WASHINGTON – The government’s most definitive account of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, to be released today, shows that Saddam Hussein posed a diminishing threat at the time the United States invaded and did not possess or have concrete plans to develop nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The officials said the 1,000-page report by Charles Duelfer, chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, concluded that Hussein had the desire but not the means to produce unconventional weapons that could threaten his neighbors or the West. President Bush has continued to assert in his campaign stump speech that Iraq posed “a gathering threat.”
The officials said Duelfer, an experienced former United Nations weapons inspector, found that the state of Hussein’s weapons development programs and knowledge base was less in 2003, when the war began, than it was in 1998, when international inspectors left Iraq.
A senior U.S. government official said Duelfer will tell Congress in the report and in testimony today that Hussein intended to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programs once he was free of the U.N. sanctions that prevented him from getting needed materials.
Congress overturns trucker rules
Congress overturned a court order and quietly reinstated a trucking industry-supported rule that allows drivers to stay behind the wheel an hour longer between rest periods. A federal court threw out the regulation in the summer, saying the Bush administration failed to consider its effect on truckers’ health.
The environment and Army training
Maj. Gen. Larry Gottardi, a deputy chief of staff for the Forces Command based at Fort McPherson, Ga., has cautioned the Pentagon that its spending cuts could make it unable to comply with some environmental laws, putting the military at risk of having training sites shut down by activist lawsuits. In a letter, Gottardi told his Pentagon bosses that, “regrettably,” most Army projects to sustain the ecological health of training ranges “were considered optional” and therefore will not be funded.
Sept. 11 bill approaches $15 billion
A House Republican bill to implement the Sept. 11 panel’s recommendations could cost almost $15 billion over five years, congressional budget officials said, as the Senate moved Tuesday to finish its version of the legislation. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the House bill, which creates a national intelligence director as well as increases anti-terrorism, identity theft, illegal immigration and border security powers, could cost $14.9 billion between 2005 and 2009.
N.Y.: Lennon’s killer denied parole
John Lennon’s killer will remain in prison for at least two more years after being denied parole Tuesday because of the “extreme malicious intent” he showed in gunning down the former Beatle in 1980. Mark David Chapman, 49, was notified of the decision late Tuesday after appearing before a three-member panel earlier in the day at the Attica Correctional Facility.
Louisiana: Gay marriage ban tossed
A state judge Tuesday threw out a Louisiana constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, less than three weeks after voters overwhelmingly approved it. District Judge William Morvant said the amendment was flawed as drawn up by the Legislature because it had more than one purpose: banning not only gay marriage but also civil unions.
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