Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Frontline

Frontline has a special on the "Chase for WMD." I haven't had a chance to read it all but a few quotes:

Jane Corbin has been reporting on the issue of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction for 14 years. In 1990, in FRONTLINE's "The Arming of Iraq," she broke the story of how western companies and governments had armed Saddam throughout the 1980s. In 2003, Corbin was granted exclusive access to follow the Iraq Survey Group -- a U.S.-led coalition group numbering more than 1,000 military and intelligence specialists -- as it scoured post-war Iraq for WMD. In this interview, conducted on Jan. 14, 2004, Corbin talks about the ISG's frustrating and difficult work, how long it will take, what's been found to date, and what's at stake in getting to the bottom of what Saddam had -- or didn't have

And this from Hans Blix:

The first occasions when I became more skeptical about intelligence was in January 2003, because we had sent the inspectors to a number of sites we'd got intelligence; and in none of those cases did we find any weapons of mass destruction. In one case, we found a dump of conventional ammunition. In another case, we found material for rockets which had been illegally imported, but they were not related to weapons of mass destruction per se. In a third case, we found a stash of nuclear documents, which was a surprise. It was interesting and important; but weapons of mass destruction, no. So we said to ourselves, as I think I said at the time, "If these tips are the best -- what is the rest?"
Hans Blix

I'll answer that last question. Recall that for the past decade the US had been cheey picking the Iraqi defenses. I believe that these inspectors were sent in in order to determine if the US had missed anything prior to GW II.

Go check it out.

Links:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wmd/