US troops in Iraq said finding Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is not yet a top priority despite mounting pressure on Washington to justify the war with clear evidence.
Officers with the 4th Infantry Division in northern Iraq said security and force protection were still their main focus.
"The NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) operations are being looked at as more important than but they're not the main priority, which is establishing security," said Captain Bobbie Jackson, chemicals officer for the division's 2nd Brigade, according to AFP. "Once all the pockets of resistance are cleared up I think the search will intensify."
"Assembling an accurate picture of Saddam's programmes will take time," pleaded Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw last week. "Until we are able to question the scientists and experts who worked on these programs -- and the UN has a list of 5,000 names -- progress will inevitably be slow."
A group of former intelligence specialists has called on President George W. Bush to investigate the CIA and other spy agencies for their failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
The failure, said the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), constituted a "policy and intelligence fiasco of monstrous proportions." Bush "has been backed into the untenable position of assuming the former role of Saddam Hussein in refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors," it said in a recent statement.
Meanwhile, three US soldiers were injured when a suspected US cluster bomb exploded inside a major US base in northern Iraq.
The soldiers from the 3-16 artillery battalion of the 4th Infantry Division were walking across a dirt field inside the base when the device exploded around noon (0800 GMT), witnesses said Tuesday.
Surgeon Robert Tyler, who was the first doctor at the scene, said one was in critical condition with shrapnel in his eye and head, another was seriously injured in the elbow and the third was lightly wounded in the torso.
All three were immediately evacuated to a combat field hospital about 40 kilometres north of Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province.
"It looked like a cluster bomb because it looked like a little yellow soup can," Tyler said. (Albawaba.com)
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