Overview

This report relays Iraq Survey Group's findings from its creation in June 2003 until September 2004 and provides context and analysis to ISG's physical findings. It also attempts to place the events in their Political-Military context. For the purposes of this report, the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) refers to the definition established by the United Nations Security Council in the context of UN Security Council Resolution 687 (1991). The United States' investigation of Iraqi WMD activities began during Operation Iraqi Freedom itself. In prewar planning, it was assumed chemical and possibly biological stocks were likely to be encountered and perhaps employed. Forces were equipped with protective equipment. A military unit designated Expeditionary Task Force-75 (XTF-75) was deployed during the war to investigate suspected locations for WMD stocks. Many sites were inspected but with an aim of discovering WMD, not inspecting and developing an analytical assessment of the Iraqi programs. Wartime conditions prevailed with concern about force protection primary. The work of XTF-75 was therefore aimed at discovery of possible WMD locations (to eliminate a threat), not the compilation of evidence to build a picture of what happened to the weapons and programs. This early approach, perhaps logical if the goal was simply to find hidden weapons, undermined the subsequent approach of piecing together the evidence of the Iraqi WMD programs such as they existed. In fact, combined with the chaos of the war and the widespread looting in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, it resulted in the loss of a great amount of potentially very valuable information and material for constructing a full picture of Iraqi WMD capabilities. Sites were looted. Documents were either ignored or collected haphazardly or burned by either the Regime or Coalition forces. To begin a more systematic collection of evidence to build an understanding of Iraqi WMD programs, DOD stood up ISG under the military command of Major General Keith Dayton. He brought together a unique blend of collection, analytic, and force maneuver assets to conduct both the ongoing WMD investigation and secondary tasks that included counterterrorism and the search for Captain Scott Speicher, a US Navy pilot shot down in 1991 during Desert Storm.

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