The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was a fact-finding mission sent by the coalition after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs developed by Iraq under the regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It consisted of a 1,400-member international team organized by The Pentagon and CIA to hunt for Saddam's suspected stockpiles of WMD, such as chemical and biological agents, and any supporting research programs and infrastructure that could be used to develop WMD. The search uncovered numerous banned weapons-related programs, but failed to find stockpiles, which were the main stated reason for United States President George W. Bush ordering the invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam. [1]

The ISG was made up of 1,200 members of Australian, British and American experts. David Kay, a prominent U.S. scientist who searched for WMD after the first Gulf War, was chosen to head the group.

The Iraq Survey Group continued the work of United Nations inspectors, led by Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, who were mandated by the U.N. Security Council to search for illegal weapons before the conflict (See Iraq disarmament crisis). The replacement of UNMOVIC/IAEA with British and American scientists was consistent with general trends in the country, which saw the influence of the U.N. wane in favor of the occupying military forces.

After the capture of Saddam, Blix played down suggestions that the former dictator would reveal the wherabouts of any illegal weapons stockpiles: "I doubt that he will reveal any WMD, because I think both we U.N. inspectors and the American inspectors have been looking around and come to the conclusion that there aren't any," Blix said. "He might be able to reveal when they were done away with. I am inclined to think it was early in 1991 or 1992."

To make the WMD search more manageable, ISG was operationally divided up into several sectors each with its own Sector Control Point. The three sectors were North, Baghdad and South, with Sector Control Point-Baghdad (also known as SCP-B or "skip bee") being the primary and largest. SCP-B and the core of the ISG staff were located on Camp Slayer at the former Al Radwaniyah Presidential Site on Baghdad International Airport in western Baghdad.

From its founding in the spring of 2003 until disbandment at the end of February 2005, SCP-B was commanded by a series of coalition officers from the U.S. Army, U.S. Marines and Australian Army. Its first commander was U.S. Army Reserve Colonel George Waldroup, who lead the group from its founding until the summer of 2004. He was later picked by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to head the Strategic Support Branch of the Department of Defense. The final commander was Australian Military Police Major, Damien Hick.

SCP-B's missions included not only the search for WMD, but work on counter-terrorism and the ongoing investigation into the fate of U.S. Navy Captain Michael Scott Speicher, who was shot down during the Gulf War of 1991. Initially presumed dead, he was later declared missing when evidence emerged after the war that he had survived the crash of his aircraft.

SCP-B was organized into several Mobile Collection Teams, or MCTs, made up of members drawn from American, British and Australian forces. It also contained other specialist units containing Dogs, laboratories and EOD. An MCT generally consisted of a commander -- usually a major or captain (although MCTs were lead by lieutenants and full colonels at times) -- and anywhere from ten to twenty other personnel, depending on mission requirements. The majority of SCP-B personnel were mobilized American National Guard or Army Reserve Soldiers (although the United States Navy, Marines and Air Force, as well several coalition forces, were also well represented). The other key piece of SCP-B were the U.S. Army Military Police crews assigned to the organization. The Military Police provided convoy and site security for the MCTs as well as secure transport for ISG personnel in their travels around Baghdad.

By any measure other than the obvious (actually finding WMD stockpiles), SCP-B was remarkably successful. Acting as an independent entity outside of the normal chain of command (ISG reported directly to Rumsfeld), it surveyed and exploited hundreds of possible WMD sites across the breadth of Iraq with very few problems. Except for two unfortunate incidents, SCP-B's casualty record was exceptional, considering the amount of time its personnel spent on the roads and out among the populace. The first incident was the paint factory explosion of April 26th, 2004, which killed two Soldiers and injured several more. These were SCP-B's first casualties in over a year of operations. The second was a vehicle-borne IED attack against Charles Duelfer's convoy, which claimed the lives of two of the Soldiers detailed to protect him.

Throughout the life of ISG and SCP-B, there were only two occasions where chemical weapons were found. The first was a sarin mortar shell which had been reworked into a roadside improvised explosive device by insurgents. The second was a handful of 122-millimeter rocket warheads filled with inert mustard gas that was recovered near Babylon. Both were thought to be remainders from the Iran-Iraq War and were useless as offensive weapons. Both were later destroyed by ISG personnel.

After six months searching for WMD, the ISG issued an Interim Progress Report on October 3, 2003. The team has found evidence of "WMD-related program activities" but no actual chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. In addition to details of dormant WMD programs, the October 2003 report also includes discoveries of non-WMD programs banned by the U.N. and concealed during the IAEA and UNMOVIC inspections that began in 2002. The discoveries made by the ISG include a "clandestine network of laboratories . . . that contained equipment . . . suitable for continuing chemical biological weapons research" and vials of "live C botulinum Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced." [2]. Lines of enquiry adopted by the ISG include the examination of sites across Iraq, as well as interviewing scientists, truck drivers and other workers with possible knowledge of WMD. The failure to find any stockpiles of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons has proved a problem for Washington and London, who used intelligence indicating that Iraq did possess WMD stockpiles as one of the primary justifications for the invasion of Iraq. The British government, in particular, placed very heavy emphasis on this intelligence.

On January 23, 2004, the head of the ISG, David Kay, resigned his position, stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq. "I don't think they existed," commented Kay. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties." Kay criticized the intelligence that led to the war in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), saying "we were all wrong and that is most disturbing." Kay's successor, named by CIA director George Tenet, is the former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer. Duelfer has stated that the chances of finding any WMD stockpiles in Iraq are "close to nil."

Kay told the SASC during his oral report the following, though: "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion-—although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."

Kay's team has established that the Iraqi regime had the production capacity and know-how to produce a great deal more chemical and biological weaponry when international economic sanctions were lifted, a policy change which was actively being sought by many United Nations member states. Kay also believed some components of the former Iraqi regime's WMD program had been moved to Syria shortly before the 2003 invasion [3], though the Duelfer Report Addenda (see below) later reported there was no evidence of this.

On February 6, 2004, Bush convened the Iraq Intelligence Commission, an independent inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the Iraq war and the failure to find WMD. This was shortly followed by the conclusion of a similar inquiry in the United Kingdom, the Butler Review, which was boycotted by the two main opposition parties due to disagreements on its scope and independence [4]. In 2003, The U.S.-sponsored search for WMD had been budgeted for $400 million, with an additional $600 million added in 2004.

In January 2005 the group announced the conclusion of its search. The ISG stated that while it had "not found evidence that Saddam possessed WMD stocks in 2003," they acknowledged "the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq, although not of a militarily significant capability." [5]

On September 30, 2004, the ISG released the Duelfer Report, its final report on Iraq's WMD programs. The main points of the report are as follows:

• Iraq's main goal was to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute WMD production.
• Iraq's WMD programs had decayed significantly since the end of the first Gulf War.
• No senior Iraqi official interviewed by the ISG believed that Saddam had forsaken WMD forever.
• Iraq had no deployable WMD of any kind as of March 2003 and had no production since 1991.
• The ISG judged that in March 2003, Iraq would have had the ability to produce large quantities of Sulfur Mustard in 3-6 months, and large quantities of nerve agent in 2 years.
• There was no proof of any biological weapons stocks since 1991.
• Iraq's nuclear program was terminated in 1991, at which point micrograms of enriched uranium had been produced from a single test gas centrifuge.
• Iraq had intended to restart all banned weapons programs as soon as multilateral sanctions against it had been dropped, a prospect that the Iraqi government saw coming soon.
• Smuggling was used by Iraq to rebuild as much of its WMD program as could be hidden from U.N. weapons inspectors.
• Iraq had an effective system for the procurement of items banned by sanctions.
• Until March 2003, Saddam Hussein convinced his top military commanders that Iraq did indeed possess WMD that could be used against any U.S. invasion force, in order to prevent a coup over the prospects of fighting the U.S.-led Coalition without these weapons.
• Iraq used procurement contracts allowed under the Oil for Food program to buy influence among U.N. Security Council member states including France, China, and Russia, as well as dozens of prominent journalists and anti-sanctions activists.

In March 2005 Duelfer added an addenda to the original report, covering five topics:

• Prewar Movement of WMD Material Out of Iraq, stating "ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place" but also acknowledging that "ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war."
• Iraqi Detainees, concluding "the WMD investigation has gone as far as feasible. ... there is no further purpose in holding many of these detainees".
• Residual Proliferation Risks: People, concluding "former WMD program participants are most likely to seek employment in the benign civil sector, either in Iraq or elsewhere ... However, because a single individual can advance certain WMD activities, it remains an important concern".
• Residual Pre-1991 CBW Stocks in Iraq, concluding "any remaining chemical munitions in Iraq do not pose a militarily significant threat ... ISG has not found evidence to indicate that Iraq did not destroy its BW weapons or bulk agents".
• Residual Proliferation Risk: Equipment and Materials, concluding "Iraq’s remaining chemical and biological physical infrastructure does not pose a proliferation concern".

In media interviews before the addenda were published, officials went further on the important question of the possible smuggling of WMD to Syria, saying they had not seen any information indicating that WMD or significant amounts of components and equipment were transferred from Iraq to neighboring Syria or elsewhere. [6]

Bush's primary rationale for invading Iraq was the allegation that Saddam was actively developing WMD and had stockpiles. The Administration's allegation of cooperation between terrorist groups (like Al Qaeda) would mean that Saddam would be able to transport those weapons to U.S. or European urban centers and detonate them, with significant casualties.

In the 2004 presidential election, one of the main topics of debate surrounded the WMD allegations that Bush made. U.S. Senator John Kerry and Democrats asserted that Bush may have lied or misled the people about WMD, and may have exaggerated the claims, dragging America into a war it cannot win easily. Bush, on his part, had convened the Iraq Intelligence Commission in February 2004 fostering the impression that an independent commission would help to support the notion that his decision-making ability or honesty was not to blame, but rather that faulty intelligence was at play. This view had already been supported by the bipartisan Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq released in July 2004, which had "found no evidence that the intelligence community’s mischaracterization or exaggeration of intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities was the result of politics or pressure." Bush also claimed that Saddam was a threat, regardless of whether he possessed WMD, and that Saddam had the ability to create WMD if the Western World allowed him to do so, justifying, in Bush's opinion, the pre-emptive attack.

The "key finding" about influence peddling is based on over 15,000 documents taken from the former state-owned Iraqi Oil Corporation by associates of Ahmed Chalabi. These documents were examined by Duelfer’s team and their authenticity verified. The Volcker Commission, established by the U.N., is also investigating them.

• Iraq disarmament crisis
• 2003 - 2004 occupation of Iraq timeline
• Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
• Post-invasion Iraq, 2003–2005
• War on Terrorism
• Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly

Main

• "Statement by David Kay on the Interim Progress Report on the Activities of the Iraq Survey Group, before the House permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, The House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommitte on Defence, and the Senate Select Committee on Intellgence". October 2, 2003. (Known informally as the "Kay Report" on Iraq's WMD.)
• "Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD". 30 September 2004. (Known informally as the "Duelfer Report" on Iraq's WMD; Copies are also available at findlaw's site.)
• "Comprehensive Report Addendums of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD". March 2005.

Other

• Description of Al Radwaniyah Presidential Site on GlobalSecurity.org
• News (Reuters): Bush orders independent probe on Iraq intelligence
• News (BBC): UK WMD committee vows to press on
• News (Associated Press): Victims of Explosion Were Members of ISG
• David Kay biography
• Iraq weapons inspector David Kay's congressional testimony Iraq Survey Group Report on WMD in Iraq
• News (War-Wire): Former UN weapons inspector replaces David Kay as Iraq WMD adviser. Washington (AFP).
• News (BBC): In Quotes: What Blair Said About Iraq's Weapons Before and After the War
• News (BBC): October 2004 report
• News (American Broadcasting Company): Bush: Iraq Invasion Worth It Despite Lack of WMD
• News (CBS): No Basis For WMD Smuggling Claims
• SourceWatch
• Secret emails, missing weapons