Back التكهن بأسلحة الدمار الشامل عقب غزو العراق عام 2003 Arabic Armes de destruction massive en Irak#Théories après la guerre de 2003 French

WMD conjecture after the 2003 invasion of Iraq

A UN weapons inspector takes samples at an Iraqi machine factory in 2002, several months before the invasion.

The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the United States-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) failed to find any of the alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that were used as a rationale for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.[1] The United States effectively ended the search effort for unconventional weaponry in 2005, and the Iraq Intelligence Commission concluded that the judgements of the U.S. intelligence community regarding the continued existence of weapons of mass destruction and an associated military program were mistaken. The official findings of the CIA in 2004 were that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "did not possess stockpiles of illicit weapons at the time of the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and had not begun any program to produce them."[2]

Immediately following and during these searches, many theories were put forward on how it could be possible for Iraqi WMD to have suddenly disappeared—assuming they had, in fact, been present. These theories included conspiracy theories, accusations against other governments and claims of successful deception efforts by Saddam Hussein. In various theories, Russia,[3] Syria,[4] Lebanon,[5] Iran,[6] and Pakistan[7] were all alleged to be involved with moving or concealing Iraq's supposed WMD arsenal. In 2004, a theory was advanced that WMD might still remain hidden somewhere within Iraq.[8] While some remnant chemical warheads were discovered, dating to the Iran–Iraq War era, none were newer than 1991. Some chemical weapons were found near the Muthanna State Establishment northwest of Baghdad.[9][10]

After much criticism against the war over the years that followed, every figure that previously supported the claims of WMD in Iraq, with the exception of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, acknowledged that they had been wrong.[11] A related debate concerned whether the figures that had built the case for the war had been inadvertently misled by intelligence or that they intentionally deceived the public.[12][13] The failure to find WMD "would leave deep and lasting consequences for both spies and politicians,"[14] and did "lasting damage to the credibility of U.S. intelligence."[15] It also spurred the U.S. intelligence community to develop "new standards for analysis and oversight."[15] Avril Haines, U.S. Director of National Intelligence from 2021 to 2025, was quoted in a 2023 article as saying: “We learned critical lessons in the wake of our flawed assessment of an active WMD program in Iraq in 2002," having "expanded the use of structured analytic techniques, established community-wide analytic standards, and enhanced tradecraft oversight" in the time since.[15]

  1. ^ No WMD stockpiles in Iraq Archived December 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine CNN. October 7, 2004.
  2. ^ Report: No WMD stockpiles in Iraq Archived November 7, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, CNN
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference :4 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference :5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Tweedie, Neil. Report holds out the possibility that WMD may still be found ... one day Archived February 13, 2018, at the Wayback Machine The Daily Telegraph. July 14, 2004.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Duelfer was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ At Least Trump Got One Thing Right. There Were No WMD in Iraq Archived October 5, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Huffington Post, "But the very leaders who sold them the goods on Iraq’s non-existent weapons program have (with the exception of Cheney) come out and acknowledged that there were no WMDs."
    • "In his memoir, Known and Unknown, Rumsfeld specifically mentioned the lack of WMD stockpiles in Iraq and said “Saddam Hussein didn’t have ready stockpiles of WMD our intelligence community believed we would uncover. The shift in emphasis suggested that Iraq’s intentions and capability for building WMD had somehow not been threatening. Many Americans and others around the world accordingly came to believe the war was unnecessary.”
    • "National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice similarly acknowledged, “What we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground.”"
    • "Secretary of State Colin Powell would also state, “Of course I regret that a lot of it [the evidence] turned out be wrong.”"
  12. ^ Mathur, Piyush (2006). "More Whitewash: The WMD Mirage". Third World Quarterly. 27 (8): 1495–1507. doi:10.1080/01436590601027347. JSTOR 4017692. S2CID 153614528.
  13. ^ Dick Cheney's Biggest Lie Archived November 2, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, Newsweek
  14. ^ Corera, Gordon (March 12, 2023). "How the search for Iraq's secret weapons fell apart". BBC. Archived from the original on December 12, 2024. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  15. ^ a b c Merchant, Nomaan (March 23, 2023). "Iraq WMD failures shadow US intelligence 20 years later". AP News. Archived from the original on February 17, 2025. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
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