The group urged Bush, "for his own sake and for the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community," to invite UN inspectors back to Iraq

WASHINGTON, May 1 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Some intelligence experts urged President George W. Bush Thursday, May 1, to inquire into the failure of the CIA and other spy agencies uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Bush, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) said in a statement, "has been backed into the untenable position of assuming the former role of Saddam Hussein in refusing to cooperate with UN inspectors," according to Agence France Presse (AFP).

Such failure, said the group, constituted a "policy and intelligence fiasco of monstrous proportions." It urged the president to invite the UN inspectors back to Iraq immediately.

The group further urged Bush, "for his own sake and for the credibility of the U.S. intelligence community," not only to invite UN inspectors back to Iraq, but to direct General Brent Scowcroft to investigate the agencies on whose intelligence the government based its decision to go to war.

"The refusal feeds suspicions that the Bush administration wishes to avoid independent verification and preserve the option of planting evidence," said the VIPS statement.

Scowcroft, national security advisor to presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush, is chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

"While there have been occasions in the past when intelligence has been deliberately warped for political purposes," said VIPS, "never before has such warping been used is such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to approve going to war."

U.S. "Confident"   

Meanwhile, the U.S. is still sure that it will "unravel the mystery" of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but is not going to predict when, reported AFP.

Assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation issues John Wolf said Europe needs to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Washington to combat such arms.

"We're 39 days after the start of the war. (Iraq) is a country that spent a lot of time burying, hiding, deceiving, breaking its program into pieces," he told reporters in Brussels.

"We are confident that with time, with careful work, that we will unravel the mystery and... demonstrate what we know to be the case, which is that they had a weapons of mass destruction program."

"We just can't go around digging holes in the ground and expect that under every rock there is a WMD," Wolf added.

"Under some rock, or rocks, and in caves or broken into pieces or in factories that have other purposes we will identify the WMD capability.

"It will be there, and we're quite confident, but we're not going to say that it's going to happen on day 39 or whether it's going to happen on day 60."

Furthermore, Wolf said that Europe and others need to maintain a united international front to defeat the threat of such weapons, noting in particular Iran and North Korea.

"In the end the proliferators need to know that they risk isolation, and we need to stand shoulder to shoulder on this sort of stuff. Iraq was unfortunate in that respect. We didn't stand shoulder to shoulder," he said.