"The main thing they wanted to do was to change the regime. That became pretty clear," Atkeson

WASHINGTON, June 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Two months into the end of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, the war camp face credibility problems after insisting all along that the Arab country’s weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent security threat, experts said on Monday, June 2.

Bush cited stockpiles of banned weapons as a justification for waging the invasion on Iraq but since the toppling of President Saddam Hussein's regime, the U.S. military has found no concrete proof of their existence.

"There is a very big disconnect between the intelligence as reflected by open statements by the administration before the invasion of Iraq and what they've found on the ground," Vincent Cannistrano, former director of counterterrorism at the CIA, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

U.S. officials are now saying the weapons might have been destroyed, buried or transported elsewhere prior to the start of the invasion and are sending in a new 1,300-member team to step up the hunt this week.

On Thursday, May 29, U.S. President George W. Bush cited two specially equipped tractor-trailer rigs seized in Iraq as evidence of a biological warfare program, though intelligence analysts acknowledged they had no concrete evidence the trailers were used to make biological agents.

"That's a far cry from the report put out in October 2002 when the CIA estimated that there was several hundreds tons of biological and chemical agents stockpiles in the hands of Saddam Hussein," Cannistrano said.

"They haven't found anything like that at all and certainly nothing that has been weaponized.

"It is self-evident that their credibility is diminished, particularly in the international arena," he added.

‘Excuse’

“Contrary to what Bush tried to convince this nation of, Saddam Hussein did not constitute an imminent danger to this nation," Byrd

Two months after the war, finding just two rusty trailers -- its clear the Bush administration has a credibility problem," agreed John Pike, a defense analyst at GlobalSecurity.org.

For retired General Edward Atkeson, a former army intelligence officer who is now a consultant for the Institute of Land Warfare, talk of banned weapons was an "excuse" for the administration's true goal in Iraq -- regime change.

"The main thing they wanted to do was to change the regime. That became pretty clear," he said.

Senior U.S. lawmakers from both major political parties said on Sunday a congressional investigation might be needed to determine whether U.S. intelligence sources exaggerated information on the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify the war.

Senator John McCain told ABC television's "This Week" program he still believed weapons would be found, adding: "Obviously all of us are disappointed that we haven't found more so far."

But in a recent interview with The Washington Post, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, a vocal opponent of the Iraq invasion, said the apparent absence of such weapons raised serious concerns about misuse of power.

"Contrary to what Bush tried to convince this nation of, Saddam Hussein did not constitute an imminent danger to this nation," Byrd said.

"The Bush team's extensive hype of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a justification for a preemptive invasion has become more embarrassing. It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power," he added.

The Congress on Friday, May 23, demanded CIA to determine whether the U.S. intelligence community erred in its pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs or links with al-Qaeda network.

Intelligence ‘Politicized’

In an environment of score-settling, finger-pointing and strong language, those in the U.S. intelligence community are not eager to pay the price for the alleged exaggeration of the Iraqi threat.

"All I can tell you is there is a general feeling among CIA analysts that intelligence was politicized and that the CIA and (Defense Intelligence Agency) was not given full consideration,” said Cannistraro.

In a New Yorker magazine article earlier this month, author Seymour Hersh said a little-known Pentagon office, the Office of Special Plans, played a role in the George W. Bush administration's presentation of evidence on Iraq.

Created by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz in the wake of the deadly September 11, 2001, terror attacks, the office succeeded in having its opinion prevail at the White House that the CIA and other agencies did not perceive the reality of the Iraq threat.

"A lot of the material that we got on this came from defectors. Some of that may have been wrong," former CIA director James Woolsey said.

Three internal complaints charging mishandling of information were filed with the CIA by employees, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

CIA Director George Tenet dismissed the accusations, saying the integrity of “our process was maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong."

But Australia's Defense Minister Robert Hill conceded that flawed intelligence reports suggesting Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction may have influenced the decision to join the war in Iraq.

Hill told The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper that Australia joined the U.S.- and British-led invasion of Iraq in March in the belief the regime of Saddam Hussein was hiding banned weapons.

"If it turns out there were flaws in what we understood, then I think we ought to say there were flaws. But it's too early to say that," he said, admitting that Australia did not have any corroborating evidence of its own to justify its claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

‘No Inquiry’

Straw ruled out inquiry into the Iraq invasion

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, another staunch supporter for the invasion of Iraq, came under renewed mounting pressures from across the House of Commons to hold an independent inquiry into the Iraq war after resigned Secretary Claire Short leveled the incendiary allegation at the prime minister that he had lied to the cabinet.

To compound the prime minister's difficulties - as MPs prepare to return to Westminster tomorrow after the Whitsun recess - Robin Cook demanded an independent inquiry into the "monumental blunder" by the government, The Guardian reported.

They are demanding an emergency Commons statement after an unnamed intelligence source told the BBC last week that Downing Street had "sexed up" a dossier on Iraq's banned weapons.

But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw ruled out an inquiry into the Iraq invasion despite a poll suggesting that Britons are increasingly skeptical that the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein really possessed weapons of mass destruction.

A YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, published Monday, indicated that the number of Britons who now believed Saddam had chemical, biological or nuclear arms had fallen to 51 percent from 71 percent in February.