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Rumsfeld: Bioweapons may be hard to find
( 2003-04-18 08:06 ) ()

The US military's search for chemical and biological weapons is unlikely to succeed until Iraqis lead American forces to them, US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

"I don't think we'll discover anything, myself," Rumsfeld said at a town hall-style meeting with Pentagon employees.

"I think what will happen is we'll discover people who will tell us where to go find it. It is not like a treasure hunt where you just run around looking everywhere, hoping you find something."

US troops have found suspicious chemicals and facilities at a number of sites but tests on the materials have proved negative or inconclusive. Eliminating such weapons was a chief reason President Bush gave for the US-led invasion of Iraq that began March 20.

Military teams have visited three dozen to four dozen suspected weapons of mass destruction sites in Iraq out of hundreds on lists drawn up by American intelligence agencies, a senior defense official said Thursday. One team on Thursday sent for further analysis on samples taken at a site near the Tallil air base in southern Iraq, the official said.

A Defense Department employee asked Rumsfeld what could be done so the United States would not be accused of planting any chemical or biological weapons that might be discovered. Rumsfeld said he believed such charges are likely and there is little the United States can do to avoid it.

Only in the past few days, Rumsfeld said, have enough weapons searchers arrived in parts of Iraq where US intelligence indicates chemical or biological weapons could be found.

"The teams have been trained in chain of control, really like a crime scene," he said. "That will not stop certain countries and certain types of people from claiming, inaccurately, that it was planted."

Appearing with Rumsfeld was Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, who cautioned against thinking that the fall from power of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party rule means the war is over.

"I wish I could say that we're winding all this down, but I can't," Myers said.

Rumsfeld made a similar point.

"The war is not over," he said. "We know that. There are still pockets of resistance, shots are still being fired and people will still be killed. And as we gather here people are still fighting in Iraq and elsewhere."

US and British ground troops are struggling to stabilize Iraq and track down Baath Party leaders, but the air campaign that helped unravel Iraq's defenses is all but over.

As a result, more of the air power used against Iraq is leaving the region.

A second Navy aircraft carrier departed the Persian Gulf on Thursday, leaving only the USS Nimitz battle group on station in the Gulf, defense officials. Both the Navy and the Air Force are bringing aircraft home to allow pilots and crews a respite after one of the most intense air campaigns in history.

The USS Constellation, on its final overseas mission before going into a scheduled retirement, left the Gulf Thursday, one day after the carrier USS Kitty Hawk departed for its homeport in Yokosuka, Japan, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Two other carriers that participated in the air war from positions in the eastern Mediterranean - the USS Harry S. Truman and the USS Theodore Roosevelt - are going to alternate on port visits in the Mediterranean but not head home yet, the officials said.

The USS Carl Vinson, which took the Kitty Hawk's place in the Pacific in February, is making a port call in Guam but is to return to the vicinity of Japan and remain while the Kitty Hawk is repaired in a Japanese shipyard, officials said.

The Pentagon said the US death toll from the war in Iraq rose by one to 126. Marine Cpl. Jason David Mileo, 20 of Centreville, Md., was shot and killed Monday after being mistaken for an Iraqi soldier, it said. He was in the Baghdad area, assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, whose headquarters is at Twentynine Palms, Calif. The matter is under investigation.

Three American service members are listed as missing - one Army soldier and two Air Force pilots.

In addition to those killed, 495 Americans have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.

"Some are going to recover very quickly; others are going to have to live with their injuries for the rest of their lives," Myers said. "They'll never escape the pain in some cases or, perhaps, regain lost opportunities this conflict has brought upon them."