"The issue is that he has chemical weapons, and he's used them," Cheney told CNN in March last year.
The NIE from last October said, "Although we have little specific information on Iraq's CW stockpile, Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons and possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents -- much of it added in the last year."
Kay said on Thursday: "Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks. We have multiple reports that Iraq retained CW munitions made prior to 1991 ... but we have to date been unable to locate any such munitions."
Combat readiness of chemical weapons
Secretary of State Colin Powell, on Feb. 5 this year, told the UN: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells the world he does not have."
Kay: "We have not yet found evidence to confirm prewar reporting that Iraqi military units were prepared to use CW against coalition forces."
chemical weapons production line
The NIE said: "We assess that Baghdad has begun renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF [cyclosarin] and VX; its capability probably is more limited now than it was at the time of the Gulf War, although VX production and agent storage life probably have been improved."
Kay: "Multiple sources with varied access and reliability have told [weapons search teams] that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled CW program after 1991. Information found to date suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce and fill new CW munitions was reduced -- if not entirely destroyed."
Scud missiles
"Iraq also possesses a force of Scud-type missiles with ranges beyond the 150km permitted by the UN," Bush told the UN on Sept. 12 last year.
"[Iraq] retains -- in violation of UN resolutions -- a small number of Scud missiles that it produced before the Gulf War," CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Feb. 11 this year.
According to Kay: "One high-level detainee has recently claimed that Iraq retained a small quantity of Scud-variant missiles until at least 2001, although he subsequently recanted these claims. Work continues to determine the truth."
Longer-range missiles
Tenet: "Iraq ... is developing missiles with ranges beyond 1,000km."
True, Kay said: "The Iraqis were engaged in a very full-scale program that would have extended their delivery systems out beyond 1,000km."
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