Tony Blair: "Palpably absurd"

When the inspectors left in 1998, they left unaccounted for:

• ten thousand litres of anthrax;
• a far reaching VX nerve agent programme;
• up to 6,500 chemical munitions;
• at least 80 tonnes of mustard gas, possibly more than ten times that amount
• unquantifiable amounts of sarin, botulinum toxin and a host of other biological poisons;
• an entire Scud missile programme.

We are now seriously asked to accept that in the last few years, contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence, he decided unilaterally to destroy the weapons. Such a claim is palpably absurd.

Tony Blair, 18 March 2003

With little fanfare, U.S. President George Bush's highly publicized search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ended before Christmas.

Officials with the Iraq Survey Group told the Washington Post the man in charge of the search, Charles Duelfer, is back in Washington writing his final report that pretty much reiterates his report from September that said there was nothing found.

UPI, 12 Janaury 2005