no evidence of wmd found....

23.03.2003 3.40pm

LINK:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3251448&thesection=news&thesubsection=world

Part of article below............



In another development US forces in Iraq have yet to find any evidence of the suspected chemical or biological weapons that prompted the invasion, a US general said.

Gen Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations on the US military's Joint Staff, also told a briefing that none of the missiles fired by Iraq so far in the war had been a Scud.

Scud missiles, along with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, are among the arms that Iraq was barred from possessing by UN resolutions after the 1991 Gulf War.

President Bush and his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair accuse Iraq of having violated the resolutions and say President Saddam Hussein could provide weapons of mass destruction to groups like al-Qaeda.

Asked if any Scuds had been found by the US-British forces that have invaded Iraq, McChrystal said:

"To my knowledge, we have not discovered any to this point," adding: "So far there have been no Scuds launched, which is very positive today."

Asked if any signs of chemical or biological weapons had been found, the general replied: "We have found no caches of weapons of mass destruction to date."

Iraq says it has destroyed all its stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

Earlier today US Marines battled Iraqi forces around the southern city of Basra and America's Gulf commander vowed to conduct a campaign of overwhelming force.

US infantry said they had captured a vital bridge over the Euphrates river, needed for their push toward Baghdad, but elsewhere invading troops met some stiffer-than-expected resistance as they pushed deeper into Iraq.

By contrast to opposition on the ground, US and British forces had dominance of the skies, striking Baghdad with a devastating aerial assault that set off giant fireballs, thunderous explosions and glowing clouds.

Warplanes targeted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's palace on the banks of the River Tigris, government and military targets and other symbols of his rule. The precise scale of Iraqi fatalities from the bombing and the hostilities was not clear.

US Army General Tommy Franks, commander of the invasion, said his forces were using munitions on a "scale never before seen" and predicted that victory was certain.

"This will be a campaign unlike any other in history. A campaign characterised by shock, by surprise, by flexibility... and by the application of overwhelming force," he said in his first briefing since the attack on Iraq began on Thursday.

Iraq denounced the attackers as criminals and appealed to the United Nations to halt the invasion "unconditionally."

After a day of fierce fighting, US Marines said they had defeated Iraqi forces on the outskirts of the oil city of Basra, some 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, taking hundreds of prisoners in the process. "It's definitely a big victory," US Marine Captain Andrew Bergen told Reuters.

Further north, in the city of Nassiriya, US troops forging a path to Baghdad secured a bridge over the Euphrates, dislodging Iraqi forces who had slowed their advance.

After two days of skirmishes, Marines said they had won control of Umm Qasr, Iraq's only deep-water port which lies close to the Kuwaiti border, despite pockets of resistance.

"Both the new and the old ports are secure," Marine Captain Rick Crevier, one of the commanders of the effort to capture Umm Qasr's twin port facilities, said.