A Soldiers Blog

From: Patti Bader

Money Talks

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U.S. Offers Rewards in Iraq Weapons Hunt
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By Associated Press

May 10, 2003, 3:16 PM EDT

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- American authorities have promised rewards to Iraqis for information leading to discovery of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs, the U.S.-run Information Radio said Saturday.

Besides the unspecified reward, potential informants were offered anonymity and guarantees of safety in exchange for useful information "regarding any site that manufactured or held weapons of mass destruction."

"The reward you may get can improve your living standard," it said.

The lengthy spot on the Arabic-language radio was part of a growing U.S. government campaign to find Iraqi sources potentially knowledgeable about prohibited arms programs.

The suspected presence of such weapons was the prime reason cited by the Bush administration for launching the war against Iraq.

>From November to March, U.N. weapons teams conducted more than 700 surprise inspections at hundreds of Iraqi sites, and did not report finding any weapons-making programs. A U.S. military unit of experts in unconventional arms that followed invading U.S. troops into Iraq in March, has surveyed 75 of 90 high-priority sites, and thus far also has not reported conclusive evidence of such programs.

The difficulty in finding the banned weapons now threatens U.S. and British plans to end U.N. sanctions against Iraq. Russian diplomats have said they need to see conclusive evidence that such programs have been eliminated before approving the lifting of the 13-year sanctions regime, and President Vladimir Putin has even raised the possibility that Saddam Hussein could still be alive and in possession of the deadly weapons.

American officials have indicated they would increasingly depend on fresh information from hoped-for Iraqi informants to trace any weapons-making programs.

High-ranking Iraqis already in custody have uniformly denied that their government, ousted last month by the invasion force, had any weapons of mass destruction, U.S. officials say. The deposed government maintained it destroyed its chemical and biological weapons by the early 1990s. It never succeeded in building a nuclear weapon.

Saturday's radio announcement said the U.S.-British coalition was interested in "locations of components, materials and supplies that had been used in developing, processing, manufacturing and maintaining weapons of mass destruction."

Copyright (c) 2003, The Associated Press

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This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-weapons-reward,0,7667056.story

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