by TChris

Apologists for the Bush administration who cling desperately to the belief that Saddam Hussein really did have weapons of mass destruction have sometimes argued that the WMD's were spirited away to Syria before the United States invaded Iraq. A new report by the Iraq Survey Group rejects that theory as "unlikely."

The ISG report also said that 12 years of international sanctions against Baghdad after the Persian Gulf War had left Iraq's scientific community decimated and their skills in a state of "natural decay." The group added that it was unlikely that Iraq's scientists were capable of recreating the destroyed weapons programs, meaning Iraq would have possessed little, if anything, to transfer to anywhere.

Charles Duefler, who heads the ISG, says that Iraqi scientists have told the ISG everything they know, and should no longer be detained.