Former Senior U.N. Weapons Inspector Chosen to Replace Kay

CIA Director George Tenet has chosen Charles Duelfer to replace David Kay as U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, a senior Bush administration official said last night. After a decade at the U.S. State Department, Duelfer began serving as deputy executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq in 1993 and was elevated to acting executive chairman for several months before the commission was dissolved in 2000 (see GSN, Jan. 16).

Duelfer has been selected to head the Iraq Survey Group, which is currently searching for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and is expected to submit a final report on its search this fall, according to the Washington Post. The former U.N. inspector has previously expressed doubts, though, that such weapons would be found.

“I think it’s pretty clear right now that they’re not going to find existing weapons in Iraq of either a biological or chemical nature,” Duelfer said in an interview with NBC News that aired earlier this month (Pincus/Allen, Washington Post, Jan. 22).

Meanwhile, U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said yesterday that there are concerns that suspected Iraqi weapons of destruction might have been shipped to Syria, according to Reuters.

“I think that there is some concern that shipments of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) went to Syria,” Roberts said (Joseph Logan, Reuters, Jan. 22).

Secretary of State Colin Powell, however, said yesterday during a radio interview that, while such a scenario is “always a possibility,” he has seen no “hard evidence” that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are now in Syria.

“I don’t know why the Syrians would do that, frankly — why it would be in their interest. They didn’t have that kind of relationship with Iraq, but it is an open question, but I’ve seen no hard evidence to suggest that’s what happened,” Powell said (U.S. State Department release, Jan. 21).

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