weapons
of mass destruction to ensure they were not passed to terrorists. Saddam
insisted he had no such weapons.
Rumsfeld told CNN he was "not frustrated
at all" by the failure of U.S. troops to locate the former Iraqi regime's
alleged stockpiles of banned weapons.
"There are many teams of people out looking
at the sites that we're aware of," Rumsfeld said. "But, as I say, I don't
think we're going to just stumble over something. I think people are going
to come up finally, and say, 'Here's what happened. Here's what they've
done,' and already there are things that have been related to us that have
been helpful."
Rumsfeld implied that ousted Iraqi Deputy
Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is unlikely to be one of those information volunteers.
The defense secretary said he saw a debriefing session with Aziz, who surrendered
to U.S. authorities in Iraq last week.
"It was pretty clear that he was dissembling,"
Rumsfeld said.
Iraqi scientists being questioned by U.S.
officials may prove to be more fruitful sources of information, he said.
"As those reports come out, we'll know more," he said.
Powell backs off comments on Syria
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on
Sunday backed off comments he had made a day earlier that Syria has begun
closing offices of groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations.
Speaking on ABC's "This Week," Powell said
only that Syrian President Bashar Assad "said he was taking action to close
down these offices and that he would restrict their ability to communicate."
But, Powell added, "it is not what he says,
it's ... what actually happened, what actually happens on the ground. And
what I said to him is that we would be watching, and we would measure performance
over time to see whether Syria is prepared now to move in a new direction."
In a separate interview on NBC's "Meet
the Press," Powell said the sites Assad promised to close include the Damascus
offices of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine. All are designated terrorist organizations by
the United States and have claimed responsibilities for attacks that killed
and wounded Americans.
On Saturday, following his meeting with
Bashar in Damascus, Powell said Syria "did some closures; I expect them
to do more."
But he told ABC that "an observation a
few hours after our conversation might or might not be totally indicative
of the action he plans to take."
Other developments
• A U.S. soldier in northern Iraq died
Saturday after an apparent accident involving his own weapon, U.S. Central
Command announced Sunday. The incident happened in Kirkuk. The cause of
the accident is still under investigation. No other details were available.
• The United States plans to pull more
than half of its more than 130,000 troops out of Iraq by fall, a senior
administration official said. Three of five divisions in the region should
be home by then, the official said without providing specifics. A senior
Defense Department official said Rumsfeld will meet in the next few weeks
with European, NATO and other defense officials to assess their willingness
to contribute troops to any force for the stabilization and reconstruction
phase in Iraq.
• U.S.-led coalition forces are holding
about 3,600 Iraqi prisoners of war, according to the U.S. Central Command.
|