Anti-war placard saying that it is Bush who should be inspected and not Iraq

WASHINGTON , March 23 (IslamOnlin.net & News Agencies) – The United States has tirelessly claimed that its invasion of Iraq is primarily aimed at “disarming Iraq ” from weapons of mass destruction, unseating Iraqi president Saddm Hussein and “protecting America ’s national security. However, some U.S. officials with the Bush administration cannot buy this talk, a big U.S. paper reported Sunday, March 23.

Bush administration officials were peppered Saturday, with questions about why the self-declared “allied forces” in Iraq have not found any of the chemical or biological weapons that were President George W. Bush's central justification for forcibly disarming Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's government, The Washington Post reported Sunday March 23.

The Iraqi government has not used gas or germs to try to repel invading forces, or loaded such weapons of mass destruction onto missiles that have been allegedly fired into Kuwait , raising questions about the size and functionality of Iraq ’s arsenal. The absence of such weapons would raise questions about the rationale for war.

The Post said Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's commander, opened his news conference in the Qatar-based Central Command Saturday by saying that the location and destruction of weapons of mass destruction, and the collection of information about them were among the administration's eight objectives in Iraq.

But during questioning, Franks acknowledged that finding them "is work that lies in front of us rather than work we have already accomplished,” which is nothing but impossible mission.

Officials Running Out Of Patience

Bush, in his weekly radio address Saturday, again mentioned Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as justification for war and listed their removal as the primary mission.

"Our mission is clear, to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people," he said.

But the patience of senior officials with the Bush administration seems to be running out as one senior U.S. defense official saying that “U.S.-led forces” ought to find and make a credible display of evidence of forbidden weapons programs "very, very fast."

At the same time, career disarmament specialists and outside experts said it is far too soon to expect results from such a hunt when the assault to take control of the country has just begun.

On the one hand, some specialists, particularly in Europe, argue that Iraq has little remaining capability to use such weapons, pointing out that U.N. arms inspectors had made headway in their inspections with their chief Hans Blix saying that Iraq had been cooperative and proactive with his teams.

On the other, Victoria Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, said during a televised briefing at the Pentagon Saturday that the administration knows about "a number of sites" where Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

Clarke refused to provide any estimate of how many sites the United States knows of, even when she was asked, "More than 10? Less than a hundred?"

On March 7, Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei praised  Iraqi substantial cooperation with U.N. inspection teams as well as its accelerated disarmament.

Blix underlined there was no evidence of banned activities in Iraq and lauded Baghdad ’s "acceleration of activities" since the end of January as a positive development.

The United States launched the war early Thursday, March 20, with a flurry of air strikes aimed at Baghdad, including sorties by F-117 stealth fighters and sea-launched cruise missile targeting Saddam personally amid fierce world opposition.