Inside the Ring

Iraq weapons strategy

The Pentagon adopted a new strategy in its search for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. It is called the “big impact” plan.

The plan calls for gathering and holding on to all the information now being collected about the weapons. Rather than releasing its findings piecemeal, defense officials will release a comprehensive report on the arms, perhaps six months from now.

The goal of the strategy will be to quiet critics of the Bush administration who said claims of Iraq’s hidden weapons stockpiles were exaggerated in order to go to war.

President Bush on Wednesday said “miles of documents” have been gathered and are being analyzed. He described the material as containing “mounds of evidence” on Iraq’s weapons.

In addition to analyzing documents on Iraq’s arms, evidence of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s ties to terrorists is being studied, Mr. Bush said. “And I’m confident the truth will come out,” he said.

David Kay, the special adviser to CIA Director George J. Tenet on Iraq’s weapons said recently that the evidence is there. “I think in six months from now, we’ll have a considerable amount of evidence, and we’ll be starting to reveal that evidence,” Mr. Kay said on NBC July 15. Yesterday, Mr. Kay rebutted a news report that claimed no Iraqi scientists were cooperating with the coalition team hunting for weapons in Iraq. In fact, Mr. Kay said, scientists are talking and are taking his personnel to specific sites.

A Pentagon spokesman had no comment on the Iraq weapons plan.

Abizaid’s adviser

You may know him as H.R. McMaster, author of “Dereliction of Duty,” the book that exposed deceit and double-crosses between President Lyndon B. Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War.

The author’s full title was Army Maj. H.R. McMaster, who wrote the book while acquiring a postgraduate degree in history.

Now a full colonel, Col. McMaster is being used in a new role by Gen. John Abizaid, the chief of U.S. Central Command and the overseer of two critically important military missions: Iraq and Afghanistan.

Col. McMaster is in Baghdad as Gen. Abizaid’s director of what is called the “commander’s action group.” A Pentagon official said part of Col. McMaster’s job is to assess war progress and propose long-range solutions for the post-Saddam Hussein era.

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